A former firefighter with 26 years of experience as a land and forest manager in six states has been named to supervise the Manti-La Sal National Forest administration.
   U.S. Forest Service Intermountain Regional Forester Harv Fosgren on Tuesday announced Pam Brown's appointment to manage more than 1.4 million acres in the Manti-La Sal, which is made up of four ranger districts in southeastern Utah and western Colorado.
   Brown, who will take her post in November, has for the past two years been deputy forest supervisor on the Superior National Forest in Minnesota. She will replace Howard Sargent, who died suddenly of heart failure in June, officials said.
   A graduate of the range and wildlands science program at University of California, Davis, Brown began her career as a firefighter on the Los Padres National Forest in California. For the next decade she held range and natural resource management positions in the Sequoia and San Bernadino National Forests, also in California.
   In 1995, Brown became the district ranger on the Kiowa and Rita Blanca National Grasslands that spread across New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma in the Cibola National Forest. She also served as district ranger in the Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota.