1. Rio Bravo Conservation and
Evaluating the Burn
Belize Fire Workshop
Rio Bravo Conservation and
Management Area
Scott Simon
Thank others - Tom Foti, Meryl Hattenbach, all of the burn and monitoring crews.

2. Burn Evaluation Objectives
Describe several ways to evaluate the effectiveness of the burn
Post operation report
Photo-monitoring
Post burn fire effects assessment
Plant community and faunal monitoring

3. Why evaluate a burn? Did the burn proceed as planned - operationally?
Did the burn accomplish desired objectives?
Is fire management, over time, accomplishing plant community structure and composition goals for the unit?
Are the prescribed burns, over time, achieving
landscape and program goals?

4. What do you evaluate? Weather Fuel conditions Timing Firelines
Equipment
Crew
Fire behavior
Public relations
Fuel reduction
Ecological effects

5. Weather Fuel Conditions Was on-site weather within prescription?
As forecasted?
Changes in weather during the burn?
Suitable for desired fire behavior?
Were the fuel condition within plan guidelines?
Were the plan guidelines adequate?

6. Equipment Firebreaks Was the equipment in the plan available?
Did the equipment work?
Was the equipment appropriate?
Were the firebreaks installed as planned?
Were the firebreaks wide enough to hold the fire?
Were hazards along the line minimized?

7. Crew and Briefing Timing
Did the burn start on time?
Was the perimeter fire ignited within the predicted time?
Did the unit burn out as scheduled and expected?
Were the crew number, training, and assignments appropriate?
Did the crew understand what they were doing?

8. Smoke? What smoke? Public Relations
Desired fire behavior
Was the rate of spread, fire intensity, and flame lengths as predicted?
Smoke? What smoke?
Was smoke behavior as predicted?
Public Relations
Were the public interactions safe, informative
and satisfactory to all?

9. Did The Burn Meet Burn Objectives?
Burn Severity - Organic Substrate
Light - Litter partially blackened, duff unchanged
Moderate - Litter partially consumed, upper duff burned
Heavy - Litter and duff consumed, leaving white ash, duff deeply burned
Coverage
Char height
Char degree
Scorch height
Scorch percent
Substrate severity
Understory severity

10. Burn Severity - Understory
Light - Foliage scorched and attached to twigs
Moderate - Foliage and small stems consumed
Heavy - All plant parts consumed leaving some or no major stems/trunks
Mortality from the burn
Previous fire got this patchiness so not great for fescue control but
Where there any surprises???

11. Recommend Plan Adjustments
How make burn safer and smoother in the future?
How change prescription to achieve objectives?
General recommendations for future burns at this site.

12. Flora and fauna monitoring to determine 2nd order effects
Plant community structure and composition
Plant community mosaic (size, shape, patterns)
Fauna (sensitive species, indicator species)
Rel. freq., cover, and dom. summarized in I.V.
Correlate with severity, seasonality, frequency of burns - fire regime

13. Fire Program Goals Acres burned per year Safety Cost
Status of species of concern
Fuel reduction
Public perceptions
A good post burn evaluation