Virginia Land Conservation Assistance Network

Interagency Prescribed Fire Planning and Implementation Procedures Guide (2008 Guide) provides standardized procedures, specifically associated with the planning and implementation of prescribed fire. These procedures meet all policy requirements described in the 2003 Interagency Strategy for the Implementation of Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy. The 2008 Guide provides unified direction and guidance for prescribed fire planning and implementation for the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the National Park Service (NPS), the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service (USDA FS) as well as National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) partners the National Association of State Foresters (NASF) and the United States Fire Administration (USFA).

Executive Summary
Fire is an essential ecological process in many fire dependent ecosystems. In large areas of the country, fire exclusion from these ecosystems has led to unhealthy forest, woodland and rangeland conditions. These areas are at risk of intense, severe wildfires that threaten communities and cause significant damage to key ecological components. As one component of fire management, prescribed fire is used to alter, maintain, or restore vegetative communities; achieve desired resource conditions; and to protect life, property, and values that would be degraded and/or destroyed by wildfire.

Federal Prescribed Fire Programs are guided by the principles of the 1995 Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy and Program Review and the 2001 update. Collectively these principles establish that wildfire suppression, wildland fire use, and prescribed fire programs be implemented equally, consistently and concurrently, as a means to avoid fire risks. The policy emphasizes firefighter safety as a consideration in planning and a priority in operations (Wildland Fire Management Policy, June, 2003).

This guide supports the Interagency Strategy for the Implementation of Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy. It provides unified direction and guidance for prescribed fire planning and implementation for the Department of the Interior’s
Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the National Park Service (NPS), the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service (USDA FS). This guide partially replaces the original Wild land and Prescribed Fire Management Policy Implementation Procedures and Reference Guide (USDI/ USDA 1998) 1 which established consistent agreement between agencies regarding federal policy direction related to prescribed fire planning and implementation.

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