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This chapter looks at developments of new fire management models during the 1970s and 1980s. Across the national park system, fire management planning moved to the forefront. A significant number of plans were written at parks as diverse as Mammoth Cave National Park and Antietam National Battlefield. The new emphasis on fire plans produced a higher caliber of document than ever seen before. Leading scholars played a key role, with many plan concepts stemming from their research.

This chapter discusses the implications of the fire at Yellowstone National Park in the summer 1988. The fire shattered the existing fire management program, illustrating not only the boundaries inherent in the implementation of policy, but the inability of current strategies to meet extraordinary challenge. In essence, conflagrations such as the ones that occurred at Yellowstone transformed fire policy from a science-based response to a political issue.

This chapter focuses on a revolution in the National Park Service's fire policy. The agency decided to allow fires at national parks to “run their course” so long as they stayed within pre-established boundaries and contributed to management objectives. The introduction of fire as a tool in NPS policy also reflected larger changes in federal philosophies and in American society in general.

This chapter discusses fire suppression after the Second World War. Fire suppression and a growing interest in the use of fire as a management tool collided, highlighted by new experiences within the park system. New ideas emerged throughout the park system and managers at the grassroots level began to experiment with new ideas. The experience of parks in the eastern part of the country also required a different set of precepts for management. The result was wholesale experimentation with fire in some eastern parks even as the Sierra Nevada parks, Yellowstone, and Glacier continued with the old suppression regime.

This chapter discusses the National Park Service's fire management policy after the 1988 Yellowstone fire. The NPS' efforts to mitigate fire and to plan for its management throughout the national park system met with great success during the following decade. The development of a national fire planning and management structure — the new standards that the NPS successfully implemented and the remarkable biological renewal of Yellowstone — combined to give the service's fire management greater credibility with the public than it had ever before enjoyed.

This chapter focuses on early fire management efforts of the National Park Service (NPS). Since its establishment in 1916, the NPS lacked the resources to deal with any major fire. The agency also failed to develop an overarching fire policy of any kind, and as a result, the response to fire varied from park to park.

This chapter discusses the impact of the New Deal on fire management. The New Deal provided the resources that changed the context in which the National Park Service operated. Federal largesse permitted the implementation of a significant fire suppression regime backed by enough work power and resources to inspire confidence in fire suppression in national parks. The New Deal also transformed conservation into a labor policy. Under its auspices, conservation programs ranked as highly as capital development ventures; both put large numbers of people to work.

This chapter asks how fire management and policies have changed since European settlement. It also describes the activities and events that have had the greatest effect on fire in California, why they occurred, and how they influenced fire regimes. The first significant impacts on fire regimes that the European civilization brought to California actually predate the arrival of large-scale permanent settlers by over a century. The removal of the Native Americans and their fire use had variable effects on California’s ecosystems. Invasive plant species have a greater impact in mesic conditions and at lower elevations than harsher alpine or subalpine ecosystems. An overview of some key historic fires from 1923 to 2005 is provided. Fire will continue as an important agent of change in many western ecosystems but one must strive to produce conditions where fire can become a positive force in most of California.

This chapter examines fire policy in the United States from 1995 to 2000 and describes the social and political problems caused by failed policies. It also recommends new directions for fire management. It suggests the development of a consistent national-level fire policy that should explicitly replace previous policies. This policy prioritizes the protection of firefighters and public safety, the maintenance and restoration of biological diversity, and the protection of property from fire through managing fuels directly adjacent to flammable structures. It also suggests the application of more useful management tools and that a national fire policy must have a clear and effective mechanism for delegating local fire-management decisions to local managers and citizens.

This chapter describes the Central Coast bioregion, which include coastal valleys and mountains and interior mountains. Major ecological zones include: coastal prairie and coastal sage scrub, coast redwood-Douglas-fir and coast redwood-mixed evergreen forests, and chaparral and oak woodland. The chapter outlines the ecology of several species and community types that, with the exception of coast live oak, are characteristic of the region but are relatively localized. In the coastal plain and foothills zone, the chapter reviews Bishop pine, Monterey pine, maritime chaparral, and coastal live oak forests and woodlands. Of the many species and community types characteristic of the lower montane zone, knobcone pine and Sargent cypress are discussed. It then evaluates the four important management issues that face fire and natural resource managers in the Central Coast bioregion, notably: climate change, fire and exotic species, the management of fire-dependent species, and fire management at the wildland-urban interface.

This chapter defines a new set of goals for fire management: protection of human life, maintenance and restoration of native biological diversity, and protection of private property from fire. It discusses how fire management can be improved by placing higher priority on the protection of human life and biological diversity of native species than on protecting property from fire. It also describes how these goals can be accomplished by the application of the following techniques: fire suppression, fuel reduction, and prescribed burning.

Fire is a fundamental driving force in the dynamics of fynbos. This chapter discusses the role of fire in fynbos shrublands but also covers other fire-prone or fire-sensitive vegetation types (renosterveld, strandveld, and forest) in the greater Cape Floristic Region. The biophysical determinants of fire, namely fuels, weather, and ignitions (with emphasis on lightning) are explored in relation to geographic and climatic gradients, and potential long-term changes in fire danger weather indices. Fire histories in protected areas are reviewed and recent fire regimes are characterized in terms of fire frequency, season, intensity, severity, size, cause, and variability in these elements. The considerable variation in fire regimes across the region are depicted spatially, as well as quantified. Abiotic responses to variability in elements of fire regimes are assessed, including that of soil, water, and nutrients. Information on faunal responses to fire regimes is summarized and plant fire survival strategies discussed in more detail, with emphasis on reproduction and persistence traits and trends in post-fire succession. The chapter also touches on the role of fire in determining vegetation boundaries (particularly forest – fynbos and thicket – fynbos boundaries); interactions between fire and herbivory in renosterveld; and the relation between fire and the invasion of fynbos by alien plants. Lastly, an overview is given of the evolution of fire management policies since the early twentieth century, providing context for observed fire regimes and the challenges experienced in contemporary fire management.

Highlights what is currently known about the history of fire and its impacts on the Serengeti Ecosystem. While much is known about the role that fire plays many questions are still unanswered. Fire is one of the main management tools used in the Serengeti Ecosystem. Considering what we do know about the role of fire in this ecosystem, it is still difficult to assess the efficacy and outcome of the management plan outlined above and many questions remain. Questions for further research should include; whether and how much prescribed fire is needed to achieve the management goals above? Do management actions conflict with goals? Managers would benefit from tracking their actions to determine if outcomes and goals were achieved. This calls for an adaptive management approach to assess if management actions are effective.

This chapter opens with a discussion naturally ignited fires and fire adaptations, which have evolved over millions of years. It then considers the role people have played over time in manipulating fire regimes, both locally and on a broad scale. Examples from diverse biomes such as the savannas and grasslands of South Africa and Madagascar, the forests of northern Europe and the grasslands and forests of North America provide evidence of the interactions between climate and human-set ignitions. The studies of the systems include analysis of a diverse range of evidence, including sediments, documents, and field evidence, analyzed using models that focus on patterns and processes of fire regimes under differing climates and human activities. The importance of perceptions of the role of fire is also discussed in terms of using fire for management, with examples of changes in attitude in North America from the 19th to the 21st centuries, which have led from seeing all fires as bad to valuing fire as a management tool. Analysis of the historical importance of human-set and natural fires has been critical to arriving at current management decisions.

This book focuses on the effective management of wildland fires in the western United States. It examines several factors that greatly influence wildland fires and then discusses the important and beneficial role of fire in western ecosystems. It also presents a historical overview of fire policy systems in the United States and provides some specific recommendations for future approaches to fire management and policy.

This chapter focuses on environmental education (EE) promoted at the Lomas Barbudal Biological Reserve, which lasted from 1986 through 1997. It describes the main outreach programs of Amigos de Lomas Barbudal, a nonprofit nongovernmental organization in Costa Rica. These programs include workshops on regional fire management, the training and development of local firefighters, and educational activities and projects that promoted fire prevention. The chapter also presents recommendations for future environmental education programs in rural communities.