Wildfire Prevention Starts with Wildfire Recovery

American Forests is home to some of the country’s leading experts in post-wildfire management and climate-adapted recovery. They provide on-the-ground expertise to help recover burned area landscapes, analyze wildfire data and outcomes, and contribute to the latest wildfire research in tandem with both private and public partnerships.

Contact media@americanforests.org to inquire about specific landscapes or subject areas, and we’ll match you with the appropriate expert.

Britta Dyer
Vice President, Resilient Forests

Areas of expertise:

  • Post-wildfire reforestation
  • Climate-smart restoration and reforestation
  • Reforestation pipeline
  • Cone/seed collection
  • Hawaii
  • California

Brian Kittler
Resilient Forests Lead

Areas of expertise:

  • Large landscape forest restoration
  • Controlled burns
  • Conservation finance
  • Policy
  • Shared stewardship
  • Climate-smart restoration and reforestation

Elizabeth Pansing, Ph.D.
Director, Forest and Restoration Science

Areas of expertise:

  • Climate-smart restoration and reforestation
  • Post-wildfire reforestation
  • Cone/seed collection
  • Western U.S.

Justine Reynolds
Senior Manager, California

Areas of expertise:

  • Large landscape forest restoration
  • Climate-smart restoration and reforestation
  • California

Jad Daley
President and Chief Executive Officer

Areas of expertise:

  • Climate-smart reforestation and restoration
  • Federal policy
  • Nursery capacity
  • Carbon
  • Climate change

We urgently need to equip the public with the right information about how wildfires happen, the importance of recovery and climate-adapted reforestation, and the differences between healthy wildfire management and preventable disasters.

Across the U.S., catastrophic wildfires are increasing in frequency, severity and range due to climate change, inadequate forest management and other causes. Although not all wildfires are bad, the cataclysmic wildfires of recent years are burning hotter, longer and in ranges previously protected, preventing natural regeneration of forests, costing billions of dollars in destruction, and claiming lives. After decades of suppressing controlled burns and underinvestment in agencies tasked with wildfire management, these events were not unforeseen, accidental or unpreventable. The threat to forest ecosystems and neighboring communities has never been more dire, but we know that preventing the next wildfire begins with how we recover from the last one.