Canadian Prairies Prescribed Fire Exchange

🇺🇸 Happy 250th Independence Day to our friends and partners across the United States!

Today, the Canadian Prairies Prescribed Fire Exchange would like to recognize and thank the many American organizations and individuals who have supported our journey since CPPFE was established in 2020.

Your mentorship, coaching, partnership, and friendship have helped build prescribed fire capacity across the Great Plains and strengthened our growing prescribed fire community in Canada.

A special thank you to the Great Plains Fire Science Exchange, the Fire Learning Network, and the Loess Hills Prescribed Fire Partnership for your leadership and collaboration. We also want to recognize the many instructors, burn bosses, practitioners, researchers, and volunteers—too many to name—who have generously shared their knowledge and welcomed us into the prescribed fire community.

Prescribed fire doesn't stop at the border, and neither do the relationships that make this work possible.

From everyone at the Canadian Prairies Prescribed Fire Exchange, thank you for your continued partnership, and we wish all of our American colleagues and friends a safe and happy Fourth of July!

🔥 Stronger together. Across borders. For tomorrow.

Today, we pause to remember Glen Longpré and honour the remarkable legacy he leaves behind.

These photos capture Glen doing what he loved most—using prescribed fire to care for Saskatchewan's landscapes. Long before prescribed fire became widely recognized as an essential conservation tool, Glen was championing its safe and effective use across the province. Through his leadership with Saskatchewan Parks, he helped restore fire to the landscape while mentoring countless practitioners and building partnerships that continue to shape conservation today.

Glen was a respected leader, mentor, and collaborator. He believed in bringing people together—from provincial and federal agencies to Indigenous communities, conservation organizations, and private landowners—to advance prescribed fire. His vision and dedication helped lay the foundation for what would become the Canadian Prairies Prescribed Fire Exchange.

His influence can be seen not only in the landscapes he helped restore, but also in the many people he inspired and mentored throughout his career. We are grateful for his contributions to the prescribed fire community and to prairie conservation.

Our heartfelt condolences go out to Glen's family, friends, and former colleagues. Thank you, Glen, for leaving the prairie fire community stronger than you found it. Your legacy will continue to burn brightly in the work we do together.

Rest in peace, Glen.

Photos shared with permission from Saskatchewan Parks. These images were taken during a prescribed fire at Greenwater Lake Provincial Park in the spring of 2012, one of Glen's favourite places to burn.