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Like all successful teams, the Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) team on the Sourdough Fire benefitted from strong leadership. Jack and Cedar formed a dynamic duo to support each other during this short but intense assignment. Jack stepped in to lead the team and Cedar served as the team’s deputy lead and document specialist. BAER leadership combines their shared passions for protecting natural and cultural resources with post-fire mitigation actions to protect those resources after the fire event has passed.

A whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) stand is a magical place. Perched on high ridges and rocky talus slopes, these trees act as lookouts for the rest of the ecosystem, their trunks stretching toward the sky. The smell of sun-warmed pine needles, the call of Clark's nutcrackers claiming their territories, and the subtle glow of blooming mountain flowers invoke a sense of wildness on a summer day.

The Sourdough Fire is burning on the western slope of the North Cascades mountains, which is known for high levels of annual rainfall, dense evergreen forests, high biodiversity, and rugged backcountry. Visitors will see old-growth trees like western hemlock and red cedar, which create a multi-layered canopy that intercepts water during heavy rain events. The tiny, needle-like leaves of these lush trees create thick layers of organic material, or duff, that cover the soil below them as they drop from their branches.

Janet is a Supervisory Botanist, but she identifies as a vegetation ecologist. While true botanists focus their work on individual species; her interest lies in how species interact with the landscape and how communities of plants respond to environmental stressors.

Wildfire response does not end when the incident reaches full containment. A Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) team is deployed after a wildfire to assess the fire impacts on natural resources, cultural resources, and infrastructure and to assess potential safety hazards to humans and property.