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New Mexico

Biological Opinion on Bandelier National Monument Fire Management Plan

2005

In February 2005, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service field office in New Mexico issued a biological opinion regarding a fire management plan for the National Park Service's Bandelier National Monument. The opinion details the expected effects to fish and wildlife regarding th NPS proposal to implement a 10-year fire management plan there.

The proposed plan will guide all aspects of the fire and fuels management including suppression, wildland fire use for resource benefit, prescribed fire, non-fire fuel treatments (manual and mechanical thinning), and monitoring and adaptive management. The plan's proposed treatments should minimize the risk of wildfire damage to life, property and natural resources, including the threatened Mexican spotted owl and its critical habitat. Managing fire with fire in this type of forested ecosystem is expected to decrease the frequency and intensity of destructive wildfires.

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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.