Training Opportunities

Washington Prescribed Fire Practitioners Database

Sign up for our database of prescribed fire practitioners. We will keep you posted of training and burning opportunities through TREX and other training and learning opportunities.

Prescribed Fire Training Exchanges (TREX)

The Selkirk TREX and Columbia Gorge TREX are both being hosted by partners in Washington this fall. More information below.

Learn about and apply to other TREXs across the country here.

Selkirk TREX

Sept. 30 - Oct. 11, 2024 / Northeast, WA

Learn and burn with us through field trips, guest speakers, and live fire training. Learn about fire ecology, fire behaviour, prescribed fire operations, burn planning, fire effects monitoring, and more. More information and application opening May 1.

Questions? Email kara@washingtonrcd.org

  A History of TREX in Washington

Prescribed Fire Training Exchanges

Prescribed Fire Training Exchanges (TREX) are training programs in Washington - and across the country - that facilitate peer -to-peer learning for those interested in advancing their understanding of prescribed fire and fire-adapted landscapes. Participants learn, practice, and share knowledge, skills and experience in a hands-on training environment.

Each participant serves a trainee and trainer in qualified firefighting positions on a burn team throughout the event. We train with equipment, practice fireline leadership, learn about local fire ecology, fire management, and landscape restoration projects through field exercises, workshops, presentations, field trips, and yes, prescribed burning.

These trainings are hosted by federal, state, local, and tribal agencies, non-profits, and private organizations.

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Prescribed Fire Training Exchanges are supported by Promoting Ecosystem Resilience and Fire Adapted Communities Together (PERFACT), a cooperative agreement between the U.S. Forest Service, Department of the Interior agencies—Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service—and The Nature Conservancy. PERFACT also supports the Fire Learning Network, Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network and the Indigenous Peoples Burning Network. TREX events both draw upon and support the efforts of these strategies to help communities and landscapes across the country become more resilient to wildfire and related challenges.

2022 Northeast Washington TREX

Loon Lake, WA

The 2022 Northeast Washington TREX was the first two-week TREX in northeast Washington since 2019, building off the successful Northeast Washington On-Call TREX in the spring of 2021. This training was successful at improving the experience, knowledge, and qualifications of participants and helped set the groundwork for future successful TREX events in the area. In addition to taskbook training assignment, increasing the knowledge and skills of prescribed fire practitioners, this training engaged with private landowners to support their land management goals through burn planning and implementation. These private land burns are great training ground, and also serve to complete priority acres in the WUI.

2021 Fall Cascadia TREX

Roslyn, WA

This fall Cascadia TREX continued to use the “on-call” model of TREX where the training is planned and organized over the entire burn window. This TREX hosted our largest number of participants, with over 70 participants from 20 different agencies and organizations. Fire practitioners were able to work on their fire qualifications and build their skills with 17 position taskbook training opportunities including Burn Boss, Firing Boss, Engine Boss, Fire Effects Monitor, and Squad Boss. In addition to live fire training, an Ingitions Workshop was also hosted with Heather Heward from University of Idaho.

Over nine operational days, the TREX team burned 137 acres of understory burning in the Roslyn Urban Forest and the ridge above town in the Central Cascades Forest and over 700 piles in the Taneum Watershed on the other side of the valley.

TREX partners also hosted U.S. Congresswoman Kim Schrier to see first hand the wildfire risk reduction work being conducted around Roslyn and gain first hand insight into a prescribed burn.

 2021 Spring Northeast Washington TREX

Originally planned to be held in the spring of 2020, this TREX was postponed until the spring of 2021. Instead of hosting participants in a central camp, training burns were coordinated over the entire spring burn season. When burn units were ready, TREX participants were notified and those that were able to participate on any given burn came out to assist federal and tribal partners in Northeast Washington. Training burns were hosted by the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Kalispel Tribe.

TREX supported 25 trainees to assist on 246 acres, 12 of them receiving position taskbook training assignments. The majority of TREX participants were from volunteer fire departments in Stevens, Lincoln, and Kittitas Counties, as well as with the Washington Department of Natural Resources.

The TREX team also started working with private landowners in Stevens County to begin developing burn plans for their properties, to bring back the use of fire on these lands and to provide further future training opportunities.

 2020 Fall Cascadia TREX

Roslyn, WA

The 2020 Cascadia TREX was a little different from years past. Due to COVID-19, significant changes were made to the way TREX has been run in the past to limit exposure of participants and the local communities, and to follow state and local guidelines and policies. The 2020 Cascadia TREX focused on providing prescribed fire training opportunities for local fire departments and integrating local leadership into TREX to develop the capacity, expertise, interest, and ownership for long-term, locally lead burning.

Ultimately, 31 participants supported a 22-acre cross-boundary burn unit on the Roslyn Urban Forest within the City of Roslyn and on adjacent private lands. The burn was primarily planned, coordinate,d and lead by local fire department personnel, many of them volunteers.

 2019 Fall Cascadia TREX

September 29 - October 11, 2019, Cle Elum, WA

The fourth Cascadia TREX was held in the fall of 2019. A wet and cold fall created difficult conditions for getting burning done, but the TREX team was able to find opportunities and support burns with a diverse set of partners across Washington, including with the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, Center for Natural Lands Management, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, US Fish & Wildlife Service, and on private lands.

 2019 Spring Cascadia TREX

April 28 - May 10, 2019, Cle Elum, WA

This spring marked the third Cascadia TREX and the first time we held the event in the spring. Once again based out of Cle Elum, WA the crew supported the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife and the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest on the Cle Elum Ranger District.

2018 Cascadia TREX

September 23 - October 5, 2018, Cle Elum, WA

The second Cascadia TREX was based out of Cle Elum, WA. A hot and dry fall with multiple wildfires across the state meant the TREX crew went to the west side of the mountains to burn on Joint Base Lewis-McChord. The crew burned 142 acres of native, fire-adapted prairies. Back on the east side of the mountains, the TREX crew, along with local fire partners, burned 41 acres of forest on private lands adjacent to the Roslyn Urban Forest.

 2017 Cascadia TREX

September 24 - October 6, 2017, Plain, WA

The Washington Prescribed Fire Council started talking about bringing the TREX program to Washington in 2015 as a way to meet the Council’s goals of increasing the state’s training opportunities and to increase the expertise and capacity of the state to implement fire as a tool. The first TREX in Washington was developed as a collaboration between the Washington Prescribed Fire Council, Chumstick Wildfire Stewardship Coalition, Wenatchee River Ranger District, and The Nature Conservancy. The TREX team burned 419 acres on lands managed by the Forest Service, National Park Service, The Nature Conservancy, and on private lands near Roslyn, WA.