Wildland Urban Interface Stories

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.

Spring prescribed fires at Knife River Indian Villages NHS were conducted on May 15, 2023. Prescribed fire is an integral tool in managing prairie ecosystems. Knife River management staff has determined that the preferred alternative for the restoration of native prairie in these areas is to use prescribed fire in conjunction with re-seeding of native grass species.

After removing flammable vegetation around their property, private residents in the Kennecott Mines National Historic Landmark of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve requested that the NPS reduce vegetation on NPS lands adjacent to their property. In September 2012, NPS fire staff and a Southeast Alaska Guidance Association crew selectively thinned, limbed, and hauled away for safe pile burning flammable vegetation on NPS lands surrounding private property.

To reduce the threat of wildfire and ease prescribed fire preparations, the fire staff of the Great Lakes Fire Management Zone, based at Indiana Dunes National Park, constructed a permanent fuel break along the southwest property line of Dune Acres. This fuel break provides a prepared defensive break to protect the community from wildfire encroachment, while at the same time maintaining the northern edge of the 800-acre Cowles Dune Prescribed Fire Unit.

In July 2019, fire managers at Cumberland Island National Seashore took advantage of a recent wildfire to help manage a prescribed fire that reduced the threat of future wildfire to structures in the wildland urban interface.

Aiming to learn from the Chimney Tops 2 fire, a workshop was organized of emergency responders from in and around the Estes Park area. The overarching objective was to understand how local, county, state, and federal agencies would work together during a catastrophic wildfire scenario.

Acadia National Park’s fire managers reached out to meet Roosevelt Campobello International Park’s need for both a wildland fire engine and expertise for its wildland urban interface challenge. The successful completion of a wildland fire engine loan from one agency to another was made possible by the collaboration of individuals from parks in the Northeast Region of the National Park Service.

Staff of Saguaro National Park, Coronado NF, and Tubac Fire District burned ~5 acres of piles at Tumacácori National Historical Park in April 2014. The piles, which consisted of branches and brush previously thinned in the park, were located in the northwest corner of the park, adjacent to private homes. The fire supports the NPS goal of creating fire-adapted human communities.

Prioritizing fuels treatments that benefit the park and community can be difficult, because these goals may conflict in Big Cypress NP. Areas were defined as high priority if they have not burned for more than 5 years, lie less than 0.5 mile to the nearest structure or road, and are located within or adjacent to pinelands or prairies. Areas meeting these criteria were identified as requiring immediate treatment. In early 2012, approximately 45,000 acres had been treated.

Combined efforts by NPS and Teton interagency fire crews, with support from other park divisions, led to the completion of an important fuels reduction project along Signal Mountain Summit Road in Grand Teton National Park in summer 2014. The intent was to provide for firefighter and public safety and to reduce fuels around sensitive communications structures and equipment on the summit, creating more fire-adapted communities.