**U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Region 6**

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**North Dakota/South Dakota Zone**

**Tewaukon Fire District**

**Tewaukon NWRC**

**Kulm WMD**

**Waubay NWRC**

**Sand Lake NWRC**

**Fiscal Year 2005 Annual Fire Narrative**

Reporting station address:

Tewaukon Fire District Headquarters

Tewaukon NWRC

9754 143 ½ ave SE

Cayuga, ND. 58013

Phone \# 701-724-3598

INTRODUCTION

Fiscal Year 2005 is the 4^th^ year for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service Fire Management Program located at the Tewaukon Fire District.
This year marked a significant end to the moderate to severe level
drought that had started in June 2002 through October of 2004 had
radically changed the spring prescribed fire season of 2005 for all four
complexes within the Fire District.

The Tewaukon Fire District is headquartered at the fire base station at
Tewaukon NWRC. The Tewaukon Fire District consists of four different
complexes: Tewaukon NWRC, Waubay NWRC, Sand Lake NWRC, and the Kulm WMD.
This comes to a total of three National Wildlife Refuges and four
Wetland Management Districts for a total of 177,700 acres of fee title
land stretched across 21 counties in North and South Dakota.

The Tewaukon Fire District contains the largest land base (out of the
six fire districts in the North and South Dakota Zone) in the fire
management zone. The Tewaukon Fire District staff is responsible to plan
and implement all fire management activities (for both wild land and
prescribed fire missions) within the district.

The mission of the U.S Fish and Wildlife remains the same: **\"Our
mission is working with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish,
wildlife, and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of
the American people.\"**

Fire District goals and objectives include the enhancement and
maintenance of waterfowl/wildlife resources through species management,
fuels management, hazardous fuel reduction and Wildland Urban Interface
management through prescribed burning practices, habitat management,
wetland /habitat preservation and restoration and environmental
education.

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The Tewaukon Fire District participates in a wide range of activities to
accomplish its mission and objectives. In the following pages are brief
descriptions and actual accomplishments attributable to the fire program
during fiscal year 2005 which began October 1, 2004 through September
30^th^, 2005. The report begins with a summary of cooperative
interagency assistance between other stations and interagency
organizations during the fiscal year.

**INTERAGENCY COOPERATIVE ASSISTANCE**

**1). [Fire Use Modules:]{.underline}** No NPS Fire Use Modules were
available for the fire district this year for Rx burn projects.

**2). [BLM Resources: ]{.underline}**Two type 6 engines (BLM Engines 391
and 392) and six firefighter personnel were dispatched to the Tewaukon
Fire District in 2005. BLM Engine 392 was in the fire district from
April 23rd to May 6^th^. BLM Engine 391 was dispatched to the fire
district from May 17^th^ to May 24th from the Lander Wyoming BLM office.
They participated on 12 Rx burns at the following stations:

Sand Lake NWRC -- 4 Rx burns for 1,050 acres burned

Waubay NWRC -- 3 Rx burns for 840 acres burned

Tewaukon NWRC - 4 Rx burns for 852 acres burned

Kulm WMD -- 1 Rx burn for 32 acres burned

Total BLM assistance with **12** Rx burns for **2,774** acres burned.

**3).[Interagency Assistance]{.underline}**

The sharing of resources across agency boundaries continues to play an
important role in achieving National Fire Plan targeted prescribed acres
in the Tewaukon Fire District. The building of this relationship during
the year has given the Tewaukon fire district the ability to accomplish:

a).Multiple prescribed burns completed in a given day and the ability to
prescribe burn in multiple areas within the fire district
simultaneously.

b). Larger moderate complexity burns (i.e. Gunness WPA) that get
completed.

c). Interagency training and experience opportunities for various Tribal
Agencies, Bureau of Indian Affairs (The Sisseton Wahpeton-Sioux Tribe),
and the BLM.

d). Interagency assistance from other agencies (BLM, NPS, and the BIA)
to the FWS results in no station costs incurred on the individual level
for refuges. However the FWS does assist the other agencies with
firefighting assistance to return the favor across geographical areas.
All of these cooperating activities enhance landscape level fire
management operations in a productive and cost efficient manner.

**4).** **[USFWS - Tewaukon Fire Staff Assistance and
Integration]{.underline}**

Internal cooperation between National Wildlife Refuges and Wetland
Management Districts continues to build solid support for the fire
management programs in the Tewaukon fire district. Total firefighters in
the fire district in FY 2005 were 28. In contrast, the permanent fire
management staffing numbered at 4 firefighters. This comes to a 14 %
permanent fire management staffing percentage as compared to the total
(collateral and permanent firefighters) firefighter numbers within the
fire district. Bottom line is that for the fire district to operate
fully, efficiently, and safely with all fire management operations there
must be a total integration of all firefighters within the four
individual stations inside the fire district. This has been an ongoing
process for the individual stations (since FY 2001) to contribute
firefighters and fire budgets across refuge boundaries to assist other
stations in the fire district to meet prescribed fire needs and
accomplishments for fuels and habitat management needs. In FY 2005, the
fire district integration percentage was at 100 % with all prescribed
fire accomplishments involving both permanent and collateral
firefighters for all Rx burn projects.

**FIRE MANAGEMENT**

The Tewaukon Fire District has six separate but interdependent
responsibilities that address fire management and suppression. The six
functional program areas are:

1). dispatch and logistic support,

2). fire management and prescribed fire (including fuels monitoring)

3). fire prevention and training,

4). fire suppression,

5). fire coordination,

6). interagency cooperative assistance.

Wildland fires are unscheduled emergency events. Planning for fire
suppression is distinctly different from planning for other management
activities. It is different because there is no way the workload can be
scheduled. In fire suppression, there is no choice of doing the work
when it's convenient. Planning for fire suppression requires that
skilled experienced personnel and sufficient equipment are available;
firefighters know what is expected of them, that they fit into the team,
and that the system (teamwork) can be activated at a moments notice,
function immediately, and respond to the needs of the incident as the
fire grows in size and complexity.

**[Fire Suppression (off FWS lands)]{.underline}**

Multiple stations within the fire district experienced county burn bans
which significantly impacted Rx burning during the spring fire season of
FY 2005. Below are the following county burn bans which halted a large
portion of Rx operations for the following complexes during the months
of April of 2005:

ND-KMR -- Logan County (Kulm WMD)

SD-SLR -- Brown County (Sand Lake NWRC)

Also here is the breakdown of the stations that had cooperative wildfire
assists which worked with their local VFDs:

Tewaukon NWRC -- 2 cooperative assist wildfires for 158 acres burned.
Total staff days were 3. These wildfires were threatening the main
Tewaukon refuge and a Waterfowl Production Area in Richland County ND.

Total number of threatening FWS land wildfires and acres suppressed with
Tewaukon Fire Staff and various refuge collateral firefighter
assistance: **[2 wildfires for 158 acres burned.]{.underline}** Total
staff days were 3.

**FIRE SUPPRESSION (on FWS lands)**

During fiscal year 2005 (October 1, 2004 to September 30, 2005), the
Tewaukon Fire District Staff was involved on three wildfires within the
fire district (on FWS lands) for 2.1 acres burned. This is quite a
change from FY 2004, when seven wildfires burned 508 FWS acres. The
overall reduction can be contributed to pre-planned prevention measures
(sending ongoing drought and fire danger information to the local
newspapers) that the Fire Management Staff had used before the spring
fire season. Also the amount of precipitation we received (at Tewaukon
NWRC) in FY 2005 was significantly higher this year (43 inches in FY
2005) than in the previous years of FY 2003 and 2004 at 14 and 15 inches
prospectively. Normal average annual precipitation is 19 inches for the
Tewaukon NWRC. The wildland fire activity is broken down by the four
complexes within the fire district as a whole. Total staff days were 1,
for wildfire suppression on refuge lands within the fire district.

**[WILDFIRE ACTIVITY YEAR TO DATE]{.underline}**

Agency Human Lightning Number of

[or Unit caused caused Fires Burned acres]{.underline}

Tewaukon 1 0 0.1

Waubay 1 0 1

Sand Lake 0 1 1

[Kulm 0 0 0]{.underline}

**Tota**l **2 1 2.1**

[]{.mark}

**Interagency Wildfire Dispatches**

The Tewaukon Fire District also dispatched resources from the fire
district to assist in the national fire suppression efforts in Arizona,
Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, California, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Texas
on 49 separate wildfire incidents (on eight different dispatches), from
the Northern Great Plains Dispatch Center in Rapid City, SD. Qualified
and trainee positions that were dispatched are as follows: ICT3, ICT4
and ICT4(t), ICT5, DIVS, HCWN, HECM, EDRC, ENGB, FALC, FALB, FALA, FFT1
(t), FFT2. Total staff days were 93.

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**PRESCRIBED BURNING** (on FWS lands)

The philosophy of common ground and shared responsibilities is necessary
when it comes to prescribed burning within the Tewaukon Fire District.
Many firefighting agencies and cooperators do not have the ability to
achieve fire management accomplishments unless resources are shared.

In FY 2005, the Tewaukon Fire District Staff prepared and technically
reviewed 38 prescribed fire burn plans for the fire district (32
moderate complexity and 6 low complexity burn plans). The objectives
varied but can best be summarized into five categories; training, wild
land urban interface prescribed burn projects, hazardous fuel reduction,
resource management objectives to improve range conditions, noxious weed
control, and wildlife habitat enhancement.

Prescribed burning offers an excellent opportunity to test and train in
new fire fighting techniques and technologies. The Tewaukon fire staff
uses these prescribed fire operations to train for suppression missions
involving local, regional, and national levels. The prescribed fire
activity within the fire district, for FY 2005, is as follows:

**[PRESCRIBED FIRE ACTIVITY YEAR TO DATE]{.underline}**

[Station Number of burns Acres]{.underline}

Tewaukon 6 1,134

Waubay 3 840

Sand Lake 5 1,280

[Kulm 2 40]{.underline}

**Total 16 3,294**

Total staff days were 40. The five year Fire Base average for Rx burned
acres for the fire district is 3,214 acres annually. The above
accomplishments are at the 5 year average level for the fire district
due to the limited fuels management budget that was experienced for this
fiscal year. Fuels dollars per acre was right at \$5.00 per acre for
project dollars.

**Prescribed Burning (off FWS lands)**

Prescribed fire assistance off refuge lands consist of our local fire
district firefighting resources helping other interagency organizations
around the North and South Dakota zone fire management area to
accomplish burned acres for those fire operations involving Rx burn
projects. This enables our individual and fire district FWS field
stations the ability to achieve Rx burn accomplishments when it comes
time to burn our Rx units with no overall costs to our fuels budgets.
This development of that relationship also gives the fire district FWS
field stations the ability to draw upon the localized interagency
firefighting resources in a cost efficient manner without overtaxing our
local budgets. Each year the Tewaukon Fire District attempts to assist
our interagency partners with their Rx burn needs so that we can
continue to draw upon their staff and fire equipment resources in the
future for our needs. Another benefit to this concept is that the
Tewaukon Fire District staff resources can and does benefit from the off
site training opportunities that it cannot get from burning locally
within the fire district. This assists the Fire District concept of
training and development for our FWS firefighters off of local FWS lands
(i.e. getting valuable fire experience as a RXB2 (t) burning in another
fuel type or ecosystem). The following individuals participated with the
different agencies to assist with this need in FY 2005:

Tewaukon FD Fire Management Officer -- Strike Team Leader Crews (STCR)
on one Rx burn for 226 acres burned (NPS Devils Monument NP in Wyoming)

**Tewaukon Fire District**

**Fuels Monitoring Program development**

In FY 2005, the Tewaukon Fire District developed and implemented a fire
district wide fuels monitoring program to begin a simple yet effective
fuels management monitoring system to measure fire effects on biomass
and fuel loading (in tons per acre) across a large landscape for four
FWS complexes (Tewaukon NWRC, Kulm WMD, Waubay NWRC, and the Sand Lake
NWRC).

The Tewaukon Fire District Prescribed Fire Specialist was responsible
for the fuels monitoring program for all four complexes within the fire
district. In FY 2005 the PFS planned and implemented the fuels
monitoring program (over 40 plots were planned and implemented) with
supervision of the process from the Fire District Fire Management
Officer. The plots that were implemented were from burn units that the
fire district burned in the spring of 2005 (post monitoring) and the
upcoming burn units for the fall and spring of FY 2006 (pre monitoring).
The Tewaukon Fire District fuels monitoring program was developed to
effectively measure first order fire effects (FOFEM) for the fire
district. The fire district fuels monitoring program measures and
documents the following criteria:

1). Digital photo points pre and post burn plots (to show present
vegetation types before and after burning commences).

2). Latitude and longitude readings from GPS units per burn plot per
burn unit.

3). Duff layer readings in inches for surface and subsurface total fuel
loading measurements.

4). Dense nesting cover measurements from visual obscurity readings on
the robel pole per plot.

5). FOFEM 5.21 database data entry to produce documentation for total
fuel loading graphs and spreadsheets for each burn unit.

After the Rx burn operation commences for each burn unit that has fuels
monitoring plots then the documentation from the FOFEM database is filed
with each burn plan for that year.

**TRAINING**

We are currently cooperating with the North Dakota/South Dakota Fire
Councils to share training instructors and establish priorities on
courses offered each year. By organizing training courses on an
interagency basis, a substantial amount of duplication in training
efforts is prevented. Other training courses offered varied from wild
land firefighting evolutions to wildfire investigations.

In 2005, the Tewaukon Fire Management staff provided approximately 32
hours of wildland and prescribed fire fighting training to firefighters.
Total staff days for providing instruction were 4 days.

**Fire Training that fire staff instructed**

[Training Session]{.underline} [Number of Trainees]{.underline}
[Location/Agency]{.underline}

S-212 10 Tewaukon NWR/FWS

LCES 28 Sand Lake NWRC/FWS

**Fire training received by the fire staff**

ATV training 4 Sand Lake NWRC/FWS

S-130/190 3 Dickinson, ND/USFS

S-212 10 Tewaukon NWRC/FWS

Helicopter Training Academy 1 Grand Canyon NP/NPS

D-110 1 Rapid City, S.D./USFS

TFM 1 Bothell, Washington

TFM 1 Portland, Oregon

**INFORMATION AND EDUCATION**

**Range Fire Prevention**

In FY 2005, the Tewaukon Fire Management Staff utilized pre-planned fire
prevention messages (sending ongoing drought and fire danger information
to the local newspapers) to the local newspaper before the spring fire
season.

We are currently developing efforts to acquisition fire equipment,
monitor the rangeland and forest fire indexes, and warn the public when
the fire danger reaches the very high and extreme levels in eastern
North and South Dakota.

The Tewaukon Fire District and its ongoing activities include fire
demonstrations for public awareness and information during the local
Tewaukon Field Day program and the Go Wild at the Mall event. The
Tewaukon Refuge Staff has developed two fire exhibits that deal with
both prescribed fire and wild land fire roles within the refuge complex.
These exhibits will travel to fire meetings and can be used for
recruitment, information, and education purposes.

The Sand Lake NWRC fire management organization underwent some big
changes in FY 2005 with Tom Zick (Career Seasonal firefighter) being
added to the roster at that station. During the FY 2005 spring fire
season the refuge and fire management staff at Sand Lake NWRC
collaborated with local county fire managers in Brown, McPherson, ,
Edmunds, Campbell, and Spink Counties to inform them of why and how fire
management in the FWS (locally speaking) conducts such operations
involving prescribed fire and wildland fire management. Below are
excerpts which describe who and how the Sand Lake NWRC station conducted
these briefings with the local county organizations.

"Due to the ongoing drought in the district and the fire activity in the
area, many of our counties put burn bans into effect early into the
season. We decided to take a proactive approach and pursue the emergency
managers and the fire chiefs to inform them of what our program
involves. A lot of this comes from the fact that it was my first season
and I was very eager to burn and not sit idly by. So I put together a
power point presentation that had the basics of our fire program and
some basics about the USFWS, who, what, when, where, why. Jay talked
about the management side of things and I handled the fire side of
things. We basically wanted to get the point across that we have a long
process involved to do prescribed fire and to show them some of our
equipment. We also encouraged them to not put burn bans on and instead
think of an alternative, such as burn permits, as Brown County is
currently discussing, and hopes to have into effect by this spring."

"In Brown County, we presented our power point on March 23 in Groton to
the Fire Chiefs Association and the Emergency Manager, we also met with
them on May 9, and November 7 with the Chiefs Association and the
Emergency Manager, I also attended several individual departments
meetings over the course of the spring and fall. As mentioned, Brown
County was pretty receptive to our ideas and our program, and they are
looking to have a permit system in place by this spring, essentially
giving us the freedom to burn when we want/need to."

"We presented our power point twice in McPherson County, the first time
on April 5 in Leola and the second time in Eureka on April 7. They
didn\'t have a burn ban this spring, but they were all very supportive
of our program and stated even if there was a ban, we could conduct our
burns. We conducted 2 burns in McPherson County and had members of the
local VFD\'s come to a burn and another fire chief (Long Lake) come to a
burn and they were very impressed with how we do business and said we
can burn whenever in their county."

"In Edmunds County, we met with the Local Emergency Planning Committee
(LEPC). This group consisted of the sheriff\'s department, fire chiefs,
dispatchers, EMS, and the emergency manager. We presented our power
point to the group on April 14 in Hosmer. This past spring we did not
have any burns in Edmunds County, but they were very supportive of our
program and said if there was a ban on we could still conduct our
burns."

"In Campbell County, we presented our power point at the Herreid VFD
building on April 25. The fire chiefs from the county were in attendance
along with many members of the Herreid VFD and the emergency manager
from the department. They did have a ban on this year and they allowed
us to conduct 2 burns in their county (Cooper 1 and 2). The emergency
manager even came to a burn and was very impressed."

"We presented our power point to the Spink County LEPC on April 27 at
the Frankfort Fire Hall. We did not have any burns planned for Spink
County this spring, but they were interested in what we do, and will be
supportive of our program in the future."

"The other three counties we manage (Faulk, Walworth, and Potter) we do
not have any plans currently ready and we were not able to get out and
meet with them, we also do not have a lot of property in a few of those
counties so when the time comes and we want to burn there we will
address those counties."

**MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION**

During 2005, other miscellaneous program highlights occurred. They
include:

\- Lee Blaschke vacated the Tewaukon Fire District Prescribed Fire
Specialist position to take a job with the USFS in the Sheyenne NG as a
Natural Resource Specialist in Lisbon N.D. The current PFS position will
be moved from the Tewaukon NWRC to the Waubay NWRC in the spring of FY
2006. The PFS position will also be changed to become an Assistant Fire
Management Officer position (AFMO GS-401-7/9) to reflect the true nature
and responsibility of that position within the Tewaukon Fire District.

\- Jeff King took on the Tewaukon NWRC Refuge Manager position in May of
2005. Jeff has taken the highly critical position of the lead Refuge
Manager involved with the Tewaukon Fire District headquarters and will
be involved in all levels of fire management operations within the area.
Welcome aboard Jeff. More growth is sure to come for the existing fire
district in the next 3-5 years.

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**Summary**

The accomplishments outlined throughout this document identify specific
fire management achievements the Tewaukon Fire District completed during
FY 2005. This report does not capture all accomplishments but is
designed to provide a brief description and summary of accomplishments
attributed to the fire program throughout the fiscal year.

The opportunities for continued success will depend on support,
cooperation, leadership, direction and the tools provided. Continued
improvements in program developments, improved efficiencies and
interagency cooperation will provide opportunities to increase the
accomplishments achieved during this and upcoming fiscal years. The
primary key to the success of the Tewaukon Fire District fire management
program is total integration, not separation, of all refuge operations
and fire management.