Grand Canyon National Park Fire Ecology Annual Report Calendar Year 2019
Banwell E, Brannfors L, Bunn W. 2020. Grand Canyon National Park Fire Ecology Annual Report Calendar Year 2019. National Park Service. Grand Canyon, AZ
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 2019 season brought the largest staff turnover in one of the busiest years for the Grand Canyon National Park (GRCA) Fire Ecology Program. The Lead Fire Effects Monitor, Li Brannfors, continued his detail to the Utah Parks Group based out of Zion National Park as their Fire Ecologist from the beginning of January until the end of March. The Assistant Lead Monitor, Emma McClure, took a temporary position at ZION as their Lead Fire Effects Monitor in early May. After a 35-day government shutdown delayed wintertime tasks, three new seasonal crewmembers were hired, including two at the GS-6 level to compensate for the loss of the Assistant as well mitigate the impacts of a smaller Fire Effects crew for the field season with no returning institutional knowledge other than the Lead. The Fire Ecologist, Erin Banwell, left her position at GRCA mid-August. In early September, with 1.5 months of field work remaining, one crewmember was placed on light duty office work for the remainder of the season after suffering an injury. Despite these challenges, the crew monitored 54 Fire Monitoring Handbook (FMH) plots; 79 Rapid Assessment Protocol (RAP) pilot sampling plots at GRCA; 86 Composite Burn Index (CBI) burn severity plots; and 16 Southern Colorado Plateau Network Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) plots (Table 5). This total of 235 plot reads at GRCA alone marked the 3rd heaviest plot workload in the 31-year history of the program. The need for non-stop field work from the beginning of June through the end of October limited crewmembers’ availability to just local wildfires and prescribed fires, but still resulted in a diverse, productive year.
- Type
- Unpublished Report
- Authors
- Banwell, Erin; Brannfors, Li; Bunn, Windy
- Date of Issue
- 2020-02-03
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- FIEC , GRCA , WACA
- Keywords
- Arizona, Biota, Burn Severity, CBI, Colorado Plateau, Ecology, Environment, FFI, Fire, Fire Ecology, Fire Effects, FMH, Fuels, Grand Canyon, I&M, Inventory And Monitoring, Kaibab Plateau, Monitoring, Prescribed Fire, RAP, rapid assessment, Severity, Southern Colorado Plateau Network, Vegetation, Walnut Canyon, Wildfire
- Subjects
- Ecological Framework: Landscapes | Fire and Fuel Dynamics | Fire and Fuel Dynamics