Flooding has subsided in Eagle, a town of 100 people just south of Yukon-Charley Rivers NP and home to NPS employees and the park’s administrative office. When breakup began on the Yukon River on May 18th, ice jams caused flooding to the historic town. As of May 21st, ice remains jam-packed between Belle Isle and Eagle and huge chunks of ice, nearly 30 feet thick, sit on the shore. Efforts to reopen the road to Eagle Village were underway yesterday afternoon, with crews employing heavy equipment to clear a path through debris. Residents are aware of and prepared for a surge of water that is headed towards Eagle from the breakup of the Stewart River in Canada and big chunks of ice from the Fortymile River. For more information, see the Yukon-Charley Rivers Facebook page and the Alaska Region Facebook page.
[Submitted by Morgan Warthin, Regional Wildland Fire Communications & Education Specialist]


Mount Rainier National Park (WA)
Three Climbers Rescued From Mountain

On the afternoon of Saturday, May 18th, a party of three climbers was ascending Liberty Ridge near the Mount Rainier summit when a small avalanche swept away the lead climber and emplaced fall protection failed. Self-arrest efforts by the group’s third member halted the descent of the entire group. Despite the lead climber’s sustaining an angulated left lower leg fracture, the three climbers were able to reach the top of Liberty Cap.  On the morning of May 19th, they contacted a climbing guide-led party on the summit. Members of that group reported the incident to park dispatch via radio, assisted two of the injured climbers down to Camp Muir, and remained on-site at Liberty Cap with the climber suffering the leg fracture. He was extricated via an aviation-based rescue involving park mountaineering rangers and a Chinook helicopter from the USAR 214th General Services Aviation Battalion and then air transported to Madigan Military Hospital at Joint Base Lewis McChord. A simultaneous ground-based rescue of the two other members of the party was also necessary.  This portion of the operation involved four Mount Rainier rangers sledding one of the patients with significant frostbite injuries down from Camp Muir to the Paradise parking area in an Ajkia litter.  This patient was then transported by NPS ambulance from Paradise, transferred outside the park to a mutual aid Pierce County ambulance, and ultimately taken to Harbor View Hospital in Seattle.  The third member of the party, who had only minor exposure-related complaints, was ambulatory and successfully walked out with the ground litter team and ultimately was released against medical advice.  The incident was managed under a Type 4 ICS structure.
[Submitted by Patti Wold, Public Information Officer]


New River Gorge National River (WV)
Woman Struck And Killed By Train

On Monday afternoon, an unidentified homeless woman was walking along the CSX mainline railroad tracks in New River Gorge National River when she was struck by a freight train and killed. The initial investigation revealed that she had her head covered by a blanket during a heavy rain storm as she walked along the tracks. Engineers sounded horns on the train and attempted to brake, but she did not react in time to avoid being struck by a portion of the lead locomotive. Rangers are working to identify the woman and are conducting a joint investigation into the accident with CSX detectives.
[Submitted by Jeff West, Chief Ranger]


FIRE MANAGEMENT

National Fire Activity – Preparedness Level 1

NIFC is at PL 1. Activity remains centered in Arizona and southern California.

Fire Weather Forecast

An upper low over the Northwest will continue to drift slowly through the region. Scattered showers and possibly a few thunderstorms will move across the Northwest and northern Rockies. Meanwhile, an amplifying ridge over the Rockies will increase southwesterly flow over the Southwest, bringing dry and windy conditions to the region. In the East, a frontal system stretching from the Great Lakes to eastern Texas will continue to produce strong thunderstorms from the Mississippi Valley to the East coast. Temperatures will cool across the northwest quarter of the nation. Very warm conditions will continue across most of the Southwest, the southern Plains and the East.

To see a NOAA map of today’s critical fire weather areas, click on this link: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/fire_wx/fwdy1.html

Fire Summary (Five Day Trend)

Date	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri
Day	5/20	5/21	5/22	5/23	5/24
Initial Attack Fires	245	91	89	--	--
New Large Fires	5	0	0	--	--
Large Fires Contained	4	0	2	--	--
Uncontained Large Fires	6	4	2	--	--

National Resource Commitments (Five Day Trend)

Date	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri
Day	5/20	5/21	5/22	5/23	5/24
Area Command Teams	0	0	0	--	--
NIMO Teams	0	0	0	--	--
Type 1 Teams	1	1	0	--	--
Type 2 Teams	0	0	0	--	--

NPS Fire Summaries

Park	State	Fire	Type	Acres	Percent Contain	Est. Full Contain
Wrangell - St Elias National Park & Preserve	AK	WRST DEBRIS PILE BURN, BACKCOUNTRY CABINS	Prescribed Fire Treatment	As of today, 37 Piles and 6 acres have burned.		May 23, 2013
	Latest Narrative: The National Park Service fire staff has been able to complete the burns at Klawasi Cabin, the Kennecott area and Peninsula Mill. The Kiagna Cabin it is out of prescription, too dry, to burn and the Nizina Ridge has too much snow, piles are buried.

For additional information on all fires, check the following web sites:

• Archived fire news – http://www.nps.gov/fire/wildland-fire/fires/reports-and-archives.cfm
• Map of fire locations – http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/lg_fire2.php 
• Details on all current major fires – http://www.nifc.gov/news/sitreprt.pdf 
• Fire news and fire year in perspective - http://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/nfn.htm
• InsideNPS Fire and Aviation – http://inside.nps.gov/fire 
• InsideNPS Structural Fire – http://inside.nps.gov/fire/structuralfire 
• NPS Fire and Aviation - http://www.nps.gov/fire

The endangered island fox, which is one of America's rarest mammals and occurs only in Channel Islands, is on the verge of recovery.

During a five-year period in the 1990s, island fox populations on the northern Channel Islands declined by over 90 percent due to predation by golden eagles. Today, less than a decade after four of the six island fox subspecies were listed as federally endangered, biologists believe they are on the cusp of meeting the criteria for delisting. 

"The decline of the island fox population was so severe it caused biologists to shift from tracking fox populations to worrying about the fate of individual foxes," said Superintendent Russell Galipeau. "We are thrilled with this rapid recovery, which is one of the quickest recoveries of an endangered species in the history of the Endangered Species Act."

At the lowest point, in 1999, there were only 15 foxes each on San Miguel and Santa Rosa Islands – a catastrophic drop in fox numbers from 450 and 1,500 respectively. In 2000 there were fewer than 70 foxes on the largest Channel Island, Santa Cruz. Today there are about 1,300 foxes on Santa Cruz Island, 500 on San Miguel Island, and 600 on Santa Rosa Island, with each population having a 90 percent annual survival rate.

Saving the island fox from the brink of extinction was only one facet of a decade-long restoration effort to return balance to the ecosystem on Santa Cruz Island.

Between 2000 and 2006, 44 golden eagles were carefully live-captured and relocated successfully to the eastern Sierra Nevada. Today, they are infrequent visitors due to the absence of feral pigs.

From 2005 to 2006, over 5,000 nonnative feral pigs were eradicated on Santa Cruz Island. Feral pigs had attracted golden eagles as a new predator to the island, rooted up vegetation (including nine endangered native plants), caused massive erosion, spread invasive weeds, and destroyed ancient Chumash archaeological sites.

A five year program to reestablish bald eagles, which included the release of 60 eaglets from 2002 to 2006, has yielded over 40 resident birds on the northern Channel Islands. During this year's breeding season, at least six active bald eagle nests were identified on the northern Channel Islands.

Recovery of vegetation, resulting from removal of sheep and pigs, also contributed to improving habitat and supporting the recovery of the island fox.

"This recovery is a terrific example of what can happen when people roll up their sleeves to restore an ecosystem," said Dr. Scott Morrison, lead scientist for The Nature Conservancy in California. "So many scientists, managers, and partners had a hand in this and are celebrating with us today."

The Nature Conservancy and the National Park Service are continuing their partnership to preserve resources on Santa Cruz Island. In 2011 they began a project to restore what was once the largest coastal wetland on the Channel Islands at Prisoners Harbor on Santa Cruz Island. The project, which extends over nearly 60 acres of land, restores approximately four acres near the shore and nearly one mile of stream habitat in the valley improves habitat for native plants and wildlife such as the Santa Cruz Island fox, island scrub-jay, and migratory waterfowl.

• To view a restoration film "Restoring Balance-Santa Cruz Island," click on this link.
• To read a prior InsideNPS story on the recovery of Anacapa Island, click on this link.
• For more images of foxes on Channel Islands, click on this link.

Shiloh National Military Park’s interpretive film, Shiloh – Fiery Trial, was honored with a special jury award (first place) at this year’s Worldfest-Houston International Film Festival. which took place in April.

Worldfest, which began in 1961, is the oldest international film festival in the southern United States and the only international film festival in North America dedicated to independent films. Worldfest was the first festival to present awards to several successful film makers, such as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Ang Lee.

The Special Jury Award is the highest award presented during the festival, honoring creative excellence in each major category. Fiery Trial and its director, Chris Wheeler, won in the category of “Historical Short.” The award presented to the film is called a REMI, named for famed cowboy and western artist Frederick Remington.

Shiloh – Fiery Trial was filmed on location at Shiloh Battlefield in late March and early April of 2011 by Great Divide Pictures out of Colorado. The film debuted in April 2012 during the sesquicentennial commemoration of the battle of Shiloh and was distributed nationally to PBS stations across the United States. To this date, Shiloh – Fiery Trial is the only National Park Service movie that has been televised nationally.
[Submitted by Chris Mekow]


PARKS AND PEOPLE

Christine Arato, who is currently the Servicewide program coordinator for the Bicentennial of the War of 1812 Commemoration, has been hired as Northeast Region's regional historian. She brings more than a decade of experience in operations, interpretation and education, and cultural resource management to the region's history program.

Priorities for the history program include collaboration with NER’s Division of Interpretation and Education and with national and regional history programs, particularly in coordinating NPS responses to the Organization of American Historians’ Imperiled Promise report.  

Christine plans to work with history practitioners throughout the region to identify partners for innovation and diversity in the stewardship of cultural heritage resources, to provide Learning and Development opportunities for strengthening the skills of NER history practitioners, to apply innovations in the field of digital humanities to the NER History Program’s mission and work, and to establish a regional oral history program.

Christine graduated with honors from Harvard University with a bachelor of arts in European history and an interdisciplinary master degree in the history and anthropology of American religions.  As a Student Conservation Association intern, she served as an interpreter at Theodore Roosevelt National Park and as a landscape historian with the Olmsted Center of Landscape Preservation.  After Peace Corps service in Morocco, she joined the NPS, contributing to planning efforts for New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park and the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area.

In 2001, Christine accepted her first permanent appointment at John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site, where she was a supervisory park ranger. Beginning in 2009, she served as senior historian and National Historic Landmarks Program manager for Southeast Region and as the acting chief historian for that region.  She also has held acting assignments in the Office of Legislative and Congressional Affairs and as the superintendent of Horseshoe Bend National Military Park, as well as a consultant to the World Bank.  

She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Career Academy for Cultural Resources, the co-leader of the Academy’s Historians’ Initiative, and a founding member the Best Practices working group for the Call to Action’s History Lesson.
[Submitted by Maryanne Gerbauckas, maryanne_gerbauckas@nps.gov, 215-597-0137]