Colin C. Hardy is the Program Manager for the Fire, Fuel, and Smoke Science Program, and is located at the Rocky Mountain Research Station’s Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory (Fire Lab) in Missoula, Montana, USA.  Prior to restructuring of the Station’s organization, he was Project Leader of the Fire Behavior Research Work Unit at the Fire Lab.  He has been a Research Forester with the USDA Forest Service for almost 25 years, the first eleven years at the Pacific Northwest Research Station in Seattle, and the past fourteen years with the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Missoula.  Colin holds a Bachelor’s degree in Resource Conservation from the University of Montana, a Master’s of Forest Resource Management from the University of Washington, and a Ph.D. in Forestry from the University of Montana. Colin is a standing member of the National Wildfire Coordinating Group’s Fire Use Working Team, and he is the national, cross-Station Team leader for Core Fire Science activities within the Fire Strategic Program Area for Forest Service Research and Development. 

His doctoral work focused on thermal infrared remote sensing of wildland fires. 

Colin’s passions are his family and kids, and he maintains his relative sanity through skiing, hockey, running, mountaineering, and summer sports at the family cabin on Flathead Lake.