Southern Appalachian/Piedmont Fire Effects Monitoring Team, Fire Effects/Fire Ecology Annual Report: Calendar Year 2010
Author unknown. Southern Appalachian/Piedmont Fire Effects Monitoring Team, Fire Effects/Fire Ecology Annual Report: Calendar Year 2010
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 Southern Appalachian/Piedmont fire effects team continued to provide vital support for effective management of public lands in 2010. Aside from completing all short and long-term data collection for the parks within our network (Table 1), the team worked to improve adaptive management by expanding our monitoring strategy to produce site-specific information that can inform planning and operations at the burn-unit scale. Examples of some of the products from this effort can be found in Section E of this report.As in seasons past, the fire effects team contributed heavily to prescribed fires throughout the Southeast Region and wildfire operations at the home park, participating in at least 23 prescribed burns at eight different NPS units, and supporting effective management of the Calderwood Wildfire at GRSM. Two team members also supported the federal government‟s response to the Gulf Oil Spill disaster by serving as Resource Advisors for a combined 5 weeks (Table 2). We were blessed with a stable team roster in 2010, and each team member was able to fill at least one critical training need.