Alaska Region Fire Ecology Annual Report: Calendar Year 2011
Barnes J. 2011. Alaska Region Fire Ecology Annual Report: Calendar Year 2011
A summary of fire ecology activities and program information for the Park/network including fire effects plot workload, staffing, management objectives and monitoring results, and planning, fire monitoring, communications, and research. Also included are staff accomplishments/areas of focus, future program direction and other optional information (e.g. data analysis graphics or presentations, annual highlights, publications, program challenges, unique solutions to problems, collaboration, photographs of monitoring/fire activities, and suggestions on FFI). The NPS Alaska Region fire ecology program provides science-based information to guide Alaska NPS fire and land management planning, decisions and practices in order to maintain and understand fire-adapted ecosystems in Alaska. The scope of the fire ecology program includes 16 national park units in Alaska; however the majority of the work has occurred in the following park units: BELA, DENA, GAAR, NOAT, YUCH, WRST. During 2011 the NPS Alaska Fire Ecology program conducted monitoring plots in mechanical treatment areas and wildland fires, coordinated a research project to determine the age of carbon burning in tundra fires in Noatak National Preserve (Photo 1), and participated in several agency and interagency committees. The science education program with the Community of Eagle School continued this year at the King Cr Fire plots and Yukon-River Flood sites near Yukon-Charley Rivers NP. Several out-reach projects were accomplished, including a Fire & Art program, a Fire Ecology Fact Sheet for Denali, two publications in the Alaska Park Science journal and two Fire Stories.