Grand Canyon National Park Fire Effects Monitoring Plan

Opperman, Tonja

There are still questions about Grand Canyon’s fire ecology, but the fire management program can manage ecosystems effectively by utilizing an adaptive management strategy as answers are provided through the Fire Effects Monitoring Program. Fire managers will continue to learn more about fire effects on vegetation and fuels with thorough monitoring efforts, prompting refined fire prescriptions and more effective future uses of prescribed fire. The purpose of this plan is to guide fire monitoring activities at Grand Canyon National Park, ensuring information is collected consistently each year. The Fire Effects Monitoring Program focuses on four monitoring types at this time—South Rim Great Basin Conifer Woodland, South Rim Ponderosa Pine, North Rim Ponderosa Pine, and North Rim Ponderosa Pine with White Fir Encroachment. Many variables are measured in each ecosystem, but the focus is mainly on overstory trees, pole trees, and total fuel load. Additional monitoring types are under development for North Rim Meadows and North Rim Spruce-Fir. A forest and brush type may be established in Great Basin Conifer Woodlands for future fires of high intensity. Undeveloped monitoring types are not addressed in this plan. The management of wildland fires depends on whether the fire is within prescription parameters as outlined in the Fire Management Plan. The fire will either be suppressed or managed as a Wildland Fire Use for Resource Benefits (WFURB) fire. Wildland Fire Use incidents are monitored and documented, but long-term fire effects are not studied under the program detailed in this document. This Fire Effects Monitoring Plan outlines efforts in monitoring all fires that occur at Grand Canyon National Park and in monitoring long-term vegetation and fuel load changes as a result of prescribed burning.

Grand Canyon National Park Fire Effects Monitoring Plan

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