News Release

Great Basin National Park Issues Finding of No Significant Impact on Fire Management Plan Environmental Assessment

Date: April 6, 2023
Contact: Bryan Hamilton, 775-234-7563
Contact: Christopher M. Amidon, 775-234-7521

BAKER, Nev. – The National Park Service (NPS) announces the availability of the Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) for the Fire Management Plan Environmental Assessment at Great Basin National Park. The public comment period for the EA was from February 2 to March 4, 2023. Alternative 2, Updated Fire Management Plan, was selected. Under this alternative, the NPS will:

• Use fire suppression to protect infrastructure, high visitor-use areas, and natural and cultural resources. 
• Manage wildland fires for resource benefit objectives and return fire to its natural role on the landscape when risk is manageable and acceptable.
• Reduce fuels on approximately 21,024 acres in the next ten years, using mechanical, manual, prescribed fire, herbicide, and revegetation techniques.
• Use fuel treatments to restore sagebrush, aspen, ponderosa pine, riparian, and wet meadow plant communities.
• Require project level compliance on all fuels reduction activities. Each fuels treatment will be subject to National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) Section 106 compliance review including but not limited to cultural resource inventories and consultations with interested parties including area tribes, the general public, and the Nevada State Historic Preservation Office.

This project will reduce wildland fire risk in the long term, allow more options for firefighting operations to suppress and control wildfires, increase vegetation resistance and resilience, and reduce wildfire severity.

The public can review the FONSI and associated environmental assessment at the NPS Planning, Environment, and Public Comment (PEPC) website at: https://parkplanning.nps.gov/FMP_FONSI


www.nps.gov 



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