Fire Effects/Fire Ecology Annual Report, Southern Appalachian/Piedmont Fire Effects Monitoring Team: Calendar Year 2012
Author unknown. Fire Effects/Fire Ecology Annual Report, Southern Appalachian/Piedmont Fire Effects Monitoring Team: Calendar Year 2012
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/fire ecology team provided monitoring support for nine NPS units in the Southeast Region during 2012, including a significant program start-up effort at Cape Hatteras National Seashore (Table 1). Vegetation complexity and travel distance necessitated the development of a new monitoring protocol for the Seashore, and that new approach is described in the Cape Hatteras section of this annual report. Other achievements included completion of a large monitoring project at Congaree N.P., and development and testing of a new protocol that is tied to burn severity mapping (dNBR). This new protocol can serve as a supplement or alternative to the traditional FMH plot protocols, and is described in the BISO and GRSM sections of this annual report.Calendar year 2012 was a very busy year, with eight of our nine parks completing prescribed burns for a total of 22 burns and 4,316 acres treated (Table 2). As a rule, the 2012 burns were a smashing success, and burn objectives were met in nearly all cases. Even projects that were not completed due to being out of prescription (Lynn Hollow and Wear Cove Gap at GRSM) were 3 | P a g e marked by excellent preparation and planning. Tremendous credit goes to both the Cumberland Gap and Great Smoky Mountains Wildland Fire Modules, as well all Fire and collateral-Fire folks throughout the region, for exemplary planning and execution. Credit also goes to our Fire Effects Team members, who continued to provide outstanding operational and monitoring services for prescribed burning throughout the region, participating in planning, implementation, and monitoring for every one of the prescribed burns completed in our park cluster. Discussions of each of these burns along with monitoring results can be found in each park‟s respective section of this report.