Preventing Fire Together: Collaboration Across the Adirondacks
Working Side by Side for Resilient Communities
In June 2023, Bayard D. Clarkson Distinguished Professor Suresh Dhaniyala sat at his desk at Clarkson University in Potsdam and watched monitors on campus register fine particulate matter from Quebec wildfires. Levels rose from less than ten micrograms per cubic meter to around 150 micrograms—a level comparable to polluted megacities. At Clarkson, a private research university known for engineering, environmental science, and entrepreneurship, Dhaniyala and his students developed low‑cost air quality sensors and mobile monitoring units to analyze smoke plumes. Their data helped local schools decide whether to hold recess indoors and guided community members who worried about air quality. “I do expect that we will have more days like these,” he told North Country Public Radio.
Caption: Smoke from Canadian Wildfires blanketing Potsdam, NY in June 2023.
In May 2025, Professor and Associate Director of Clarkson’s Honors Program Stephen Casper texted Professor Gwen Kay, director of SUNY Oswego’s Honors Program. “There’s a very interesting grant through NSF on ‘Fire and Infrastructure.’” Kay responded, “Sounds intriguing. And maybe ESF might also be helpful.”
From that first text, a sprawling networking campaign flowed from inbox to inbox that eventually yielded a National Science Foundation proposal from Clarkson University, with letters of support from many partners. “Did you know there’s a wildfire conference at the Wild Center,” emailed Susan Powers, Jean '79 & Robert '79 Spence Professorship in Sustainable Environmental Systems and Director of Clarkson’s Institute for a Sustainable Environment. “Power engineering matters out West,” wrote Professor Leo Jiang,
“we should think about that.” “Some folks are turning to drones as powerful new tools in wildfire research,” wrote Professor Nick Tepylo.
Tepylo was a driving force behind the proposal. He joined Clarkson in 2024 after postdoctoral fellowships at École de technologie supérieure in Montreal and at Carleton University in Ottawa, where he focused on cutting-edge uses of drones and their impact on society. A licensed pilot himself with both glider and private pilot certificates, Tepylo has always been committed to aviation. Now, at Clarkson, he was building a research program that looks at how drones can help society—from monitoring air quality to scouting forest fire risks—and how aviation can meet the challenges of the future.
The team began writing the proposal.
A Region Awakening to Wildfire Resilience
The Adirondack Park sprawls across six million acres in northern New York. Its mountains, wetlands, and forests are home to small villages, local businesses, universities, and tourism attractions. The region’s cool climate and abundant water have long given residents a sense of safety from wildfires. Major fires here are rare, and state protections such as the “Forever Wild” provisions of Article 14 of the New York State Constitution limit development and logging. However, the summers of 2023 and 2024 brought thick smoke from extensive wildfires across Canada. Air quality advisories stretched across the Adirondacks, and officials warned that children, older adults, and people with health problems should limit outdoor activity. In August 2025, another advisory covered the entire northern New York State, with health officials urging hikers to turn back if they began coughing and to drink plenty of water when smoke and heat combined.
In August 2025, while 412 active wildfires were burning across the United States, St. Lawrence County declared a state of emergency after 13 field fires burned over a few days. A year before, a brush fire near Potsdam in October required about 35 firefighters, several utility vehicles, and almost 1,800 gallons of water to contain five acres of burning brush. No one was injured, but the incident reminded local leaders that even small fires demand major resources.
Dense forest fuels, long stretches of dry weather, and human sparks—whether from campfires, brush burning, or equipment—can still set the stage for dangerous wildfires in the Adirondacks. According to an August 2025 issue of Adirondack Life, historical research shows that severe droughts, logging slash, and locomotive sparks helped fuel the great fires of 1903 and 1908, which burned hundreds of thousands of acres. Modern forestry practices have reduced many of those old risks, yet climate change is altering the equation. Longer droughts, warmer temperatures, and more frequent lightning are now increasing the odds that even the region’s humid forests could burn when conditions align.
Fostering Positive-Sum Resilience in Academic Partnerships
The Clarkson University team’s mission was potentially way too broad: monitor air quality, think about water quality, and develop technologies to support prevention and response. While it was clear that they wanted to help, Clarkson didn’t really have direct fire expertise. Clarkson’s Office of Research had a different view. “Hey, we have partners on water at SUNY ESF,” texted the University’s external partnership lead, Kelly Chezum, who promptly came up with a list of more partners in the region for collaborations. When the team realized that they needed a deeper understanding of forest ecology and prescribed fire, they reached out to the Applied Forest and Fire Ecology Lab (AFFEL) at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF) in Syracuse and Paul Smith's College, whose forestry experts were listed on the Wild Center’s upcoming conference.
SUNY ESF’s AFFEL is led by Professor Andrew Vander Yacht. Vander Yacht had been in Tennessee looking at how wildfires influence reactive nitrogen release from soils—a project that he was then focusing on. More broadly, his lab aimed to understand how disturbances such as fire shape forest structure, composition, and function, and to integrate this knowledge into management strategies. His lab’s projects range from studying interactions between fire and tick‑borne diseases to restoring fire-adapted American chestnut trees.
Vander Yacht himself has spent 15 years using fire to restore biodiversity and to build forest resilience. In a letter describing a new collaboration, he wrote that widespread fire suppression has eliminated the very components of biodiversity—fire, drought, and heat-tolerant trees—that could be keys to resilience. He underscored the need to consider community resilience in the Adirondacks and to remove barriers to strategic fire ignitions. Vander Yacht wasn’t just onboard – he was very enthusiastic about the intellectual directions developing in the group emails.
Caption: Professor Vande Yacht’s team practicing on controlled burns in 2024.
As he and the Clarkson team communicated, the Clarkson group began realizing that there were other ways to think about the Adirondack region, too. What, for example, was happening on the edges of the Adirondack Park? Part of the prevention efforts meant handling ignition sources. That could also mean managing areas immediately surrounding the Forever Wild protected areas. That would create resilience while also bolstering the incredibly powerful and popular goals that lovers of the Park fought for each year. The Forever Wild ideals are more than policy—they carry deep emotional meaning for community stakeholders who value the Park’s protection. No one knew that better than leaders and faculty at Paul Smith's College, located within the center of the Adirondack Park and renowned for its forestry and natural resource programs. Since the late 1940s, the college has trained forest managers and wildland firefighters.
Caption: Students at Paul Smith’s College have historically always been at the center of the Adirondack’s ecology.
Today, students at Paul Smith’s can pursue experience in wildland firefighting that includes earning the National Wildfire Coordinating Group’s Red Card. The curriculum, delivered in partnership with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), blends hard skills—such as operating pumps and chainsaws—with ecological knowledge. Many alumni go on to fight fires across the country. But there was more besides: “We have resources at PSC that could potentially be leveraged…” wrote Zoë Smith, Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at Paul Smith's.
We offer an academic disaster management program that offers a solid grounding in the
principles and practices of disaster management, which would certainly be applicable to this
project. Coursework includes things like risk assessment, emergency planning, incident command
systems, and disaster response logistics – all highly relevant when dealing with wildfires. The
program focuses on practical skills and field-based learning, which gives our students experience
and an understanding of the operational aspects of wildfire management. Our forestry faculty,
including Justin Waskiewicz and Don Ratcliffe, who is joining us from the University of Washington, both have backgrounds in fire ecology research. They could also add expertise to this project.
It was May 19, 2025, and the Clarkson team was scrambling to write the NSF proposal, with a deadline rushing toward them. Smith’s words underscored the breadth of Paul Smith’s contributions: teaching chainsaw safety and fire ecology, hosting international emergency managers, and building new mobile units for community training. If there could be a regional collaboration, then Clarkson’s engineering students could learn how to read terrain and weather from Paul Smith’s experts, while PSC students might gain insights into new technologies like air-quality sensors and biochar. This exchange reflects the mutual win attitude central to the region’s resilience efforts: each institution brings its strengths, and everyone benefits. In other words, Paul Smith's had practical and community knowledge lacking in Clarkson’s research team.
Broadening the coalition
Clarkson Professor Susan Powers, meanwhile, was thinking about sustainability. While engineers and ecologists work on technology and management, she knew the eminent scholars at St. Lawrence University in Canton had been exploring the cultural and historical dimensions of wildfire resilience. The university’s Center for the Environment, launched in 2024, aimed to empower all students to become agents of change. The center encouraged students to work closely with faculty and alumni on issues such as climate change, energy, conservation, sustainability, environmental justice, and outdoor leadership. It built on decades of research and experiential opportunities St. Lawrence University had cultivated, including programs like their Adirondack Semester, where students live off the grid in a yurt village and study nature writing and environmental ethics, and their Outdoor Program, which taught leadership and environmental ethics.
Dr. Diane White Husic, the inaugural director of the Center, had arrived in Canton with years of experience in community‑based climate adaptation and forest health research. She has worked with the United Nations on climate policy and used prescribed burns as a habitat management tool. In an email to colleagues, she described plans to examine fire in the North Country. Students could dig into archives to understand how the 1903 and 1908 fires shaped local communities and policies, interview elders about traditional land stewardship practices, and collaborate with Indigenous nations to document cultural burning knowledge. They could also develop cultural teams to study how the Forever Wild clause of New York’s constitution shaped wildfire management.
Caption: The St. Lawrence University Adirondack Semester Experience. Photo by Tara Freeman, St Lawrence University Communications.
The coalition grew as more campuses saw their place in the work. SUNY Potsdam’s Professor Kate Cleary—known by students as “Batwoman” for her bat conservation research—captured the spirit of that broadening circle in her letter of support to NSF Program Directors Harsha Chelliah and Thomas Evans:
In recent weeks, smoke from over 50 wildfires in Saskatchewan and Manitoba has drifted into
upstate New York, causing the Adirondacks to experience some of the worst air quality in the state.
This is the second such occurrence in our area in recent years; in 2023, wildfires in Quebec and
Ontario led to dangerous air quality throughout our region for much of the summer. These trends underscore the urgency of developing resilient fire management strategies for the Adirondacks—
an area historically unprepared for direct fire risk.
Just down the road from Clarkson, SUNY Potsdam is offering an interdisciplinary Environment and Sustainability major that emphasizes experiential learning, environmental justice, and strong ties to the Adirondacks. The program is known for strong community engagement; most students complete an internship with community partners ranging from local farmers, to environmental non-profits, to the Department of Environmental Conservation. In the field and in the classroom, the program’s emphasis on environmental justice ensures that vulnerable populations—elderly residents, renters and low‑income families—are included in resilience planning.
Cleary explained that the proposed Adirondack Fire Futures symposium would strengthen SUNY Potsdam by integrating its faculty into a wider network of fire researchers, by catalyzing new interdisciplinary projects, and by engaging students directly in professional conversations about resilience. For a biologist who spends her nights driving the back roads of St. Lawrence County with students tracking bats on roof-mounted acoustic monitors, the invitation to join a fire research network was also an invitation to knit together fields that might otherwise remain separate. Ecology, engineering, and community planning were beginning to speak in the same language of resilience.
Meanwhile, Gwen Kay was returning from a trip to France. On the shores of Lake Ontario, SUNY Oswego had pledged to achieve climate neutrality by 2050 and has earned a Gold rating from the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS). The university’s Office of Sustainability implements innovative policies and immersive projects to reduce its carbon footprint and inspire others. Recognizing that wildfire smoke does not respect campus boundaries, SUNY Oswego’s sustainability staff joined the Adirondack network to share expertise in carbon accounting and climate communication. SUNY Oswego students produced video campaigns explaining how wildfire smoke from Canada can drift into the Northeast, degrade air quality, and harm vulnerable groups—a service that complemented Clarkson’s technical monitoring.
Kay brought yet another layer of strength to the coalition. A historian of medicine and science, she mentors students in the classroom and in the Honors Program. But her impact extends far beyond SUNY Oswego: As a former member of the SUNY Board of Trustees, she had experience shaping policy and governance for the entire 64-campus system. In a network of schools working together on resilience, her presence underscored that wildfire preparation was not just about science and engineering in the field, but also about faculty leadership, curriculum design, and statewide collaboration. She was on board, too. The coalition was growing.
By mid-June the Clarkson team had submitted the proposal to the National Science Foundation for a cooperative conference to plan Adirondack Fire Futures and community resilience. They knew they were going to have a huge advantage because the Wild Center in Tupper Lake had already begun that effort.
A Pivotal Gathering: Fire in the Adirondacks Conference
On August 7, 2025, researchers, students, and community members converged at The Wild Center in Tupper Lake for a conference titled “Fire in the Adirondacks: It Has Happened Before – Can It Happen Again?” Clarkson’s Powers and Casper were in the crowd listening. The event was a partnership between The Wild Center, Adirondack Explorer, the Adirondack Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, and Paul Smith’s College. The goal was to explore wildfire risk and preparedness in the Adirondacks, examining fire as both a natural ecological force and a growing climate‑driven threat. Panels featured voices from Indigenous communities, forest managers, policy experts, and journalists.
The opening panel asked, “Why are we talking about wildfire in the Adirondacks now?” Speakers like Paul Smith’s College President and former forestry professor, Dr. Dan Kelting, noted that fire brings renewal and balance to forests but can also threaten air quality and infrastructure. Sessions on Indigenous perspectives underscored that cultural burning is an ongoing relationship used to tend foods and maintain habitats and can be thought of as a stewardship model. An environmental historian recounted how catastrophic fires in 1903 and 1908 were primed by logging slash and drought. A management panel discussed the current fuel mosaic, noting that hardwood forests, lakes, and wetlands break up fuel continuity, but ladder fuels and litter drive spread. Preparedness, they said, is local: community wildfire protection plans, campfire education, and home ignition‑zone treatments such as cleaning roofs and clearing limbs can make a big difference. Throughout the day, speakers stressed that wet, humid forests can burn when drought, wind, and multiple ignitions align.
The policy session wrestled with the Forever Wild clause. Some argued it limits tools like prescribed burning, while others said intact forest cover reduces risk. The keynote speaker, Professor Jed Meunier of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, drew on tree‑ring records to show that fire occurred across North America even in humid forests. Low probability is not zero probability, he said; planning must acknowledge that high‑intensity runs are possible. In closing remarks, participants pledged to continue the conversation through research projects, community meetings, and policy discussions.
One of the key takeaways from the Wild Center conference was that wildfire risk does not stop at the U.S.‑Canada border. As the conference participants listened, haze from hundreds of uncontrolled Canadian wildfires hung over the park. During the August 2025 advisory, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation issued warnings for fine particulate pollution across regions, including the Adirondacks. It might be the case that the Adirondacks were less likely to have a high-intensity fire event, but Powers and Casper felt that the conference had been thinking about ignition sources within the park and not considering the way the wilderness-urban interface and the boundaries of the park could create other ignition sources. Casper leaned over to Powers at the end of the meeting: “Look – we seem to be having a flash drought right now. I drove down here and saw Smokey the Bear signs that said the fire danger was high. I think this requires a wider perspective.”
Building Community Resilience
In late August, the Clarkson team learned that the National Science Foundation had awarded them an approximately $50,000 grant to continue those conversations and to work toward positive-sum goals. The Clarkson Team had quickly realized in May that technology alone would not save the region. It was going to take fire engineering expertise, forestry, technology, cultural awareness, and sensitivity to the long traditions and animating philosophies of the Adirondack Region. People needed knowledge, resources, and a shared sense of responsibility.
Drawing on the Wild Center Conference’s “preparedness is local” message, the team aims to continue the conversation. They will invite all stakeholders they and their partners can identify to continue that conversation in July 2026.
Other opportunities may emerge in the meantime. Casper recently attended a small symposium titled “Applying Technology to Reduce the Risk of Catastrophic Wildfires." He sees strong research potential in exploring whether biomass reduction strategies—modeled after Indigenous stewardship practices—could also supply feedstock for sustainable regional fuel production.
A Region Uniting Toward Resilience
Wildfire risk in the Northeast may never match that of the arid West, but the Adirondack and North Country regions must still decide if inaction is prudent or if proactive management is needed - especially given the unique circumstances of the Adirondacks, where doing nothing is sometimes appropriate. Nevertheless, these regional partners can also address and study national problems, using our homes as the materials. Smoke from distant fires, changing climate patterns, dense fuel loads, and human ignitions all pose challenges. Yet, this story is not one of fear; it is one of cooperation, science, and hope. Clarkson University’s research team sees translation research opportunities arising from thinking about the wilderness/urban intersection technologically. SUNY ESF’s fire ecologists are bringing traditional knowledge and cutting‑edge science to the table. St. Lawrence University is honoring cultural histories and educating the next generation. Paul Smith’s College is training tomorrow’s firefighters and foresters. SUNY Potsdam and SUNY Oswego are broadening the coalition with commitments to environmental justice and climate neutrality. Together, these institutions are building a resilient region where people and forests can thrive.
The work continues. Community members are developing wildfire protection plans, and policymakers are rethinking laws to balance conservation with safety. Students are learning that they can shape their environment through science and stewardship. Researchers are exploring new technologies like biochar and sensors. And across the Adirondacks, a spirit of collaboration and innovation is taking root. The next time smoke drifts over the Adirondack High Peaks or a brush fire ignites near Potsdam, the people of northern New York State will be better prepared—not because they fear the worst, but because they have chosen to work together for a hopeful, resilient future.