Prescribed Fire in Olympic National Park
Collaborators:	Ed Schreiner, Sarah Beldin, Chris Catricala (USGS)
Funding:	USGS

Olympic National Park has planned its first-ever prescribed fire for late summer 2007. This prescribed fire is intended to mimic low-intensity, infrequent wildfires that have been suppressed for much of the century in dry Douglas-fir forests of the Park. The ecological impact of such fire restoration remains largely unstudied in Olympic forests, and prescribed fire can have especially intense effects on soils, since it is intended specifically to consume ground fuels. Overall, fires in this area of the Park are likely to be more common in the future as both restoration activities continue and as wildfire frequency increases because of climate change.

This work will examine the impacts of prescribed fire on plant productivity, soil physical, chemical, and biological characteristics, and nutrient leaching. Measurements build directly on baseline data that we have been collecting from the burn plot area for the past 4 years as part of a climate change study. We will: quantify fuels consumption of interest to wildlife biologists and fire managers, document nutrient leaching that may impact water quality, evaluate interactions between prescribed fire and climate change, quantify fire impacts on carbon and nitrogen budgets, and provide benchmarks against which to interpret future ecosystem recovery.

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