When the US fire management system was conceived in the early 1900s, women’s roles in the workforce were much different than they are now. Yet even today, women constitute a relatively small proportion of the workforce, filling roughly 10 percent of wildland fire positions and only 7 percent of leadership roles. In recent years, there has been an increased effort to recruit women into fire, yet social and cultural challenges remain. New recruits often find the dominant fire management system to be dismissive of female perspectives and strengths, even as its increasing complexity requires fresh approaches and insights. We believe that the groups who are generally under-represented in fire, including women, have unique talents and perspectives and that they can play a critical role in advancing fire problem solving.

During the Women-in-Fire Prescribed Fire Training Exchange (WTREX), we invite participants of all genders and ethnic and racial backgrounds to explore the growing role of women in fire management, while conducting prescribed fire operations designed to advance their formal qualifications in wildland fire management and enhance their understanding of fire ecology and effects, communications and outreach, prescribed fire policy and planning, and more.