Evaluating a Fire Management Plan for Fire Regime Goals in a Florida Landscape

Abstract

Fire management plans (FMP) are complex documents that receive little evaluation of whether their objectives are met. We evaluate the Archbold Biological Station (ABS) FMP for goals related to the fire regime (area burned, seasonality, severity, and fire return intervals). The goals include increasing the area burned with prescribed fires, burning more areas during the May–September natural (lightning) fire season, and maintaining variation in fire severity. The ABS FMP is based on the concept of modal fire-return intervals (FRI) for each vegetation type that allow for variation in FRI in space and time. Our analysis uses detailed spatial data (5-m grid) on vegetation, fire extent, and severity. From 1967 to 2014, ABS increased area burned with prescribed fires. Over time, a greater proportion of ABS was burned with lightning-season fires. Burns had variable but mainly high severity. Fire severity varied with vegetation but was consistent over time. Vegetation slated for frequent burns tended to be behind schedule, while rosemary scrub, slated for infrequent fire, was ahead of schedule. The intermediate scrubby flatwoods, which comprise the largest part of the ABS landscape, had a FRI distribution that matched the FMP. The combination of fire mapping, FRI targets, and GIS offers a verifiable and consistent method of tracking fire regime goals in an FMP. We discuss inevitable tradeoffs in managing fire for multiple species and vegetation types over a large landscape and we provide recommendations for FMP monitoring and evaluation that may be broadly applicable to fire-adapted vegetation.