Laura Webster grew up on a beef cattle and tobacco farm in Mecklenburg County, a large slice of heaven in south-central Virginia that hugs the North Carolina line.
Working on the family-run farm taught her a work ethic at a young age. She also learned to value the land and all that it offered, so when she enrolled at Virginia Tech, she ultimately decided to earn a degree in forestry and pursue a career that aligned with her values.
“My brother decided to come to Virginia Tech, so we were both in forestry at the same time,” Webster said. “We still wanted to stay in agriculture, but our family farm wasn't going to be a business for us to take over. That’s kind of why we transitioned to forestry, which is just long-term farming. That's all it is. So we took our knowledge of the woods and put it to use.”
Today, Webster ’06, M.F. ’08 regularly endures trial by fire, serving as the wildland fire program manager for the Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point near New Bern, North Carolina. She is one of several Virginia Tech alumni with degrees from the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation in the College of Natural Resources and Environment dedicated to limiting and managing the often harmful effects of wildfires.
Their knowledge and skills are critical toward tackling a hot topic in the U.S. According to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, wildfires burned almost 6.9 million acres in the lower 48 states in 2021 — an 8 percent increase in the yearly average from the previous decade. In California alone, more than 3,600 structures were damaged or destroyed. Insured losses from wildland fires throughout the U.S. ran in the billions.
Virginia Tech alumni are at the crux of efforts to take on the challenges of wildfires, both in terms of eliminating risk and putting out blazes. Interestingly, they’re attacking these problems in different ways.
