Fire effects monitoring is used to examine ecological responses to fire over time and space. It is a critical piece in fire management planning to document the results, measure those results against future treatments, evaluate successes (and failures) and analyze the measurements against ecological, cultural, social and traditional values. Monitoring supports the story you want to share. This workshop helps you gets your monitoring program started as you learn what and how to monitor.
Course Goals
Using the field sites for visualization and discussion:
Learn how to develop monitoring objectives and a long-term monitoring plan. The monitoring design can be overlapped with the BCWS Fuel Management Survey Data Collection Standard, cruise plots, vegetation plots and any other exisiting survey or monitoring design you have.
Understand the various possibilities when developing monitoring protocols, e.g., frequency vs. density vs. cover.
Learn how to identify and write burn plan goals and objectives that complement your land management plans and values.
Practice setting up permanent monitoring plots and take measurements.
This workshop has been most successful using a real burn to practice monitoring; one field day pre and one field day post. Add an optional third day to pull your initial findings to complete a burn plan (using the BCWS burn template).
Audience: The participants do not need any fire experience to feel included, contribute and have fun. They only need an interest in the benefits of long-term monitoring.
When: This workshop is popular in the spring and fall but if you are curious about plant identification and presence, it’s best to do this when they are not in their cured state.
Contact to customize your workshop.