Women in Fire Science: Alicia Schlarb

My name is Alicia Schlarb, and I am the lead fire effects monitor for the Mississippi River Zone fire management group for the National Park Service in Interior Region 2 (Southeast). Our group is based out of the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi, but we provide prescribed burning, monitoring, and wildland fire responses to national parks located within Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and portions of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Florida.

From a young age I have had a passion for science, and desire to continually ask questions about my surrounding environments. I decided to pursue science related to wildland fire management as a career simply because I love fire. I have always been a pyro at heart and love to observe the changes that fire creates throughout the landscape. Reintroducing prescribed fire to landscapes is an important aspect to restoring environments and maintaining healthy native habitats.

Every day is a different day in this job and no two fires are the same. To be involved with land management decisions, the prescribed burning, and researching the effects of fire on the landscape is an amazing process to be a part of from start to finish.

While this job has many challenges ranging from physical to mental, one of the largest challenges I have encountered is changing the perception of fire. Generally, the public associates fire as being negative. I thoroughly enjoy educating individuals on the positive benefits that fire has and can have. I get excited and love showing people certain plants that thrive with fire or showing the changes that controlled fire can have when it is reintroduced to certain habitats. Most people do not understand the science behind fire and the environment, and I love being a person that can connect that gap! I am a person that loves challenges and changing the perception of fire through science has been one of the most fulfilling tasks thus far in this position.