Public Involvement

The National Park Service is committed to involving the public in its decisions on managing park resources. Links to any current public discussions are shown on this page.

• The public is invited to review the Fire Management Plan and its associated environmental assessment from January 20, 2021 through February 21, 2021. It can be found at: https://parkplanning.nps.gov/HOME_FMP_2021

• Contact Park Superintendent Mark Engler at 402-223-3514 for any other concerns about the park

You can also become part of the Homestead team by volunteering at the park.

 

Fire Management Plan

Homestead National Historical Park has prepared a Fire Management Plan and associated Environmental Assessment that will guide wildfire response and prescribed fire use at the park for the next decade. This plan replaces the former Fire Management Plan that was last updated in 2009.

Changes from the current plan include using prescribed fire within the oak woodland as a management tool and including grounds to the east of the Heritage Center. The woodland units will include private land in order rely on natural boundaries. One-hundred forty acres of land owned by the Friends of Homestead will also be included within the plan. That parcel is directly to the south of the park.

Tallgrass prairie and the associated oak woodlands rely on disturbance; weather patterns provide some of the disturbance with alternating periods of above and below normal rainfall and fire is another big part of the disturbance regime. Historically many of the fires would have been human caused; American Indians understood and used fire as a tool for hunting and management of their lands. This plan allows managers to continue using prescribed fire in the prairie and to start using it in the woodland.