From Canadian wildfires to California evacuations, fire has devastating effects on environments and wildlife. Alisha Abel is a tree and plant health specialist at the Madison location of SavATree — a nationwide tree, shrub and lawn care company that provides tree and plant health care services for residential, commercial and municipal properties. According to Abel, burns, when conducted in a controlled environment, can serve as an essential mode of landscape restoration. Last year Abel got their National Wildfire Coordinating Group certification, permitting them to conduct wildland firefighting. In our conversation they explain how they got certified, and how you can, too.  

This conversation was edited for clarity and brevity. 

Abel patrols the border of a controlled burn, ready to extinguish escaping flames. Photo courtesy of Alisha Abel.

I feel like we’re always hearing about how bad wildfires are, but that doesn’t always seem to be the case for your line of work. Why would you want to start a wildfire?

I think that we should steer away from the term wildfire because a wildfire is something that’s not controlled, and that started on accident or under other circumstances. We want to do controlled burns and prescribed burns in order to help reshape that landscape or try to maintain what’s there from the native vegetation. In a prairie ecosystem, you can do burns to weed out non-native plants and then also create ecosystems for bioresistant species. Once you take out everything that’s invasive, it gives room for the native grasses that, in turn, will help wildlife like pollinators and other animals find habitat. So it can either reshape or maintain a landscape for certain purposes.

Did you complete this as a UW–Madison course?

Yes, I was glad that I did mine at UW–Madison because it forced me to actually go out and get the experience. One of our requirements was that we had to go participate in three burns outside of the classroom. I was able to see burns in a woodland area, I was able to see it in two different types of prairies, and even a wetland. It just showed me a lot more than I thought it would. It took me eight weeks to get my certification, and then I spent the last eight weeks of the semester doing burns.

So this [National Wildfire Coordinating Group Fire certification] is just one of the certifications you have?

Mine was five mini-certifications to get the big one. I did four computer trainings, and those gave me online certificates. And then I had to do a physical fitness test. I also had to do a field day course. The physical test is to make sure I’m physically capable of doing the burns, and then the field day work is to make sure that I know or I can learn how and when to use these tools. And then once somebody sees that I can do that, I get the fifth certification that allows me to go do it for other people. Once you complete all of that, then you’re able to go do burns with different organizations.

So could anyone get this certification, or did they have to have a background? 

Anybody.

But why would an average person get it? Is there any reason if it wouldn’t come up in your line of work? 

Because there’s more volunteer opportunities to do it than there are paid opportunities to do it. There are always organizations looking for volunteers to help. If you like doing work outside and doing restoration, it’s just cool. You don’t have to have a background, and you don’t have to really know the science behind what you’re doing. 

What are some other ways to get your certification? 

In the Madison area, Madison College just started offering one, and UW–Stevens Point has one. You just have to look on their websites and you should be able to enroll in it, like you’re enrolling in a class. If you’re going to go work for the Wisconsin State Park System or the Department of Natural Resources, if you don’t already have it, they’ll help you get it. 

What was the demographic of people in your class? Was it male-dominated? 

The male-to-female ratio was actually pretty well-balanced, I would say, so it was good to see that. But in a lot of my jobs, though, since being done with college, it’s all men. So I’m glad that in the university more people are going to do it, so then in the next few years the workforce has that diversity, too. 

What is your advice to someone who is interested in getting certified? 

My advice would be that if you’re just thinking about it, you should just do it. And if you hate it, at least you know. But it’s a really cool experience that I think not many people get the opportunity to do, because to be able to actually do it you have to jump through a lot of hoops. But once you’re there, it’s incredible.