Success Stories

Firefighters use drip torches to treat vegetation between a fence and Highway 207 in Carson County, Texas.

Successful management of wildland fire is a team effort. National Park Service (NPS) staff in Alaska have formed a unique partnership with the Bureau of Land Management Alaska Fire Service (AFS), which has helped to turn challenges into opportunities, and increased operational efficiency in utilization of helicopters for fire suppression. This partnership has benefited not only Alaska, but also the wildland firefighting effort in several western states.

The January 2025 Palisades Fire impacted nearly 20,000 acres within the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. A Department of the Interior (DOI) Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) Team deployed to the area to conduct rapid assessments to first identify values at risk and then prescribe emergency stabilization measures to protect those values.

Every summer, the NPS Structural Fire Program recruits and places fire protection engineering, fire protection administration, and fire investigation students in NPS sites across the country to assist parks with meeting their structural fire management responsibilities. These interns bring their knowledge of fire protection systems and prevention strategies to the parks; in turn, parks offer vital work experience that the interns can take into future careers.

The NPS Structural Fire Protection Internship Program is celebrating 10 years of park structural fire protection. The program provides work experience for students in fire protection engineering, fire protection, administration, and fire investigation while the students complete critical structural fire management responsibilities for the park. Join us on a photographic journey to celebrate the successes of this program!

Everglades National Park fire and resource management staff attended the 2nd International Congress for Coastal Protected Areas with Tree Island Ecosystems in Campeche, Mexico, in September 2014. The conference, held at Los Petenes Biosphere Reserve, focused on fire-prone, wetland ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico. This international collaboration reflects NPS interest in maintaining and restoring resilient landscapes.

The Tanana Chiefs Conference Fire Crew, which consists mostly of Alaskan Natives tribal members, joined with the NPS Alaska Region Eastern Area Fire Management Program to complete a fuels project in Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve during summer 2014 as part of NPS efforts to create fire-adapted human communities.

At 12:30 pm on Sunday, June 30, 2024, the Riley Fire was reported on Denali National Park and Preserve lands about one mile north of the park entrance, in the Nenana River canyon. Due to the extremely dry conditions, the fire grew quickly. Thanks to assistance from both local and out of state partners, fire protection agencies, and planning in advance for this type of scenario, the park was back to regular operations only 11 days after ignition.

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.

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.