The role of wildland fire in caribou ecology

Objective 2: Improve, maintain or enhance habitat diversity by managing naturally ignited wildfire. a. Complete vegetation mapping of the Buckland Valley Wildlife Habitat Area (WHA), that was initiated during Fiscal Year (FY) 82, by end of FY84. Rationale: At this time, the land cover on that portion of the WHA west of the Tagagawik River has been mapped from 1:60,000 scale color IR photos and ground truthed. Photo coverage of the remaining one-third of the area has been purchased by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). It will be necessary to complete this mapping effort to provide a fuels map for the fire management planning effort. b. Develop a fire management plan for the WHA by end of FY85. Rationale: A fire management plan, similar in intent to the Alaska Interagency Fire Management Plan for the Tanana/Minchumina Planning Area, will be developed by BLM, with input from ADF&G and adjacent land owners, for the WHA. This plan will allow BLM to select areas where natural fires will be allowed to burn when conditions are favorable. This action will reestablish a more normal fire regime, maintain habitat diversity, and reduce suppression costs. This fire management plan will either be developed as a supplement to this habitat management plan or as a portion of the Interagency Fire Management Plan that includes the WHA, depending on timing of the interagency plan. The interagency plan completion for the Seward Peninsula is not scheduled at this time but will be no earlier than FY85. Work accomplished on the WHA fire management plan will allow for reduced suppression efforts on public lands in the WHA prior to completion of the interagency plan and facilitate BLM input into the Seward Peninsula plan. c. Continue to monitor transects established for the Ulukluk Creek fire recovery study. Rationale: During summer 1981, transects were established on a small burn on Ulukluk Creek to monitor recovery of vegetation on the area. These transects were re-observed 11 days after the fire and in 1982. Continued monitoring of this area would add insight into post-fire succession on lichen dominated tussock tundra, an important area for study according to Klein (1982) who stated that "long-term monitoring of the responses of varying types of range vegetation to fires of differing intensities clearly should be a high priority of government agencies responsible for management of caribou range lands." Literature Cited: Klein, D.R. 1982. Fire, lichens, and caribou. J. Range Manage. 35(3):390-395.