This project developed and demonstrated an Integrated Research Management Team (IRMT) to coordinate SERDP & ESTCP’s portfolio of projects focused on prescribed fire science. Many of these projects required data-gathering during active, pre-planned prescribed fires at various locations around the country, including several Department of War (DoW) installations. The planning and logistics for access, airspace, personnel safety, equipment storage, and set up can overburden a host site’s staff, leading to project failure or suboptimal results for fire operations and/or the planned research. Actionable science can also be compromised if integration of research objectives is not fully understood by fire managers and practitioners.

The goal of the IRMT was to maximize safety, efficiency, collaboration, and research impact across multiple large-scale prescribed fire campaigns while providing a national proof of concept for managing complex, multi-project fire research.

The IRMT framework integrates research coordination into the operational structure of prescribed fires, enabling science and management objectives to be planned and executed jointly. By establishing a single coordinating body and clear communication channels among researchers and fire managers, the IRMT approach demonstrated that multi-institutional research can be conducted safely and effectively while maintaining alignment with installation missions and wildland fire management needs.

The IRMT adapts principles of the Incident Command System (ICS), a standardized structure used in all federal wildland fire operations, to meet the specific needs of multi-project research campaigns. The one-off nature and increasing integration of wildland fire experiments into active wildland fires requires coordination and effective information flow among science teams before, during, and after the research burns, which ICS provides. Traditional ICS protocols ensure safe and organized fire response but are not designed to integrate dozens of scientists who may lack formal fire qualifications. The IRMT fills this gap by creating a research-focused branch within the fire command structure, staffed by fire managers with research experience who oversee planning, logistics, safety, and coordination of scientific objectives.

The project implemented this system across multiple large prescribed fire campaigns that involved on-the-ground coordination with hundreds of researchers, installation personnel, and interagency partners. The IRMT’s success was captured in an Implementation Guide that details planning processes, team roles, documentation templates, and lessons learned. The guide provides a practical framework for other organizations seeking to integrate scientific research into high-risk field operations.

The IRMT provides a framework for supporting the Eastern Innovation Landscape Network (EILN), an interagency department-level wildland fire technology refinement and transfer collaborative. It has enabled the wildland fire research portfolio to collect unprecedented, high-quality data on fire behavior, fuels, and smoke under real-world conditions and informed by the needs of wildland fire managers. This data directly informs the next generation of fire and smoke modeling tools for DoW and the broader wildland fire community, which advances end-user driven technology refinement.

By coordinating research and prescribed fire operations through a unified structure, the IRMT significantly reduced logistical burdens on host installations and improved safety and efficiency for all participants. This approach institutionalized collaboration, data sharing, and synthesis across projects, resulting in stronger scientific outcomes and greater management relevance. The IRMT model is now recognized as a best practice for multi-project research operations and is being scaled for future SERDP & ESTCP campaigns.

Beyond fire science, the IRMT framework offers a transferable template for safely managing complex, interdisciplinary research efforts that require integration of operational and scientific objectives. An IRMT adds significant value when multiple research projects are co-located with overlapping, synergistic, or conflicting objectives, particularly when research occurs in remote areas involving potentially dangerous operations. (Anticipated Project Completion - 2026)