Northern Great Plains, Fire Ecology Annual Report: Calendar Year 2011

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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). 2011 was a very productive year for the Northern Great Plains (NGP) fire ecology program. A total of 238 plots of various types were measured, an all time high for the program. Seven prescribed fires occurred in the NGP parks, resulting in 21 plots being burned, 19 of which were measured immediately post-burn. This was the second year of a three year research project at Wind Cave N.P., Jewel Cave N.M., and Devils Tower N.M. in which Dan Swanson partnered with Amy Symstad of the USGS assessing the relationship between prescribed fire burn severity and target invasive plant species abundance taking into account a variety of pre- and post-fire environmental characteristics at each park. This past season two seasonals collected year one post-burn data on 90 plots at Wind Cave N.P. and Jewel Cave N.M. Data analysis comparing preburn to year one post-burn effects will be done during the winter/spring of 2012. This year we continued collaboration with the NPS Northern Great Plains Inventory and Monitoring Network (I&M). Since the ten parks that the NGP fire ecology program monitor fire effects in are encompassed within the fourteen parks that the Northern Great Plains I&M program have, an excellent opportunity for collaboration existed. The NGP fire effects crew and I&M program installed 60 forest and fuels-style plots at Jewel Cave NM which are spatially balanced throughout the park and revisited once every five years by the I&M program. If any of these plots are burned in a prescribed burn project, the NGP fire effects program will revisit them at the standard FMH monitoring sequence. In addition, since both programs are using the same sampling design and monitoring protocols, we were able to coordinate plot sampling visits this year throughout our park network. Therefore, both programs are now benefiting from this collaboration by sharing data from their monitoring efforts. This past August the monitoring crew and fire ecologist completed 48 composite burn index (CBI) plots within the American Elk RX burn unit at Wind Cave N.P. to ground truth the satellite-based burn severity assessment. The extended assessment revealed a mixed severity fire consisting of 48% low, 41% low-moderate, 5% moderate, and 4% high severity. This 3450 acre unit was burned in October 2010 and was the largest burn in Wind Cave N.P. history. Regression analysis will be completed this winter using the ground-truthed CBI plot data and the satellite-based dNBR values.

Northern Great Plains, Fire Ecology Annual Report: Calendar Year 2011

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