These photographs compare a vegetation plot at Everglades National Park, Florida, that has experienced normal fire frequency and intensity (top) with one that has not had fire for 30 years. With its unnaturally thick vegetation, the fire-exclusion site would require mechanical and other treatments before fire could be restored as a natural process. The Fire Ecology Program will provide support for fire management and restoration in park landscapes.

As a result of congressional funding of the National Fire Plan, the NPS Fire Management Program has hired more than 30 fire ecologists and stationed them at national and regional offices and in national parks. Most of these staff are qualified as professional scientific ecologists, having met the eligibility requirements for a series 408 ecologist; a few are working toward these qualifications through university graduate degree programs or continuing education. Impetus for the Fire Ecology Program developed from an increasing need for technical expertise in several areas:

	Collection, analysis, and interpretation of fire effects data
	Adaptive management
	Liaison between fire and resource management at park, regional, and national levels
	Collaboration with other government agencies and nongovernmental organizations
	Various levels of park management planning (general, resource, fire, and prescribed fire)
	Landscape-level assessments

The Fire Management and Natural Resource Program Centers called for the new emphasis on integrating natural resource and fire management. The Fire Ecology Program will work to provide the best science for managers addressing risks of how and where to apply fire on the landscape or to withhold it. In addition, it is working with the Natural Resource Program Center (NRPC) to design a workshop for developing conceptual ecological models, identifying desired future park conditions, assessing risks related to fire, and interdisciplinary planning. A pilot version of this course will be held in spring 2003.

The Fire Ecology Program has historically revolved around monitoring long-term ecological trends associated with prescribed fire in a limited number of national parks. The recent staffing increases will enable the program to provide services to all regions and many more park units. In addition, the scope of the program will grow to include monitoring fire effects for both prescribed and wildland fire and data storage and analysis. New fire effects monitoring software is being developed to facilitate broader analysis, including spatial analysis. The new application will support monitoring techniques and protocols associated with fire and resource management. All fire monitoring data will be archived in regional and national databases and made available over the Internet.

The Fire Management Program Center is hiring a fire ecologist to be located at the NRPC office in Fort Collins, Colorado. This position will manage the national fire effects database and the new software application and serve as a liaison between the Fire Management Program and the Natural Resource Program Center.

last updated 4/14/2004