Fuels Treatment Monitoring Plan

Forder, Missy

Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park (Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania NMP, the park) is located approximately 50 miles (80 km) south of Washington, D.C. The park is spread out over a 110-square mile (285 km2) area in the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia, at the junction of Interstate 95 and State Route 3, and in Caroline, Orange, Spotsylvania, and Stafford Counties. It is comprised of four separate Civil War battlefields: Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania Courthouse, Chancellorsville, and Wilderness, and four related sites: Salem Church, Chatham Manor, Jackson Shrine, and the Fredericksburg National Cemetery. The park has an authorized acreage of 9,550 ac (3,850 ha), of which the Federal Government currently owns 7,200 ac (2,900 ha). Approximately 5,300 ac (2,150 ha) lie within Spotsylvania County (FRSP FMP 2003). The park lies along the transition (fall) line between the Tidewater and the Piedmont regions. Park-owned lands are drained by the Rapidan, Rappahannock, Po, Ni, and York Rivers. The area supports an eastern North American riparian and woodland habitat on a substrate of the Appalachian Piedmont and the Atlantic Coastal Plain. The park provides rich forest and wetlands, developed parkland, farmsteads, and historic landscapes. The geography of the area consists of gently rolling hills within the Piedmont Plateau. On four separate occasions, the main eastern armies of the United States and the Confederate States fought major battles in and around Fredericksburg, Virginia. The woods and fields of the battles are the primary resources of the park: federal lands encompass 1,100 ac (445 ha) of open fields, 5,600 ac (2266 ha) of forest, and 110 mi (177 km) of boundary. In addition, the park has significant terrain features, historic roads and traces, structures, house sites, ruins, cemeteries, monuments, markers, and historic objects. A number of historic structures dating from the mid-19th century add to the park's significance, including more than 37 mi (60 km) of earthworks built by the soldiers, Salem Church, the house where Stonewall Jackson died, Ellwood, Chatham Manor, and several other structures that were landmarks on the historic fields. More than 15,000 Federal soldiers killed in or near Fredericksburg are buried in the national cemetery. The park also includes 23 mi (37 km) of trails (FRSP FMP 2003). The park’s 2003 Fire Management Plan (FRSP FMP 2003) approves suppression, prescribed fire, and non-fire treatments to accomplish the primary resource management goal of the wildland fire management program, which is to preserve, restore, maintain, and protect the cultural and natural landscape. All wildland fires, defined as "any non-structure fires, other than prescribed fires, that occur in the wildland," will be suppressed. The park will implement long and short term monitoring to assess accomplishments and to determine the effects of management activities on cultural and natural resources. Monitoring of prescribed fires is intended to provide information for quantifying and predicting fire behavior and its ecological effects on park resources while building a historical record. It measures parameters common to all fires: fuels, topography, weather, and fire behavior. In addition, ecological changes such as species composition and structural changes will be monitored for several years after a fire. Monitoring will help to define the effectiveness of the fire management program by assessing the vegetative effects of fire. This information will be very useful in adjusting the prescribed fire program to better meet short and long-term resource objectives.