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By: MYSTERY RANCH® Ambassador, Adam Hernandez
To date, I have spent twenty-three years in the wildland fire service. Over the course of my career, I have worked on hotshot crews, served as a smokejumper, supported fuels management programs, and contributed to training and workforce development efforts. Through these roles, I have seen and experienced the many facets of wildfire operations from both the suppression and land management perspectives. Each phase of my career has been deeply rewarding, offering opportunities to develop technical skills, learn operational tactics, observe and practice leadership, and gain a deeper understanding of fire ecology and prescribed fire. Collectively, these experiences have shaped my professional philosophy and ultimately led me to focus on the critical role of “good fire” on the landscape.
Early in my career, I developed a particular interest in prescribed fire. During my first few seasons, I was stationed just outside the west entrance of Yosemite National Park. Because of this location, much of our shoulder season work consisted of prescribed burning assignments within the park. Those early experiences were formative. Participating in prescribed fire operations in such an ecologically significant landscape exposed me to the intentional use of fire as a restorative tool rather than a destructive force. I was able to see firsthand how fire could be applied thoughtfully to meet specific ecological and resource objectives, and how critical it was to the health of Sierra Nevada ecosystems.
As my career progressed, I found myself repeatedly drawn to prescribed fire assignments. Time and again, I held a drip torch and watched how fire moved across the landscape, responding to fuels, topography, and weather. I learned how subtle changes in ignition patterns and timing could dramatically influence fire behavior and outcomes, allowing us to shape fire effects to meet desired objectives. Just as importantly, I saw how necessary fire was not only in Yosemite, but throughout the central Sierra Nevada and beyond. These experiences reinforced my belief that fire, when applied deliberately and skillfully, is an essential and irreplaceable land management tool.
Over time, I pursued and obtained various suppression and prescribed fire qualifications, continuing to build my technical and leadership capacity. In late 2016, I accepted a position as a District Fire Management Officer with the U.S. Forest Service, with a primary focus on prescribed fire and fuels management. It was in this role that I fully recognized the scale and urgency of the prescribed fire capacity gap. While the need for increased use of prescribed fire was widely acknowledged, the operational reality was far more complex. Constraints related to staffing, training, funding, policy, and risk tolerance made it clear that good intentions alone were not enough. No matter how the issue was analyzed, the solution pointed to the same conclusion: we needed to build capacity quickly, strategically, and sustainably.
In 2019, I left the Forest Service to accept a wildland fire instructor position at Reedley College. From 2019 through 2025, I was tasked with developing a comprehensive wildland fire training program. The primary goal was to build workforce capacity for land management-based wildland fire. This concept went beyond traditional suppression focused training. While suppression skills remained essential, the program emphasized a broader understanding of fire as a natural and necessary component of the landscape. Students were encouraged to think critically about fire’s role in ecosystem health, fuels reduction, and long-term resilience, rather than viewing fire solely as something to be extinguished.
Working in an academic environment allowed me to engage with aspiring wildland firefighters at the very beginning of their careers. This presented a unique opportunity to instill foundational values and perspectives early on, particularly the importance of prescribed fire and managed fire as tools for stewardship. My hope was that these students would carry these concepts with them throughout their careers, gradually influencing organizational culture and operational decision-making wherever they went.
During my time at Reedley College, an idea began to take shape. I became increasingly focused on how to address the prescribed fire capacity gaps I had witnessed throughout my career. The idea centered on developing a nimble, highly skilled crew resource dedicated specifically to prescribed fire and fuels management, with a focus on serving the central Sierra Nevada. This resource would be operationally focused, locally based, and capable of working across jurisdictional boundaries.
In May of 2025, I was asked by a local Fire Management Officer to present this concept to the Fresno County Wildfire Taskforce. The discussion generated significant interest, and after the meeting concluded, the conversation continued with the Director of the local Resource Conservation District. It was during those follow up discussions that the pieces began to align. Together, we explored how such a specialized prescribed fire organization could realistically be created and sustained. By August of 2025, we had developed a plan to establish Alignment Strategies Group (ASG) as a special division of the Sierra Resource Conservation District, focused on providing prescribed fire and fuels management capacity for the local area.
Across forested landscapes, many creative initiatives are emerging to expand prescribed fire capacity. From policy reform and funding mechanisms to public outreach and workforce development, each effort contributes to a broader movement. I see these initiatives as interconnected pieces of a larger puzzle, each building momentum and reinforcing the others. The facets of this challenge are numerous and complex, including policy constraints, communication challenges, public perception, resource availability, and funding limitations. Different organizations are addressing these facets in different ways, depending on where they can be most effective.
At ASG, our focus is squarely on the operational crew resource and on-the-ground capacity needs of the central Sierra Nevada. By concentrating on this niche, we aim to complement and strengthen the broader prescribed fire ecosystem rather than duplicate existing efforts. Each year, through partnerships and collaboration, we will move closer to the shared goal of increasing the amount of beneficial fire on the landscape.
ASG is unique in that it is designed as a highly qualified, operationally focused prescribed fire resource tailored specifically to the needs of the central Sierra Nevada. It will be a hotshot crew for prescribed fire. Our goal is to provide a nimble, local crew resource capable of delivering prescribed fire and fuels management services across agency and jurisdictional boundaries. In doing so, we aim not only to meet immediate operational needs, but also to develop a scalable and replicable model that other regions and organizations can adapt to their own situations.
ASG was officially established in August of 2025. Our first year is focused on building a strong organizational culture, securing grants and startup capital, hiring key leadership positions and hand crews, and developing strategic partnerships throughout the region. Beyond year one, our vision is to support long-term stewardship of the central Sierra landscape as a high-performing prescribed fire organization with multiple highly capable crews. These crews will be accessible, mobile, and consistently contributing to acres treated on local projects across jurisdictional boundaries.
Ultimately, our overarching objective is to provide meaningful, sustained capacity for prescribed fire and fuels management in the central Sierra Nevada. We envision ASG as a nimble organization whose crews move up and down the Sierra Nevada range, providing not only operational support, but also training and consulting capacity. Through this work, we aim to help restore fire as a functional, beneficial process on the landscape and to contribute to a safer, more resilient future for the communities and ecosystems of the Sierra Nevada.
Learn more about Adam here.