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U.S Fish and Wildlife Assists in Fire Research

November 2008

Firefighters from the Sheldon-Hart Mountain National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon have been part of a five-year partnership with the Joint Fire Science Program study to restore sagebrush in the Great Basin. The refuge lies within the high desert country of the Western Great Basin, predominately covered with sagebrush and home to such species as sage grouse, mule deer and antelope.

Sagebrush has been declining on the refuge and throughout the west as non-native species such as cheatgrass take over and woody species such as juniper encroach and compete with native plants. This decline is due in part from a lack of fire occurrence in natural places, which would have otherwise had frequent, low intensity fires, due to fire being effectively suppressed over the last several decades.

As part of the study, researchers established test plots of sagebrush and treated them with different land management options, including mechanical thinning of shrubs, herbicide application, or burning. Other plots were left unaltered in order to determine the best way to enhance the sagebrush habitat.

For their part, firefighters ignited the areas researchers designated as burn plots.

Ignition of the site was a three-day process done primarily by hand with driptorches, which lay fire on the ground as firefighters carry them. On the first day, firefighters created a blackline where they burned along the edge of containment lines to create an additional buffer. The second day, they ignited the entire area within the lines.  The last day was spent lighting any unburned pockets of flammable vegetation that remained.

“Burning sites like this can be tricky because the spotty nature of the fuel limits how well fire will move across the area,” said Dave Walker Assistant Fire Management Officer at the refuge. “We have to burn with enough wind to carry the flames, but without so much wind that we have issues controlling the fire.”

Firefighters from the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management assisted the Service in completing the project. In all, 1,600 acres were treated as part of this study.

	Firefighters from the Sheldon-Hart Mountain National Wildlife Refuge lay fire on the ground to conduct a burn as part of a research project in sagebrush.

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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manages public land in every U.S. state and territory, including 547 national wildlife refuges and 69 national fish hatcheries.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manages 75 million burnable acres, including 24 million acres of forest/brushland and 4 million acres of grassland.

More than 50% of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lands in the continental U.S. (and more than 90% in Alaska) include fire-adapted ecosystems with vegetation dependent on periodic fire.

An average of 500 wildfires burn 260,000 acres each year on U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lands. The Service also burns about 300,000 acres a year using prescribed fire.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service annual fire program budget is approximately $80 million.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employs more than 530 permanent fire professionals, along with 270 seasonal and temporary fire employees during fire season.

More than 3,000 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees are qualified to assist with wildland fire management on an interagency basis.

The U.S. Fish and Wildland Service Fire Management Program protects more than 700 communities and wildland-urban interface areas.

Historically, an acre was the amount of land tillable by one man behind an ox in one day. This measures 90% of a football field. There are 640 acres in a square mile.

More than 90% of the hazardous fuels reduction by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is completed using prescribed fire.