Natchez Trace Parkway, Fire Ecology Annual Report: Calendar Year 2009
Author unknown. Natchez Trace Parkway, Fire Ecology Annual Report: Calendar Year 2009
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). 2009 proved to be a year of transition. Fire ecologist, Lisa McInnis made an in-house switch to a Natural Resource Management Specialist job in September. The lead monitor, Amanda Callis, accepted a position with the USFS in March. In April, crew member Angela Sokolowski relocated to the Ozark National Scenic Riverways fire effects crew as the assistant lead. Carol Fields joined the crew as the lead monitor in October. Crew member Jennifer Falkey stayed with the program through the transitional period. During the transition, interdepartmental cooperation from other Fire management Divisions (fuels and fire suppression) as well as from Interpretation, made it possible for plot reads to be completed as scheduled. Additionally, the Great Smokey Mountains Fire Effects lead helped the crew to complete fall plot reads at MACA. Despite all of the changes and transitions, the fire effects crew and fire ecologist participated in prescribed burns at NATR, VICK, and GUIS as well as several Forest Service sites in addition to responding to several wildfires. Two crew members also detailed to the Great Smokey Mountains Fire Use Module for a 10 day detail in February. The crew provided on-site fire effects monitoring during the prescribed burns, as well as immediate postburn monitoring and longterm monitoring at NATR, MACA, LIRI, GUIS, STRI, VICK and HOBE. The monitoring workload continued to increase with the crew completing 67 annual reads and 26 postreads, for a total of 93 plots read. Russell Cave National Monument (RUCA) was added to the list of parks that is part of the longterm monitoring program with the installation of a new monitoring plot in April. The crew also installed longterm fuels monitoring plots at MACA after the January ice storm and at STRI after the April tornado. The fire effects crew, in addition to collecting the field data, was also responsible for all of the data entry and data management for the eight parks. The crew continued to work with the new data management program (FFI) to continue the data transfer from 2008. Additionally, the crew recently began working with Tombigbee National Forest in Mississippi to help them implement their fire effects monitoring and data management program.