What We Do
The mission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's wildland fire program is to support the National Wildlife Refuge System's conservation lands. We are committed to integrity, accountability, safety, and resilience, to foster a service culture that protects neighboring communities and our natural resource treasures.
We have four primary focus areas for wildland fire management:
- Fuels Management: This involves reducing the buildup of flammable materials through techniques such as prescribed burns, mechanical treatments,
- and vegetation thinning.
- Wildfire Management: We remain prepared for and respond to wildfires, employing strategies to contain and mitigate their impact on natural habitats and nearby communities.
- Wildfire Prevention: Through education, outreach, and policy, we work to prevent wildfires.
- Post-Fire Emergency Stabilization and Restoration: After wildfires, we stabilize and restore affected landscapes, ensuring the recovery of ecosystems and habitats.
By focusing on these core areas, we uphold our commitment to effective fire management, safeguarding the public and biodiversity, improving ecological health and enhancing the resilience of our natural environments.
Management and Conservation
The Service uses prescribed fire to reduce risk of wildfires and improve habitats for wildlife. Click on one of the topics below to learn more.
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Fuels Management
Remaining Fire Ready
WiLDfire Prevention Education
Post-Wildfire Recovery
Fuels Management
We protect wildlife and people and prevent wildfires by carefully managing burnable vegetation on National Wildlife Refuges. In fire management terminology, vegetation that can burn—such as grasses, overgrown brush, trees, or logging debris—is referred to as fuel. Primary ways we reduce these fuels include prescribed fire and mechanical removal, such as cutting brush or creating fire breaks.
Fire is integral to entire ecosystems, benefiting plants, animals, and habitats from the forest floor to the tree canopy. Low-intensity prescribed fires rejuvenate flowers crucial for endangered species like the Karner blue butterfly and monarch butterflies. Scorched tree trunks provide nesting sites for birds such as red-headed woodpeckers and maternity colonies for bats, including the Indiana and tricolored bats. Woodpeckers and bats also forage on increased numbers of invertebrates following fires.
Prescribed fire plays a crucial role in supporting sensitive species. At Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge in Texas, prescribed burns are used to stimulate the growth of milkweed and nectar plants vital for monarch butterflies and other native pollinators.
Similarly, in the Southeast, prescribed fire is essential for maintaining the health of longleaf pine forests, for species like the gopher tortoise and red-cockaded woodpecker. Collaboration with conservation partners has proven successful at Carolina Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge in South Carolina, Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia and St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge in Florida, where prescribed fires enhance longleaf pine habitats. As a result, the red-cockaded woodpecker was proposed for downlisting from endangered to threatened in 2020.
At National Key Deer Refuge in Florida, regular prescribed fires are used to preserve rare pine-rockland habitat, which supports threatened and endangered species, including the Key deer.
Prescribed fire is employed to restore and maintain savanna and related habitats in the Midwest, at refuges like Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin, Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge in Indiana, Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge in Illinois, and Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge in Minnesota.
Oregon’s William L. Finley and Baskett Slough National Wildlife Refuges provides upland prairie ecosystems for wildlife species at risk, like the Fender’s blue butterfly. In 2000, this butterfly was added to the endangered species list, due to its dwindling numbers. The Fender’s blue butterfly rely on Kincaid’s lupine, a perennial flower that grows in upland prairies. Upland prairies, composed of grasses and forbs, eventually give way to shrubs and trees, unless something interrupts the process. That disturbance historically came in the form of fires managed by the Kalapuya people, who burned prairies regularly to sustain hunting practices and plant communities. Without fire, prairie habitat transforms, pushing out flower plants like Kincaid’s lupine for woody and invasive plant species. Service fire personnel at the refuges regularly burn sections of surrounding prairie to bring back historical burning practices. Although still listed as Endangered, these steps have increased the Fender’s blue butterfly population.
Fire on Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska is essential to maintaining healthy plant and wildlife communities. The Yukon Flats boreal forest is an excellent example of a fire-dependent ecosystem that experiences repetitive, long-term cycles of burning and regeneration. Disturbance by fire maintains a diversity of plant species by interrupting natural succession and preventing the landscape from being dominated by climax species.
Remaining Fire Ready
In many ecosystems, wildfire plays a vital role as a natural process. However, when wildfires occur, they can pose significant threats to refuge habitats, infrastructure, and nearby communities.
A significant focus of our wildland fire management efforts is on protecting communities and wildlife habitat. Where these two meet is called the wildland-urban interface. We work closely with federal, state, tribal, and local partners to swiftly suppress wildfires upon ignition. This immediate response, known as initial attack, is crucial for containing wildfires and prioritizing public safety. Safeguarding human life is always the foremost objective, followed by protecting property and natural resources.
Preventing catastrophic wildfires requires fostering community trust, promoting cooperation, and building strong interagency partnerships. Our fire managers actively engage with local officials, participate in community events and meetings, and educate various groups and individuals about fire safety and management practices.
Maintaining fire-readiness is ensures rapid response to wildfire. We maintain readiness by ensuring all firefighters are highly trained and prepared for wildfire assignments. Every year, fire personnel complete comprehensive training programs to stay current on fire suppression techniques and safety protocols.
Ensuring all firefighting equipment is in optimal condition is also crucial to remaining wildfire response ready. The Service invests in the best available firefighting tools and technology, such as fire-resistant clothing, specialized vehicles, water pumps, and aerial resources like helicopters and drones for monitoring and suppressing wildfires. Regular maintenance and inspections of this equipment ensure reliability and effectiveness and ensure safety of fire personnel when on the fireline.
We continually maintain previously accomplished fuels treatment areas. We work with local communities to clear brush, remove dead vegetation, and implement prescribed fires to manage fuel loads. To ensure the safety of communities, wildlife, and ecosystems from the impacts of wildfire we maintain close coordination with other fire agencies.
To prevent or lessen the intensity of wildfires on U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service managed lands we cut and remove excess vegetation, as well as use herbicides to treat invasive plant species. Reducing excess vegetation protects communities, as well as sensitive wildlife habitat. Continuous data collection through a robust monitoring program allows fire managers to tailor site strategies.
Several factors inform how fuels reduction is prioritized:
- Vulnerable Landscapes: We collaborate with partners and communities to better understand the ecological and cultural significance of landscapes. We identify and prioritize areas most vulnerable to wildfire, such as critical wildlife habitats, fragile ecosystems, culturally significant sites, and community infrastructure.
- Wildfire Potential: We conduct thorough assessments of local wildfire risks, taking into account historical fire patterns and the current condition of fire-prone areas.
- Partnering for Success: We collaborate with external organizations to combine resources and expertise across jurisdictions for effective and efficient fire management.
- Risk Mitigation Strategies: Fire managers select and implement the most suitable treatments to mitigate wildfire risks, according to the unique conditions of each landscape.
This comprehensive approach underscores our commitment to safeguarding both natural and human communities from the devastating impacts of wildfires through proactive management and collaboration.
Wildfire Prevention Education
We help to prevent wildfires through education programs and community outreach. Across the country, we participate in educational campaigns to raise awareness about wildfire risks and promoting safe practices. These programs teach school children, homeowners, and landowners how to minimize fire hazards.
A key part of wildfire prevention is realized through engagement with communities. We foster partnerships and collaboration with communities, especially those adjacent to fire prone national wildlife refuges. These interactions with community members build a culture of fire prevention and encourage communities to adopt fire-safe practices.
Post-Wildfire Recovery
Post-wildfire recovery encompasses two phases: Emergency Stabilization and Burned Area Rehabilitation. These efforts prevent further degradation of natural and cultural resources, restore fire-affected landscapes, and facilitate long-term ecological recovery.
- Emergency Stabilization focuses on immediate measures to halt additional harm to natural and cultural resources, while also safeguarding human life and property.
- Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) is a standardized approach used across federal wildland fire management agencies. BAER teams assess wildfire impacts and swiftly implement emergency stabilization treatments within one year and 21 days of ignition. These actions mitigate ongoing threats to natural and cultural resources, reduce fire-related risks to communities, and repair essential infrastructure to prevent further environmental degradation.
- Burned Area Rehabilitation (BAR) efforts, mandated within five years of a wildfire, focus on restoring fire-damaged lands that are unlikely to regenerate naturally. BAR activities include repairing or enhancing landscapes to support ecological recovery and replacing minor infrastructure damaged by fire.
- Suppression Activity Damage Repair addresses immediate repairs to infrastructure and environmental impacts caused during wildfire suppression efforts. These actions, critical for minimizing post-fire environmental disruption, are typically initiated during or immediately after containment.
Through these coordinated efforts, Department of the Interior firefighting agencies ensure effective management of wildfire aftermath, promoting resilience and recovery across impacted landscapes.
