The United States Forest Service (USFS), through its Natural Infrastructure for Caribbean Resilience (NICaR) programme, concluded a week-long training series to strengthen regional capacity for wildland (bush) fire management with 35 firefighters from 14 Caribbean countries.

With funding from the Department of State, a comprehensive series of wildland fire training courses were delivered through the programme’s NICaR Wildland Fire Management Academy at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona campus from June 19-24.

The NICaR Wildland Fire Academy, the first of its kind in the region, has been implemented in response to the need for greater collaboration around fire prevention and management especially for wildland fires.

This is particularly important in the context of climate change which results in more frequent and intense fire weather conditions and increased risk for wildfires. The acquired knowledge and skills will contribute to the region’s overall resilience against the increasing challenges posed by wildfires.

The academy featured interactive workshops, practical field exercises, and simulations covering topics such as wildland environment components, human performance concepts, fireline construction and tools as well as communication methods.

The 14 participating countries included Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Trinidad & Tobago and The Bahamas.

Julian Davis Buckle, deputy commissioner of the Jamaica Fire Brigade, said the programme has fostered a spirit of unity and cooperation within the region. 

“By joining forces and sharing knowledge, expertise and resources, we will be able to create a robust network of support empowering each other to address fire-related issues. We will create a repository of knowledge that can be used to mitigate the risk associated with wildland fires. This will aid each of us in the development of comprehensive strategies that will be concerned with the unique ecological and environmental factors within each of our regions,” mused Buckle.

Nicole Weber, acting deputy chief of mission from the US Embassy in Kingston, expressed continued support for the initiative while commending the network the academy has established.

“We definitely want to continue to support these regional initiatives. I think that we should all continue to work together. I know that we will look at every opportunity to support these collaborative initiatives because as everyone has now mentioned, climate change is here to stay unfortunately, and we are going to be facing increasing challenges with dealing with wildland fire management and we need to all work together for the future of all of us and our children,” she said.

 A crucial component of the academy is the Train the Trainer programme, an initiative which aims to build the scope and the capacity of a core staff of wildland fire trainers.  This is part of NICaR’s successional training approach to support a cohort of effective leaders and incident commanders to assist the communities, agencies and organisations responding to multiple fire disasters and complex situations across the Caribbean.

A major outcome of the training is the establishment of a Caribbean Wildland Fire Group that will contribute to standardising approaches to wildland fire prevention and management and building capacity to improve the region’s overall adaptation to climate change.