Bear Lake NWR: Fire Monitoring Database

Under the Region One Fire hazardous fuels program, prescribed fire and mechanical/chemical fuels treatments are implemented to modify fire behavior by manipulating vegetation (fuels) to reduce fire hazard to communities, municipal watersheds, and key wildlife habitat. Legal mandates, policies, and the National Fire Plan (NFP) recommend or require monitoring to evaluate management actions, including hazardous fuels and prescribed fire treatments, in support of science-based decision making (adaptive management) on refuge lands. As with other wildlife and habitat management actions on refuge lands, monitoring to evaluate fuels treatments and prescribed fire is an integral component for implementing adaptive management. The Pacific Regional Hazardous Fuels Treatment Monitoring Framework (adapted from a standard developed by the US Forest Service [USFS] and Bureau of Land Management [BLM] in the Pacific Northwest in 2009) requires monitoring of hazardous fuels treatments for the Pacific Region. The Framework recommends fuel treatment effectiveness & effects monitoring. The primary purposes of monitoring are to quantify and evaluate the effectiveness of projects in meeting fire effects and fuel objectives. In order to assess if hazardous fuels were reduced, fuel loading pre- and post-treatment is estimated. Fuels inventory data are collected to facilitate accurate prescription development, to determine if fuel consumption objectives are met, and to relate fuel reduction to fire effects on other resources. Conducting a fuels inventory evaluates if the treatment implemented (prescribed fire or mechanical) was effective in reducing hazardous fuels.