Fire Monitoring Handbook (FMH Fire Management Program Center, National Interagency Fire Center) Part 1 - Wildfire and Wildland Fire Environmental and Fire Observation, Vegetation Monitoring Protocols

Fire is a powerful and enduring force that has had, and will continue to have, a profound influence on National Park Service (NPS) lands. Fire management decisions within the National Park Service require information on fire behavior and on the effects of fire on park resources. With good reason, the public is holding park management increasingly accountable, especially in the area of fire management. Federal and state agencies are instituting progressively more stringent guidelines for burning, monitoring, and evaluation. The impetus behind these guidelines and the purpose of this handbook are to ensure that management objectives are being met, to provide guidance that can prevent fire management problems from developing, to limit possible legal actions against the agency, and to ensure that all parks collect at least the minimum information deemed necessary to evaluate their fire management programs.

There are many benefits to establishing these standardized data collection procedures. Uniformly-gathered data will facilitate information exchange among parks and provide historical program documentation and databases useful for refinements of the parks' fire management programs. In addition, standard procedures will enable fire monitors to move to or assist other parks without additional training.

The fire monitoring program described in this Fire Monitoring Handbook (FMH) allows the National Park Service to document basic information, to detect trends, and to ensure that each park meets its fire and resource management objectives. From identified trends, park staff can articulate concerns, develop hypotheses, and identify specific research studies to develop solutions to problems.

This handbook is intended to facilitate and standardize monitoring for National Park Service units that are subject to burning by wildland or prescribed fire. This handbook defines and establishes levels of monitoring activity relative to fire and resource management objectives and fire management strategies.