Controlled burns—also called prescribed fire—play a vital role in creating healthy landscapes that better survive natural and human-caused disturbances, while reducing wildfire risk to communities, infrastructure, natural and cultural resources. Episode 3 of "Afire" highlights three scientists and partnerships that are attempting to better understand and utilize prescribed fire.

From Georgia, ecologist Joe O’Brien explains how researchers and forest managers are forming unique meetings that spark fresh ideas and advancements in prescribed burning across the South. In California, forester David Weise begins research into the processes related to pyrolysis to better estimate how prescribed burning affects people. And, in Arkansas, forestry technician Virginia McDaniel recounts a decades-long story of prescribed fire fortifying an ecosystem and an endangered woodpecker.