{"id":549,"date":"2022-11-30T18:41:55","date_gmt":"2022-11-30T18:41:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/icw\/?page_id=549"},"modified":"2025-11-18T23:30:52","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T23:30:52","slug":"west-on-fire","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/icw\/west-on-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"The West on Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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\n ICW Fire Initiative\n <\/h2>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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The American West is on fire. ICW turns its attention to the calamity of western wildfire with a multi-year research, teaching, and outreach project. Thanks to generous funding from USC Dornsife, the Institute launched \u201cThe West on Fire\u201d initiative in 2020. Our goal is to place western wildfire in historical context, to learn from dozens of disciplinary and other sets of fire knowledge, and to broaden public awareness of the region\u2019s relationship with fire in the past, present, and future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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The project proceeds with a set of work-in-progress goals. Our working group draws from a diverse collection of fire experts across multiple disciplines. Ecologists, Indigenous fire practitioners, US Forest Service personnel, earth scientists, economists, political scientists, journalists, archivists, curators (and others) have come together to share expertise and help us work on a set of inked objectives. These include hosting one-year postdoctoral research fellow working on any disciplinary aspect of western American fire; a new course syllabi call on western fire at USC (freshmen, undergraduate, and doctoral courses); three regional case studies of western fire across epochal timescales; focused work and training with Indigenous fire and prescribed burn experts; collected data and research findings pertaining to the deleterious public health threats of wildfire smoke; an oral history initiative drawing diverse \u201cfire voices\u201d from western settings; a broad public conference (\u201cThe West on Fire\u201d); and a collected essay volume of original fire research.<\/p>\n

Throughout the project\u2019s duration, our aim is to broaden the discussion of western fire, deepen the public\u2019s contextual knowledge of fire history, and work towards new ways of thinking about fire in the region and in our neighborhoods. Below are links to our digital programming as well as news updates.<\/p>\n

The moment has never been more timely nor urgent.<\/p>\n

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\n New & Noteworthy\n <\/h2>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n
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