America's
Priceless
Heritage

News Items:

GIS Fire Training project

"See the information below for a link to some really cool, on-line fire GIS training. The primary focus of this training is not GIS for incident support. Rather, the exercises provide examples of the application of GIS to a full range of Fire Management activities. Through each exercise, participants gain knowledge and exposure to a wide variety of GIS skills, applications and tools. I believe that this resource would be of value to anyone who wants to learn more about using GIS for fire management.The Northeast Region GIS Fire Training project is complete and available for download. The goal of this project was to develop an ArcView training course focused on fire-GIS applications for NPS personnel in the NER/NCR. The instructional materials and exercises that comprise this course were developed with assistance from Dan Hurlbert, Doug Wallner and Doug Raeburn and are designed to teach Park Service fire/GIS management skills to fire effects monitors, fire education specialists, fire ecologists, fire management officers, and fire program assistants with a basic knowledge of GPS technology and ArcView GIS software and some experience with MS Access databases. Key fire management skills covered in the course are spectral analysis using the ArcView Spatial Analyst extension, map design and layout creation, integration of GPS data with digital photography, and FARSITE setup".

Brian Sorbel

"With support from NPS staff, NC State instructors taught this course at Shenandoah NP and at Acadia NP during the summer of 2003. Approximately 15 participants attended each five-day class. Teaching methods included exercises and fieldwork.

The following is available for download at http://www.nps.gov/gis/av8_fire/ :

An ArcView GIS training course on fire GIS application, "GIS Mapping and Analysis for Fire Specialists" , including a class workbook containing the following exercises:
Exercise 1: Creating Prescribed Burn Area Informaition for Fire Effects Monitors
Exercise 2: Working with Composite Burn Index and Normalized Burn Ration Data
Exercise 3: Woodland Home Forest Fire Hazard Rating in the Wildland Urban Interface
Exercise 4: Health Assessment of Maritime Spruce-Fir Forest Populations
Exercise 5: Creating Input Layers for FARSITE using Spatial Analyst"

Dan Hurlbert
SHEN GIS Specialist
540.999.3302

Post-fire analysis

Post-fire analysis involves assessing the damage and potential risks burnt land poses and developing emergency stabilization and rehabilitation plans that identify needed treatments to reduce or eliminate those risks.
Short-term emergency treatment to stabilize burnt land that threatens public safety, property, or ecosystems or long-term treatments to rehabilitate land unlikely to recover naturally is the subject of a recently released General Accounting Office report. See the GAO report entitled "Wildland Fires: Better Information Needed on Effectiveness of Emergency Stabilization and Rehabilitation Treatments".

Fire mitigation planning

A group of students from Centennial Junior High (Montrose) developed an actual fire mitigation plan for residences located within the wildland/urban interface zone. There are links to additional fire education materials following the main feature article.

Resources for Cultural Fire Personnel:

Brent Buenger's dissertation on fire effects to cultural resources

Effects of retardant on historic resources

Mesa Verde National Park Historical Architect, Don Corbeil offers an outstanding presentation on the effects of retardant on historic resources in his report :" Investigating Fire Suppression Impacts on Historic Resources Lessons learned from the Long Mesa Fire of 2002".

American Indian use of fire in ecosystems - Bibliography

Gerald W. Williams, Ph.D., National Historian for the USDA Forest Service has put together a rather large bibliography (107 pages) on the American Indian use of fire in ecosystems. Dr. Williams reports that "The bibliography has an introduction, about 95 pages of references (some annotated),followed by a list of every tribe/band that I could find that has documentation regarding ire in ecosystems. Very compelling evidence that most of the forests and prairies were regularly burned for thousands of years by the Indians. If you are interested, drop me a note. Jerry - P.O. Box 96090Washington, DC 20090 (202-205-0958) gwilliams02@fs.fed.us"

Addressing the data requirements for Fire issues regarding Archaeology and History (Cultural Heritage)

Information regarding Cultural Resources across the landscape that may be impacted by wildland fires is a dire need for Fire Management and a requirement in the National Fire Plan. BLM fire archaelogist, Kristie Arrington, shows how this database may be established in cost effective ways that will be useful in pre-fire, post-fire and during the incident planning. Such data constructs when merged with GIS provide great hope for meeting the challenges of Cultural Heritage management in a serious wildland fire environment.

GIS/GPS in support of Cultural Heritage Fire

At the National Interagency Fire Center, the "Fire and Archeology: Working Together on the Issues" meetings were held February, 24-26, 2004. Stan McDonald's presentation about "Idaho Datasharing", concluded with an introduction of Idaho's Cultural Heritage GPS/GIS equipment solution.

For information regarding GPS2GIS see National Park Service "GPS for GIS Workflow"

ArcPad extension for Fire is now available. See also other Fire Data Dictionary material. For other GIS/GPS material strongly related to Cultural Heritage fire support see the "Data User's Group"

The National Fire Plan emphasizes implementation consistent with the requirements of existing environmental and cultural resource protection laws.

The urgency of the fire risk on our public lands necessitates the need to conduct project planning and compliance activities in the most expeditious manner possible using the best available science.

To meet this demand, BLM hired additional scientific and planning staff in 2001. Among these new staff are 21 archaeologists. Distributed throughout most of the Western States, their duties focus on integrating cultural heritage issues with fire management planning, fuels treatment and fire suppression efforts.

Fire Archaeologist's Duties

• The fire archaeologists provide advice and assistance to land managers and stakeholders for devising approaches that address fire management issues in ways that minimize impacts and protect cultural resources to the extent practicable.
• They accomplish this through a variety of means, including participation in project planning for fuels reduction and treatment to ensure legal obligations are met and to provide managers with needed expertise in cultural resource management.
• The fire archaeologists oversee contracts for identifying and evaluating cultural resources within fire management project areas.
• They are also available to provide assistance and advice to communities and property owners about strategies for reducing fire risks to historic and archaeological properties in Wildland Urban Interface areas.

More information about the National Fire Plan and the fire program may be obtained from the following links:

National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), BLM Office of Fire and Aviation, Firewise, GEOMAC,

Please direct any questions or comments about this page to Kate Winthrop