***U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service***

***Tewaukon Fire District Report***

***FISCAL YEAR 2002***

***ANNUAL FIRE REPORT***

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INTRODUCTION

Fiscal Year 2002 was a monumental year of change for the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service Fire Management Program located at the Tewaukon Fire
District. As a means of establishing a better organized and coordinated
fire management effort within the fire district, a number of changes
occurred at the end of FY2001 and the beginning of FY 2002.

A new "District Fire Management Officer" position was established in the
Tewaukon Fire District (in June 2001) 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. The Tewaukon Fire District staff is responsible to plan and
implement all fire management activities (for both wildland 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.\"**

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

The Tewaukon Fire District participates in a
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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 2002 which began

October 1, 2001 through September 30^th^, 2002. The report begins with a
summary of cooperative

interagency assistance between other stations and interagency
organizations during the fiscal year.

INTERAGENCY

COOPERATIVE ASSISTANCE

**[Prescribed Fire Modules:]{.underline}** During the month of May, two
NPS Fire Use Modules (the Black Hills and Zion Fire Use Modules)
assisted Waubay NWRC, Tewaukon NWRC, and Kulm WMD in achieving the
following prescribed fire accomplishments.

USFWS and Black Hills Fire Use Module accomplishments in Kulm WMD and
Tewaukon NWRC from

May 17^th^ thru the 24th:

1). [Rx burn units in Kulm WMD:]{.underline}

\- Lehr WUI 160 acres

\- Schmidt WPA 80 acres

2). [Rx burn units in Tewaukon:]{.underline}

\- Hartleben WPA 940 acres

\- Mann Lake 100 acres

\- Sprague Lake Unit C 100 acres.

USFWS and Zion Fire Use Module accomplishments in Waubay NWRC from May
2^nd^ thru the 17th:

3). [Rx burn units in Waubay:]{.underline}

\- Jensen WPA 500 acres

\- Horshoe Roe WPA 300 acres

\- Hagen WPA 100 acres

\- Gerber WPA 130 acres

\- Olson WPA 160 acres

\- Spring Lake WPA 120 acres

This comes to a total of **11** prescribed burn units completed for
**2,690** acres in **23** days with assistance from these two NPS
modules. The Tewaukon fire staff is planning to assist the Wind Cave,
Theodore Roosevelt National Parks, and the Fort Pierre National
Grasslands (USFS) with fall 2002 burns in North and South Dakota.

**[BIA and BLM Assistance]{.underline}**

The sharing of resources across agency boundaries has and will continue
to play an important role in achieving 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:

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

2). Large normal complexity burns (i.e. Gunness WPA) completed.

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

**[U.S.F.W.S. Assistance]{.underline}**

Internal cooperation between National Wildlife Refuges, and Wetland
Management Districts continues to build solid support for the fire
management program in the Tewaukon fire district. This direct and/or
indirect cooperation was associated with the Tewaukon fire program and
contributed to the following benefits:

1). Tewaukon fire staff assisted Huron and Des Lacs refuge complexes
with a WUI and Rx HFR burns for 500 acres completed.

2). Tewaukon also assisted USFWS region 3 (Big Stone NWR) with two
prescribed burn units for 300 acres.

3).The Tewaukon fire district instructed S-130/190 for seven South
Dakota RFDs around the Milbank S.D. area in January 2002. Approximately
24 volunteer firefighters successfully completed both fire courses and
passed their WCT to receive their respective red cards from the state of
South Dakota. This also promotes cooperation from these red carded
firefighters to assist with the prescribed burn activities on Waubay
NWRC.

4). The Tewaukon Fire District assisted the Brown County Emergency
Management Team (S.D.) near Sand Lake NWRC. Brown county experienced a
spring wildfire season that totaled more than 48 wildfires burning over
42,000 acres within the county. The USFWS stopped all prescribed burning
at Sand Lake to promote cooperation with these local communities in the
Brown and Edmunds county burn bans.

FIRE MANAGEMENT

The Tewaukon Fire District has 6 (six) separate but interdependent
responsibilities that address fire management and suppression.

The five functional program areas are:

1). dispatch and logistic support,

2). fire management and prescribed fire

3). fire prevention and training,

4). fire suppression,

5). fire coordination,

6). interagency cooperative assistance.

Wildland fires occur as 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;
that individuals know what is expected of them and 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**

During the fiscal year 2002 (October 1, 2001 to September 30, 2002), the
Tewaukon Fire District was involved in 6 wildland fires that burned 326
acres within the fire district. The wildland fire activity is broken
down by the four complexes within the fire district as a whole.

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

Agency Human Lightning Number of

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

[Tewaukon 2 0 71]{.underline}

[Waubay 1 0 2]{.underline}

[Sand Lake 2 0 250]{.underline}

[Kulm 0 1 3]{.underline}

**Tota**l **6 Total 326**

The Tewaukon Fire District also dispatched resources from the fire
district to assist in national fire suppression efforts in Arizona, New
Mexico, Colorado, Montana, North and South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming on
10 separate incidents, from both dispatch centers in North and South
Dakota.(NDC and Custer). Qualified and trainee positions that were
dispatched are as follows: ICT3, DIVS(t), HCWN, TFLD, STCR, STEN, EMTB,
EDRC(t), ENGB, FFT1(t), FFT2.

**PRESCRIBED BURNING**

The philosophy of common ground
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shared responsibilities, is necessary when it

comes to prescribed burning in 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 2002, the Tewaukon Fire District wrote 45 (with assistance from
the BLM in

Lander Wyoming.) prescribed fire burn plans. The objectives varied but
can best be summarized into5 categories; training, wildland urban
interface prescribed burn projects, hazardous fuel reduction, resource
management objectives to improve range conditions, and wildlife habitat
enhancement. Prescribed burning also offers an excellent opportunity to
test and train in new fire fighting techniques and technologies. The
Tewaukon fire staff utilizes these prescribed fire operations to train
for suppression missions involving local, regional, and national levels.
The prescribed fire activity within the fire district is as follows:

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

> [Station Number of burns Acres]{.underline}
>
> [Tewaukon 22 3,313]{.underline}
>
> [Waubay 12 1,669]{.underline}
>
> [Sand Lake 3 147]{.underline}
>
> [Kulm 2 240]{.underline}
>
> **Total 39 5,369**

**TRAINING**

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the Tewaukon Fire District is
currently cooperating with two organizations called the South Dakota and
North Dakota Fire Councils to share training instructors, and establish
priorities on courses that are 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 wildland firefighting evolutions to wildfire investigations.

The Tewaukon Fire District staff provided approximately 88 hours of
wildland and prescribed fire fighting training to firefighters. The
district fire staff instructed in 6 training sessions at various
locations in North and South Dakota are as follows:

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

S-234 15 Sullys Hill GP (FWS)

S-130 24 Milbank S.D RFD (FWS)

S-190 24 Milbank S.D. RFD (FWS)

LCES 21 Tewaukon NWRC (FWS)

S-130 40 Washburn, N.D. (TNC)

S-190 40 Washburn, N.D. (TNC)

**INFORMATION AND EDUCATION**

**Range Fire Prevention**

During fiscal year 2002, a total of 30
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burning permits were issued on private

lands within the fire district. These

include permits to rejuvenation wetlands,

and native grasses, clean-up debris and

to reduce fire hazards. The issuance of

these permits is under the management

of the Tewaukon, Waubay, Sand Lake,

and Kulm Project and Assistant Project Leaders.

The Tewaukon Fire District is also currently developing efforts to;
acquire 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 South and North Dakota. In addition,
efforts to inform and educate the public about the role of fire; and
unwanted wildfires, is a major emphasis of developing our program.

**MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION**

During 2002, several other miscellaneous program highlights occurred.
They include:

-establishing an assigned fire cache to store and house critical fire
equipment and supplies at the Tewaukon NWRC.

-Initiating and implementing additional fall and late summer prescribed
burns to achieve resource management for the Tewaukon and Waubay
complexes within the fire distict. This will include Sand Lake and Kulm
complexes later in FY 2003.

-The District FMO joined the regional fire staff in developing the
Region 6 Fire Use Module in November of 2001. The District FMO

also attended the NPS Fire Use Module workshop in Las Vegas to represent

Region 6 USFWS for its module development.

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-The District FMO participated in

training as a helicopter manager

(HCWN) at the Grand Canyon

Helicopter Training Academy in June

of 2002 to become the only helicopter manager in Region 6.

-The Fire Program Technician at Tewaukon detailed to the Tetonka
Interagency Hotshot Crew

in September of 2002 for 10 days. This crew is located in the Black
Hills USFS (South Dakota). This was a first for the fire staff to detail
our personnel to the excellent training and experience opportunity with
this Type I firefighting organization.

**Summary**

The accomplishments outlined throughout this document identify specific
fire management achievements the Tewaukon Fire District completed during
it's first year of having a newly established fire district. 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,
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
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