WILLIAMS — The Kaibab National Forest is announcing the release of an informational video explaining the importance of wildland fire in the ecosystems of northern Arizona from the perspectives of various natural and cultural resource specialists.

Over the last decade, the Kaibab has managed both wildfire and prescribed fire to treat approximately 300,000 acres for a variety of objectives. That work wouldn’t have been possible without employees from all program areas actively engaging in the management of fire across the landscape, according to Kaibab fire staff officer Art Gonzales. Because of those ongoing efforts, Gonzales thought it important to highlight a part of the wildland fire world that most people never get to see.

“Typically, most fire videos provide a fire management officer, fuels specialist or fire ecologist perspective on why we believe fire across the landscape is essential for a number of reasons,” Gonzales said. “I wanted to take this video in a new direction, a direction in which those folks who are often the critical link in a successful program do not remain behind the scenes or go unnoticed. I was looking for a video about fire but from a non-fire perspective.”

To that end, Gonzales teamed with the Southwest Fire Science Consortium and producer Josh McDaniel to create a 10-minute video entitled “Keeping Fire on the Ground: Resource Specialist Perspectives on the Kaibab National Forest,” which can be viewed at https://youtu.be/IpFWb5NDyPI.

“I am hopeful this is a product that can be used to help educate, raise awareness, and highlight the collective efforts necessary to build a successful wildland fire management program,” Gonzales said. “On the Kaibab, we have been fortunate to have past and present employees at all levels of the organization who truly understand fire and who have helped build an extensive history of using wildland fire to achieve benefits to many resource areas across the forest, from protection of the wildland urban interface to ecosystem restoration to cultural and heritage site preservation and more. It is critical that this important work continue, and I hope the video will help spread the word about our efforts.”