FIRE MANAGEMENT PLAN Environmental Assessment
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior ZION NATIONAL PARK UTAH FIRE MANAGEMENT PLAN Environmental Assessment/Assessment of Effect November 2004 This page intentionally left blank ii Fire Management Plan and Environmental Assessment ZION NATIONAL PARK Summary The National Park Service (NPS) proposes to develop a new Fire Management Plan for Zion National Park, Utah. The plan would guide the wildland fire program by providing management direction that would support the accomplishment of resource management and protection objectives. Fuel loadings and vegetation densities have increased in some areas beyond their range of natural variability. Some park developed areas and adjacent private lands are now at risk. Additional management intervention is required to reduce fuels that, under severe burning conditions, could threaten life and property, and to restore the role of fire as a natural disturbance across the Zion landscape. The current 1992 fire plan and the 2001 Zion Wildland Urban Interface Environmental Assessment/Finding of No Significant Impact contain objectives that allow for wildland fires in certain areas to be managed for resource benefits, limited prescribed fires to meet resource objectives, and limited manual hazard fuels treatments involving cutting and thinning to establish defensible space around values to be protected. Unwanted wildland fires are currently suppressed. The revised Fire Management Plan would provide strategies that include suppression of unwanted wildland fires, expanding opportunities for increasing the use of prescribed fire to meet resource objectives and improving fuel reduction treatments (mechanical fuel reduction and prescribed burning) that would enhance defensibility around structures. Two alternatives, a no-action and a proposed action/preferred alternative, were identified based on program goals and objectives; internal and external scoping; guidance from existing park plans; policy guidance from the NPS; the 2001 Federal Fire Policy and the National Fire Plan; and research, monitoring, and experience from the existing fire management program. Alternative A (No Action): Current fire management allows natural fires to influence existing vegetative ecosystems in Zion National Park when they can be contained within park boundaries, except when such fires threaten public or visitor safety, private lands, or structures. The existing plan also recommends that designated areas in the park, mainly on plateaus, be intentionally burned to maintain or re-establish natural vegetative communities and re-introduce fire into fire dependent park ecosystems. Alternative B (Proposed Action/NPS Preferred Alternative): The proposed action would allow for implementation of the full range of fire management activities, including wildland fire and fuels management. Wildland fire activities would include suppression and wildland fire use for resource benefit. Fuels management activities would include prescribed fire, mechanical, and herbicide treatments. The main focus of these activities and treatments as currently emphasized iii by national policy is centered on public and firefighter safety, communities identified as at risk from wildland fires (wildland urban interface), historic fire regime, current condition class, and collaboration with other agencies and stakeholders. NOTE TO REVIEWERS AND RESPONDENTS This environmental assessment is available on the Zion National Park Internet Web site at http://www.nps.gov/zion/ and is being distributed for public and agency review and comment for a period of 30 days in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act. If you wish to comment on the environmental assessment, you can mail comments to the name and address below. Our practice is to make comments, including names and home addresses of respondents, available for public review during regular business hours. Individual respondents may request that we withhold their home address from the record, which we will honor to the extent allowable by law. If you wish us to withhold your name and/or address, you must state this prominently at the beginning of your comment. We will make all submissions from organizations or businesses, and from individuals identifying themselves as representatives or officials of organizations or businesses, available for public inspection in their entirety. Please send comments by December 10, 2004 to: Superintendent Attn: Fire Management Plan/EA Zion National Park Springdale, UT 84767 iv Table of Contents Summary.......................................................................................................................................iii INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................... 1 Purpose and Need ..................................................................................................................... 1 Location and Description.......................................................................................................... 2 Historical Perspective of Fire.................................................................................................... 2 Land Use History ................................................................................................................2 Documented Wildland Fires ............................................................................................... 4 Fire History Studies ............................................................................................................6 Fire History Studies in Ponderosa Pine ........................................................................ 6 Fire History Studies in Pinyon and Juniper .................................................................. 7 Fire History Studies in Southern Utah.......................................................................... 7 Fire History Studies in the Southwestern United States ............................................... 8 Historical Fire Regimes and Current Condition Classes .................................................... 8 Vegetation Communities by Historical Fire Regimes and Current Condition Class........ 12 Legislative History.................................................................................................................. 14 Purpose, Significance, and Mission Goals.............................................................................. 14 Relationship to Other Plans .................................................................................................... 15 General Management Plan Zones ..................................................................................... 15 Laws, Policies, and Authorities .............................................................................................. 17 Goals of the Fire Management Plan........................................................................................ 18 Desired Future Conditions ................................................................................................ 19 Issues and Impact Topics Analyzed in Detail......................................................................... 21 Issues Considered and Dismissed from Further Consideration ........................................ 22 ALTERNATIVES....................................................................................................................... 25 Introduction............................................................................................................................. 25 Alternative A – No Action Alternative (Current Fire Management)...................................... 25 Suppression Fire Management Unit (9,430 acres – 6 percent)................................... 27 Boundary Fire Management Unit (32,991 acres – 22 percent)................................... 27 Conditional Fire Management Unit (20,801 acres – 14 percent)................................ 28 Natural Fire Management Unit (84,802 acres – 57 percent) ...................................... 28 Wildland-Urban Interface Areas................................................................................. 28 Alternative B – Proposed Action/Preferred Alternative ......................................................... 33 Fire Management Strategies ............................................................................................. 33 Wildland Fire Suppression Strategy ................................................................................. 35 Wildland Fire Use Strategy......................................................................................... 35 Prescribed Fire Strategy.............................................................................................. 36 Mechanical Strategy.................................................................................................... 36 Herbicide Strategy ...................................................................................................... 37 Fire Management Units..................................................................................................... 38 Suppression Fire Management Unit (33,236 acres – 22 percent)............................... 38 Management Strategies............................................................................................... 39 v Modified Fire Management Unit (30,689 acres – 21 percent).................................... 40 Management Strategies..............................................................................................