Materials and Methods

Four prescribed burns and a controlled burn were carried out between November 2016 and April 2017, to document the institutional response in the north, center and south of Mexico. An active wildfire was also considered. The burning units were selected in terms of their distribution (Table 1, Figure 1), and the plans for the execution of the burns by various institutions, as well as the facilities provided by the land owners to conduct them.

Figure 1.Location of the sites of the prescribed and controlled burns and of a forest fire in Mexico, 2016-2017. Ejido Sacxán, in Quintana Roo, was the site of the forest wildfire, while prescribed and controlled burns took place in the rest of the sites. 

Five state management offices of the Comisión Nacional Forestal, Conafor (National Forestry Commission), Instituto de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas y Sustentabilidad, IIES-UNAM (the Institute for Research on Ecosystems and Sustainability), Centro Universitario de la Costa Sur de la Universidad de Guadalajara (DERN-IMECBIO, U. de G.) (the Departament of Ecology and Natural Resources of the South Coast University Center of the University of Guadalajara, Pronatura Península de Yucatán A.C., Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas, Conanp (the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas), as well as local communities and ejidos participated. These institutions belong to government agencies, organizations of the civil society, the academy, and the social sector (ejidos and communities), whose representatives own the plots where the burns took place (Table 2).

The planning and execution of the burns was based on the Incident Command System (ICS), in which an Incident Action Plan (IAP) was created for each burn, based on the guidelines of the National Forestry Commission (Conafor) in Mexico. Before each burn, participating institutions met to plan each burn and to assign the activities and responsibilities as established in each Incident Action Plan (Table 2). Fire behavior was monitored during the execution of each burn (Table 2). Once field work was finished, the participants met in order to identify the failures and successes of the burns. In the case of the monitored fire, the behavior of the fire and the institutional coordination of the brigades that participated in its control and termination were also described.

Results and Discussion

The objectives differed between burns (Table 2). In four of the prescribed burns, emphasis was made on the need to use them to train the local firefighting brigades. In the state of Sonora, members of the state brigades of Conafor and Conanp received training. The same was true in Michoacán; in addition, collaboration with members of the brigades of Conafor-Michoacán, of the Forest Commission of the State of Michoacán (Cofom) and of the municipality of Morelia was promoted. In Jalisco, training was provided to the brigade of ejido Ahuacapán, and in Yucatán, to a communal-land brigade coordinated by Pronatura A.C. This common interest in training the staff of brigades in prescribed and controlled fires reflects the need to generate more practical experience in this type of fire management activities.

The coordination of federal delegations of Conafor with agents of both state and municipal governments, as well as with local authorities (ejidos and communities), varied between the various sites. It is usually believed that only federal institutions have the technical capacity to plan fire management (^{Gutiérrez-Navarro et al., 2017}). However, the execution of burns with a strong component of empirical knowledge by members of both governmental and non-governmental institutions of different levels, farmers and fire users has been documented (^{Rodríguez-Trejo et al., 2011}; ^{Martínez-Torres et al., 2016}; ^{Gutiérrez-Navarro et al., 2017}). For this reason, if burns are used for training purposes, their development will vary in terms of the participants involved and their knowledge of the territory. Clearly, it is desirable to gain from the local expertise in the development of burns when local inhabitants are willing to become involved in these practices.

The case of Jalisco was singular: a communal-land brigade, with the support of the academia (DERN-IMECBIO, U. of G.), carried out a burn for very concrete purposes associated to timber extraction; although, by request of a federal entity (Conanp), the plan for the burn was developed by Conafor-Jalisco (Table 2). The participation of a local brigade allowed the integration of the local empirical knowledge in the execution of the burn. It is equally important to bear in mind that the participating academic institution has a history of several years of research on fire ecology issues in the region, and of establishing bonds with the local communities. This example is very relevant, as it brings to light the development of a relationship of mutual trust, which has been identified in social researches as an obstacle in the collaboration between governmental entities and the population (^{McCaffrey et al., 2012}).

In this regard, the academic institutions play a significant role in establishing bonds with the communities and ejidos where they carry out their research (^{Rodríguez-Trejo et al., 2011}).

The burn in the state of Yucatán was promoted and organized by Pronatura Península de Yucatán, A.C., in coordination with ejido Nuevo León, Yucatán. Although Conafor-Yucatán was in charge of generating the burn plan and of managing the incident with the participation of the members of the ejido and of an organization of the civil society, it previously incorporated the empirical knowledge of the inhabitants of the site. Given the knowledge of the behavior of the fire by the local communities, it is desirable to repeat this type of experiences elsewhere.

In other countries, work with the communities and organizations of the civil society has been vigorously promoted in the past few years, primarily in order to create strategies for adaptation to fire by the communities (^{Toman et al., 2006}; ^{McCaffrey et al., 2012}). In Mexico, there are still few examples of the relationships between communities and civil organizations for fire management. Probably the most important is the Fire Management Apprenticeship Community (CAMAFU), promoted by the Mexican Fund for the Conservation of Nature (^{Rodríguez-Trejo et al., 2011}). However, further promotion of this type of institutional relationships is required.

The extension and the vegetation types affected in each burn varied according to the type of ecosystem, land tenure, and the facilities provided by the land- owners and the technical abilities of the participating institutions (Table 1). The burns in the state of Sonora were the most extensive, followed by those carried out in Jalisco. In Michoacán and Yucatán they took place on small surfaces, given the objectives of these burns, but also because the land tenure prevented more extensive burns.

The issue of land tenure is particularly important in Mexico (^{Warman, 2001}); it has been singled out as a key factor in the occurrence of forest fires and in the organization of communities for fire management (^{Heyerdahl and Alvarado, 2003}; ^{Sheridan et al., 2015}). Because forest wildfires do not respect property boundaries, and because their management must be incorporated to the management of socio-ecosystems and territories, the institutional coordination should allow the execution of prescribed and controlled burns in larger areas and thereby enable a better control of the fuels.

The wildfire that took place in Quintana Roo covered a much larger surface area than the prescribed and controlled burns (Table 1). It was fought by the brigades of the Conafor-Quintana Roo delegation, with the support of community and army brigades.

IIES-UNAM was invited to characterize fuel beds both in unaffected sites and in those places where the fire had already been put out. This experience proved that the exercise of carrying out prescribed and controlled burns can facilitate interinstitutional communication for addressing fires. Furthermore, it evidenced the importance of burns as a means to prevent forest wildfires.

Low and medium deciduous forests, where the fire occurred, have been pointed out as ecosystems that are sensitive to fire (^{Semarnat, 2009}). For this reason, it would be very helpful to increase understanding of fire on these ecosystems, which would involve follow up studies on the site.

A strategy to be considered in this regard is, precisely, that of profiting from active forest fires to characterize the behavior of fire and the unburned adjacent places in order to quantify the fuel beds; this requires providing firefighting brigades with a special training and special equipment for measuring fuels. Another action would be to train special brigades for the exclusive task of measuring the fuels and the parameters associated with the behavior during the fire season in a given region.

The logistic coordination in sites where the participation of the various state delegations of Conafor was relevant, as the burn plan had to be developed, the use of vehicles and equipment had to be coordinated, and all the participants had to be assigned tasks. Collaboration in prescribed and controlled burns generates interinstitutional contacts that will facilitate the coordination in the face of forest wildfires. However, it also catalyzes the development of future prescribed and controlled burns. This synergy between institutions may help overcome one of the main drawbacks of prescribed and controlled burns: their high economic cost. The cost of suppressing and fighting wildfires has been proven to be much higher in the long run than the cost of their prevention (^{Penman et al., 2016}). In Mexico, the lack of research on this matter makes it impossible to assess the costs of prescribed and controlled burns compared to that of forest wildfires.

A common objective of all burns was to reduce the fuel load, which was successfully accomplished. However, the proportion of fuels consumed varied between burns, according to the type of vegetation and the type of burn. Nevertheless, it is important to highlight that not all ecosystems require frequent low-intensity fires, and therefore, the development of prescribed and controlled burns should not be oversimplified and proposed for all ecosystems in Mexico (^{Jardel-Peláez et al., 2014}). Furthermore, the perception of the management of fuels by communities and by landowners through burns should be included (^{Toman et al., 2006}).

In all prescribed and controlled burns, situations that notably favored interinstitutional collaboration were detected. The first was the willingness to profit from the empirical knowledge of local inhabitants and brigade members during the execution of the burns. The second factor was the resolution of the various institutions to carry out the exercise jointly and assume their responsibility to follow the burn plan.

The participation of the academic sector was constant in all the burns and during the forest fire. Given the need to consolidate the research on fire management across the country, it will be very helpful to obtain the largest possible amount of knowledge. Although this task entails a challenge in terms of institutional collaboration, this connection offers the opportunity to bring the academic sector closer to the land- owners and to those who manage fires on forest land (^{Rodríguez-Trejo, 2015}). For this purpose, we propose the promotion of a strategy to systematize the information generated in the various exercises of this kind that are carried out in the country. The collected information must include not only the quantitative characteristics of forest fuel beds and of the behavior of the fire but also aspects of the participation by institutions and by all the stakeholders.

Finally, it should be noted that in Mexico, like elsewhere, it will soon be necessary to promote institutional collaboration in peri-urban areas, where firefighting will require the collaboration of fire brigades and civil protection officers. While the former are trained to fight forest fires, the latter usually receive training in fighting urban fires. Institutional coordination in these events will be essential to put out the fires and ensure the physical integrity of those who fight them.

Conclusions

In each site, prescribed and controlled burns were carried out with the participation of various institutions. This reflects the institutional heterogeneity existing in Mexico, which in turn is a reflection of the particular characteristics of each region. If we add to this the diversity of ecosystems, it is clear that prescribed and controlled burnings must be executed within a flexible framework that will take into account the particularities of each locality and will avoid institutional homogeneization.