Southern Appalachian Fire Ecology Annual Report: Calendar Year 2007
Author unknown. Southern Appalachian Fire Ecology Annual Report: Calendar Year 2007
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 2007 field season started off with two new additions. Huma Alvarado left the wilds of Montana to join us for some southern culture-filling out our field crew. The second addition has spent a pleasant summer being toted around by our lead, but should be exiting the womb soon in time to carry rebar for next season. 2007 was a busy year for NPS Fire staff in the Southern Appalachians. We had a very successful spring prescribed fire season, resulting in 24 immediate post-burn plot reads. A prolonged severe drought resulted in multiple wildfires and WFU events in Great Smoky Mountains NP (GRSM). One of the wildfires, the Buck Shank fire, grew to nearly 1000 acres. This fire was notable for several reasons; 1) the fire was managed with a confine/contain strategy that allowed it to persist on the landscape for over 14 days, mimicking a Fire-Use event, 2) it occurred in late May-early June, burning outside of the “normal” fire season, and 3) it burned over an area that had been prescribed-burned just two years prior, allowing managers to observe the effects of first-entry fuel reductions on fire behavior. Additionally, the fire burned through one of our long-term fire effects plots, allowing fire effects staff to document part of the range of effects of this important fire. Despite the involvement of fire ecology/fire effects staff on this fire and several others, the fire effects staff completed an enormous amount of field work. Nearly all scheduled rereads were completed; only Gregory Ridge plots were not read, due to extreme hazards from snags and hanging deadfall. A large number of new forest plots were located and installed (17 total) in five different parks. In addition, an entire week during the field season was devoted to collecting CBI data at GRSM from the previous years’ WFU event, the Chilly Springs Fire. This collection of CBI data marks a renewed attempt to build a CBI database that can be used to define severity thresholds for the park’s growing DNBR dataset. In the coming year, we are planning to collect CBI data for the Buck Shank Fire and possibly others.