Rocky Mountain Conifer Forests

1
Rocky Mountain Conifer Forests

• Fire Management

2
Rocky Mountain Conifer Forests

• Alteration of Historic fire regime
• historically fires occurred on the interval of
  20 years surface, and 100-300 crown
  
• Post settlement humans extinguished all fires up
  until the mid 1970s
  

3
Rocky Mountain Conifer Forests

• Management issues

-Wildland Urban interface -Effects of smoke i
n the region -Potential for prescribed fire to
become wildfire. -what impact will the fire hav
e on vegetation -what is the best method for re
moving fuels, logging, or fire
-what impact will fire have on visitation of
the area -How will this fire be viewed by the p
ublic/media
4
Rocky Mountain Conifer Forests

• Fire usage to meet management objectives
• Reduction in fuels
• Restore historical fire regime

5
Rocky Mountain Conifer Forests

• Goals of fire management plans
• Maintain air quality standards
• Supress any wildfires that threaten the public or
  private property
  

6
Rocky Mountain Conifer Forests

• Prescribed Fire
• Can be a couple hundred acres up to several
  thousands of acres
  
• national interagency fire center reported
  assisting in prescribed burning over 2 million
  acres in 1999

7
Rocky Mountain Conifer Forests

• Comparison of historic fire and current
  prescribed fire
  
• Goal is to keep prescribed fire as close to
  historical fires as possible
  
• Size of fires has changed over time, due to
  current supression efforts

8
Rocky Mountain Conifer Forest

• Yellowstone fires of 1988
• Policy of letting natural fires extinguish
  themselves
  
• Eventually fires crews brought in to fight the
  fires. 9,000 firefighters at one time
  
• Over 700,000 acres burned