News Release

Jennifer Gibson named as new NPS post-wildfire coordinator

Jen Gibson joins the NPS Branch of Wildland Fire as the post-wildfire coordinator.

News Release Date: November 2, 2022

Contact: Tina Boehle, 208-387-5875

Jennifer “Jen” Gibson has been selected as the post-wildfire coordinator for the National Park Service (NPS), replacing Rich Schwab who is now the national program lead for Wildfire Science and Ecology. The NPS Post-Wildfire program assesses threats from severe loss of vegetation and soil erosion. Post-fire recovery is facilitated through the Burned Area Emergency Response, or BAER program.

After obtaining a degree in Biology at UC Santa Barbara, Jen started her career working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s California Condor Recovery Program where she tracked condors throughout the Los Padres backcountry. From there, she moved on to Channel Islands National Park to work on island fox monitoring, peregrine falcon banding, and vegetation monitoring. After Channel Islands, she hopped over to The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) Santa Cruz Island Preserve where she participated in everything from feral pig eradication to bird surveys and rare plant surveys and participated on prescribed fires for many of TNC’s nature preserves. She received her M.S. in Ecology and Conservation Biology at San Jose State University while working on the effects of removing an invasive species on lizards and other herpetofauna on Santa Cruz Island.

Jen became involved with BAER while working at Whiskeytown National Recreation Area in the fire program, and then later became the ecologist and chief of resources and interpretation. She specialized in oak woodland restoration, fire ecology, invasive plant management, metals contamination, orchard and rare plant restoration. She then became the chief of resources and fire at Crater Lake National Park, overseeing the Terrestrial (wildlife and botany), Aquatic (lake and streams), Cultural (collections and compliance), and Wildland Fire Management programs.

She has been an active line-qualified Resource Advisor since 2004, with multiple fire assignments throughout the West and is a qualified Agency Administrator. She brings a diverse background that is rooted in extensive park management experience which includes project management, ecology, science and research, and managing professional staff and budgets. After being personally impacted by the Carr Fire, she has a passion for assisting parks in post-wildfire recovery.