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Monitoring and inventory to assess the effects of wildland fire is
critical for 1) documenting fire effects, 2) assessing ecosystem
damage and benefit, 3) evaluating the success or failure of a burn,
and 4) appraising the potential for future treatments. However,
monitoring fire effects is often difficult because data collection
requires abundant funds, resources, and sampling experience. Often,
the reason fire monitoring projects are not implemented is because
fire management agencies do not have scientifically based,
standardized protocols for inventorying pre- and post-fire
conditions that satisfy their monitoring and management objectives.
We have developed a comprehensive system, called the Fire Effects
Monitoring and Inventory System (FIREMON), which is designed to
satisfy fire management agencies' monitoring and inventory
requirements for most ecosystems, fuel types, and geographic areas
in the United States. FIREMON consists of standardized sampling
methods and manuals, field forms, database, analysis program, and
an image analysis guide so that fire managers can 1) design a fire
effects monitoring project, 2) collect and store the sampled data,
3) statistically analyze and summarize the data, 4) link the data
with satellite imagery, and 5) map the sampled data across the
landscape using image processing. FIREMON allows flexible but
comprehensive sampling of fire effects so data can be evaluated for
significant impacts, shared across agencies, and used to update and
refine fire management plans and prescriptions. The key to
successful implementation of FIREMON requires the fire manager to
succinctly state the objectives of the proposed fire monitoring
project and accurately determine the available monitoring or
inventory project resources. Using this information, the manager
uses a series of FIREMON keys to decide the sampling strategy,
methods, and intensity needed to accomplish the objectives with the
resources on hand. Next, the necessary sampling equipment is
gathered and dispersed to sampling crews. Field crews then collect
FIREMON data using the detailed methods described in this FIREMON
documentation. Collected data are then entered into a Microsoft(r)
Access database. These data can be summarized, analyzed, and
evaluated using the set of integrated programs developed
specifically for FIREMON. FIREMON has a flexible structure that
allows the modification of sampling methods and local code fields
to allow the sampling of locally important fire effects evaluation
criteri
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