Saguaro National Park, Fire Ecology Annual Report: Calendar Year 2012

Author unknown

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). It was a slow year for wildfires and prescribed fires, but there was a heavy monitoring load, mainly because of wildfires in 2011. In that year, two fires almost entirely burned Chiricahua NM (CHIR) and Coronado NM (CORO). James Leckie, with assistance from two Student Conservation Association teams, NPS Resource staff, a fire ecology graduate student from the University of Arizona, a backcountry ranger, and the Grand Canyon NP fire effects crew, collected data on 73 plots. Some of these people were able to help with data entry, as was Fire Module Clerk, Julia England. Four plots were read at Saguaro NP (SAGU) two years after the 2010 Mica Prescribed Burn. In 2010, ten additional plots were read in hopes of also burning them, but the burn window closed and prevented it. Their data can serve as somewhat of a “control” to compare to the burned plots. Forty-one plots burned in the 2011 Horseshoe II Fire at CHIR and 15 plots burned the same year in the Monument Fire at CORO were sampled as well. Perry Grissom and James also participated in the triennial Mexican spotted owl monitoring at SAGU in conjunction with Science and Resource Division staff. Owls were detected in three territories, but none were detected in a fourth. Great horned owls were detected several times, especially in that fourth MSO territory. No breeding activity was detected this year.

Saguaro National Park, Fire Ecology Annual Report: Calendar Year 2012

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