Fuels Management

Though fire has a role in Alaska ecosystems, climate change is causing wildlfires to become even more intense and widespread. With these changes, the managmeent decisons made by park staff become more important than ever. To make informed and strategic choices, NPS managers follow theResist-Accept-Direct (RAD) Framework:

• Resist - the focus is placed on maintaining current ecosystems and preventing change.
• Accept - Changing ecosystems are accepted and managers do not intervene.
• Direct - Mangagers acknowledge that change is occuring and steer changes towards a particular goal.

Using this framework, park managers may decide to resist change by preventing or actively fighting wildfires, or accept change by letting fires burn their course, especially in the backcountry. Due to unpredictable climate change factors, managers are now faced with complex decisions; accepting fire as a natural regime while directing where fire burns. A management strategy used to achieve both of these objectives is accomplished via fuels reduction or prescribed fire.

Here in Denali, wildfires in the backcountry are often actively monitored and allowed to play their natural role in the ecosystem if they do not pose a threat to safety or resources. Sometimes, defensible spaces are created around backcountry cabins to protect them from burning, much like the New Birch Creek cabin. In the frontcountry, park staff work to protect park infrastructure from wildfire by managing fuels. Denali was the first park in Alaska to implement large fuel reduction treatments. These treatments are completed by thinning flammable vegetation and limbing lower branches of trees to reduce ladder fuels and fire risk around park buildings. This debris is then piled and burned at a later date.

More Information:

• Read more on our Living with Fire Page
• Fuels Reduction in Alaska's National Parks
• Reducing Fire Risk in Denali and Wrangell-St. Elias
• Boreal Forest Ecology and Wildland Fire Fuel Treatments
• Collaboration between NPS Alaska Region Fire Management Staff and BLM Alaska Fire Service