Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park Fire Management Plan 2016

Garza, Rolando; Gatewood, Richard; Waldron, Ed

Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park (PAAL) is located in Brownsville, TX, and preserves and commemorates the sites of the opening battles of the U.S. Mexican War that took place on the 8th and 9th of May, 1846. It is the only National Park Service unit that commemorates this war, and therefore plays a critical role in the National Park system as a place for conserving, researching, and interpreting the causes and consequences of the war in a larger context. Like much of the Lower Rio Grande Valley, the vegetation at Palo Alto is diverse, ranging from seasonally inundated wetlands to salt prairie to mesquite shrubland. First established at 50 acres, Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park now is comprised of two units. The Palo Alto Battlefield Unit now contains 3,400 acres, situated in largely undeveloped landscape and includes lands that were once used for agriculture and cattle pasture. The Resaca de la Palma Unit contains 34 acres of greenspace, once used as a citrus orchard and later a polo field, engulfed in an urban environment. Federal Law requires that every area with burnable vegetation must have an approved Fire Management Plan (FMP). Fire Management Plans are strategic plans that define a program to manage wildland and prescribed fires based on the area’s approved land management plan. Fire Management Plans must provide for firefighter and public safety; include fire management strategies, tactics, and alternatives; address values to be protected and public health issues; and be consistent with resource management objectives, activities of the area, and environmental laws and regulations. PAAL’s FMP proposes the use of prescribed fire to manage vegetation resources and the cultural landscape within the Core Battlefield Preservation Zone at the Palo Alto Battlefield Unit, as well as the suppression of wildfires that occur on park owned property, incorporating the minimum suppression tactics policy to the greatest extent feasible for the given situation.