An effective monitoring program serves a number of critical functions and occurs continuously from the collection of pre-planning baseline data through analysis and sharing of long-term data. Monitoring allows for the determination of how treatments or actions achieve the park’s primary fire management objectives. Such evaluations are critical for the validation of current direction and fine tuning or redirection of future methods. Monitoring is a key part of the adaptive management loop, in which monitoring measures progress toward or success at meeting an objective and provides the evidence for management change or continuation.

Whiskeytown fire and natural resources staff employ both traditional and non-traditional monitoring techniques, including:

NPS Fire Monitoring Handbook (FMH) Monitoring

Fire Severity Mapping

Rapid Assessment Monitoring

Shaded Fuelbreak Monitoring

Click here to learn more about the monitoring techniques used at Whiskeytown.