NPS photo
Wildland fire is an essential, natural process in the Alaskan boreal forest and tundra. What at first looks like devastation soon blooms into a panorama of life!
A fire of moderate severity burned in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. It killed spruce trees but after the fire black spruce cones release an abundance of seeds. Young seedling black spruce trees are likely to establish in the first five years post fire. Cottongrass blooms vibrantly one year after the fire. Shrubs like blueberries, cloudberry, and Labrador tea re-sprout vigorously too. Mosses and lichens were consumed by the fire, but new pioneer species of mosses and liverworts may establish. Over time as the spruce canopy develops, late successional mosses and lichens will re-establish. Birds and wildlife species may take advantage of young nutrient-rich cottongrass and shrubs in recently burned areas. Read on below for more detailed research.
The purpose of the National Park Service, Alaska Fire Ecology Program is to understand the ecological effects of fire on the landscape. Fire ecologists collect and analyze information about the effects of fire on vegetation, fuels, soil, and wildlife habitat and the fire behavior associated with vegetation and fuel types. The results inform fire management planning, objectives, and decisions.
Currant Creek Fire Ecology Tour
In July 2013, lightning ignited the Currant Creek Fire, which grew to nearly 1,900-acres in Lake Clark National Park & Preserve. One year later, a fire ecology crew visited the burned area to determine the fire effects on the vegetation and soils. See what they found through this interactive map tour.
Research
Fire science research informs fire management questions, decisions, and actions. The Alaska National Park Service Fire Management Program has collaborated with universities and interagency partners to study the role of tundra fires in Noatak National Preserve over the past 5,000 years and climate change impacts on fire. Research revealed that fire is a natural process on the tundra. Ecologists have also researched burn severity mapping in Alaska national park units. Burn severity influences vegetation patterns and succession after a fire. Read the Alaska Park Science articles below for more information.
Alaska Park Science, Volume 10, Issue 1
Projected Vegetation and Fire Regime Response to Future Climate Change in National Parks in Interior Alaska
Alaska Park Science, Volume 10, Issue 1
The Burning Tundra: A Look Back at the Last 6,000 Years of Fire in the Noatak National Preserve, Northwestern Alaska
Alaska Park Science, Volume 4, Issue 1
Space-Based Burn Severity Mapping in Alaska's National Parks
What happens after a Tundra Fire (Noatak National Preserve)
Links
Denali National Park and Preserve Fire Ecology
NPS Fire & Aviation Program, Fire Ecology
Policy Guidance, Fire Monitoring Handbook, Data Management, Analysis, and Results, Adaptive Management in Fire Monitoring, Fire Effects Monitoring, Fire Ecology Contacts, Fire Ecology Stories, Research and more.
Alaska Fire Science Consortium
Fire Science
Showing results 1-10 of 35
- Locations: Wrangell - St Elias National Park & Preserve
- Offices: Wildland Fire Program
In July 2024, fire ecologists re-visited a study area an in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve that burned twice in rapid series. The 2009 Chakina Fire burned ~ 56,000 acres in the Chitina River Valley. A mere seven years later, a third of the Chakina fire area reburned in the 2016 Steamboat Fire.
- Locations: Denali National Park & Preserve
- Offices: Fire and Aviation Management, Wildland Fire Program
Northern Arizona University (NAU) graduate student Matt Behrens, with assistance from the NPS Alaska Western Area Fire Management Fire Ecology team, instrumented several of the piles with high-heat temperature sensors to record the flux of heat into the soil column. A first look at retrieved data showed a several hour delay in the transfer of heat through the organic-rich duff layers, and minimal soil heating effects beyond the pile edge.
- Locations: Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, Cape Krusenstern National Monument, Gates Of The Arctic National Park & Preserve, Kobuk Valley National Park, Noatak National Preserve
- Offices: Fire and Aviation Management, Wildland Fire Program
Fires in the tundra happen less often than in the boreal forest. Fires can be sporadic and widely distributed. The years between fire events, called fire return intervals, vary widely from 30 years to over 1,000 years in the tundra.
- Locations: Wrangell - St Elias National Park & Preserve
- Offices: Wildland Fire Program
The NPS Alaska Eastern and Western Area Fire Management ecology teams installed thirteen ecological monitoring plots around two native allotments, located within the legislated boundary of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. The ecology teams were also interested in learning more about the fire history in the area. While collecting data, they observed evidence of previous wildfire.
- Locations: Yukon - Charley Rivers National Preserve
- Offices: Wildland Fire Program
NPS fire ecology teams installed paired monitoring plots in a fuel break and surrounding natural forest. The information gathered from these monitoring plots will help inform decisions about fuel break types as land managers balance the need for reducing wildfire risk to allotments with other park values.
- Locations: Denali National Park & Preserve
- Offices: Wildland Fire Program
July 2023 marked the 2nd year that the Alaska regional fire ecology program engaged with teachers from around Alaska in partnership with Project Learning Tree. Two NPS Alaska regional fire ecologists taught a segment of an educator workshop at Denali National Park and Preserve. The annual workshop is a continuing education program offered to K-12 teachers from across the state who are incorporating fire ecology into their classroom curriculums.
- Locations: Denali National Park & Preserve
- Offices: Wildland Fire Program
To address the limited understanding of fire history and fire regimes in the front-country of Denali National Park and Preserve, National Park Service Alaska Regional Fire Ecologists and University of Alaska, Fairbanks developed a collaborative proposal for research to improve the understanding of past fire regimes, vegetation, and spruce bark beetle outbreaks using paleo-sediment records from lakes and peat cores in and around Denali Park.
- Locations: Wrangell - St Elias National Park & Preserve
- Offices: Wildland Fire Program
The remote community of McCarthy, Alaska is surrounded by boreal forest within Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in south-central Alaska. In 2011, the National Park Service (NPS), in cooperation with the State of Alaska, conducted a 36-acre fuels treatment project that included cutting or trimming trees, creating burn piles, and more, to help protect the surrounding communities from fire. Fire ecologists designed a monitoring study to evaluate the treatment.
- Locations: Denali National Park & Preserve
- Offices: Wildland Fire Program
In June 2022, NPS Alaska regional fire ecologist Jennifer Barnes taught at an educator workshop at Denali National Park and Preserve hosted by Project Learning Tree (PLT). It was one of the many educator and continuing learning series opportunities that Barnes has led in Alaska throughout her career. The workshop, held at the Murie Science and Learning Center Field Camp, brought together educators from across the state to learn about the unique fire ecology in Denali National
- Locations: Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, Denali National Park & Preserve, Lake Clark National Park & Preserve, Noatak National Preserve, Wrangell - St Elias National Park & Preserve, Yukon - Charley Rivers National Preserve
- Offices: Team Alaska, Wildland Fire Program
Jennifer Barnes, regional fire ecologist for the Alaska Region of the National Park Service realized that a job as a fire ecologist combined the best of two worlds – the excitement of wildfire and love of science and ecology.
Last updated: December 20, 2018