NASF President and Maryland State Forester Steven W. Koehn joined U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar yesterday for a Washington, DC, briefing on the 2010 fire season. Koehn emphasized that it is always wildfire season somewhere in the United States, and that state forestry agencies are the first line of defense in responding to wildfire. In 2009, more than 77,000 wildfires occurred on the nation’s forests – 80% of which occurred on state and private forest land.
