Resilient Landscapes Stories

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.

In the eight years since the Strawberry Creek fire, much has changed in the area, with restoration efforts to bring back native vegetation, stream condition, and fish habitat.

In 2024, firefighters discovered evidence of a lightning-caused fire at Gulf Islands National Seashore. Dubbed the Pudding Fire, it had been naturally suppressed in an area where extensive mechanical fuel reduction and prescribed fire had taken place.

In 2024, firefighters burned 233,954 acres across Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park aided with nearly $5 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Years-long efforts paid dividends in 2024 with these public-facing burns sparking an immense amount of communication. This provided opportunities to highlight the role fire plays in the ecosystem and how the process works.

In FY'24, uncrewed aircraft (UAS) were used in Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve to provide an aerial view of the landscape before and after prescribed fires helping to learn how the burn affected vegetation. Getting this view from above has been helpful for mapping and gaining imagery for prescribed fire units and making firefighting a little easier.

During the 2024 fire season, wildfires impacted several National Park Service (NPS) units throughout the Pacific West Region. These wildfires threatened sensitive natural and cultural resources in each park, but a new generation of NPS wildland fire Resource Advisors (READs) was trained and ready to help protect the special values for which these parks were designated.

El Malpais National Monument successfully completed two prescribed fires spring 2024. On June 15, shortly after the conclusion of these critical fuels management projects at El Malpais, the park discovered a lightning-caused fire. Fuels reduction resulting from the prescribed fire provided a buffer that greatly assisted firefighters in fire suppression operations.

Following two large-scale wildfires in 2020 and 2021, funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and Burned Area Restoration (BAR) has supported giant sequoia replanting and restoration in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.

In 2023, interns collected and processed hundreds of thousands of native plant seeds at Lava Beds National Monument. In 2024, 4000 propagated native plants were planted at three sites to restore the land after the Caldwell and Antelope fires.

In 2024, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) provided funding for prescribed fire and mechanical thinning at Cold Harbor Battlefield. These initiatives reduced hazardous fuels on 32 acres while preserving the historic battlefield's appearance and protecting Civil War-era earthworks, wetlands and their buffers.