Partnerships

The establishment, maintenance, and promotion of partnerships both within and outside the agency are critical to ensuring long-term NPS fire management program success. The guiding principles of the NPS Wildland Fire Management Program Strategic Plan state that "partnerhips with federal, state, local, and tribal entitities are promoted in order to achieve the greatest benefits for park resources and the public" and that it is also important to "promote interdisciplinary partnerships". For specific guidance, the NPS fire management reference manual (RM-18) includes a chapter decidated to interagency coordination and agreements. Not only are these interagency relationships and agreements of great importance for the NPS Fire Ecology Program, but increased coordination and partnering among various NPS programs will capitalize on exisiting knowledge, data, and expertise to ensure the most effective agency programs.

Fire Program Analysis (FPA) System The purpose of the Fire Program Analysis (FPA) System is to provide managers with a common interagency process for fire management planning and budgeting to evaluate the effectiveness of alternative fire management strategies through time, to meet land management goals and objectives. FPA will reflect fire objectives and performance measures for the full scope of fire management activities.

National Burn Severity Mapping Program The Joint NPS-USGS National Burn Severity Mapping Project addresses the need to quantify fire effects over large, often-remote regions and long time intervals. It reflects collaborative efforts to bring previous research into operational implementation for fire managers and scientists.

Inventory and Monitoring Program (I&M) As part of the National Park Service's effort to "improve park management through greater reliance on scientific knowledge," a primary role of the Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) Program is to collect, organize, and make available natural resource data and to contribute to the Service"s institutional knowledge by facilitating the transformation of data into information through analysis, synthesis, and modeling.

The Nature Conservancy - Fire Learning Networks Network projects cover more than 75 million acres. Operating at local, regional and national levels, the U.S. Fire Learning Network seeks to overcome barriers to implementing ecologically appropriate fuels reduction and restoration projects.

The Southeast Fire Ecology Partnership The Southeast Fire Ecology Partnership promotes training, education, research and collaborative projects in the area of fire ecology, especially in the Southeastern states.

Fire Monitoring Handbook
This handbook is intended to facilitate and standardize monitoring where appropriate for NPS units that are subject to burning by wildland or prescribed fire.