Pre-fire Planning

Insured That the

Railroad Fire

Turned Into An

Invasive Species

Management

Opportunity

By Charles Henry

TechLine Editor

This Resource Note is adapted from

the December 2000 issue of TechLine,

(published by Ag West Communications.) summarizing several studies

and successful post–fire management

programs.

Used with permission of the 1999

California Exotic Pest Plant Council

Proceedings.

By the time it was contained onJuly 8, 1999, the Railroad Fire in

the Great Basin of Utah had consumed 63,000 acres. Sixty percent of

this fire was on BLM land that contained infestations of squarrose knapweed and other invasive, non-native

vegetation. However, BLM land

managers were ready once the fire was

out. Pre-fire planning insured that the

Railroad Fire turned into an invasive

species management opportunity.

“Your window of opportunity for

effective post-fire weed management

is the fall and spring following the

fire. This window is relatively short,

but it is critical. Once cheatgrass,

knapweed, or other invasives take

over that site, the site’s capability

threshold lowers. This renders site

rehabilitation almost operationally

impossible. Once a site’s natural capability is lost, only a massive infusion

of management inputs can bring it

back and most of the time we simply

don’t have the money or manpower

for those inputs,” Pat Fosse explains.

Fosse is BLM’s assistant field manager

in the Fillmore Field Office.

“Research shows that invasive

species like knapweed really explode

after a fire,” Fosse says. However,

weeds are also easier to spot for

mapping and treatment and easier

to kill after a fire. We view fires as an

opportunity to get ahead of noxious

weeds, but it requires planning and

pre-fire prep work.”

After the fire, Fosse spent 15 days

mapping the burned area. From

Sept. 1 through freeze-out on

Nov. 1, 1999, BLM seasonal ATV

spray crews already hired for the

spring through fall season were

spot spraying roads, washes, and

draws with Grazon* P+D at a rate

of 3 qt./acre in 25 gallons of water

per acre. The ATVs were equipped

with Boom Buster nozzles capable of

15 to 20-ft. widths and handguns.

Fosse mapped out 5,600 acres that

were aerially treated with Grazon

P+D at 3 qt./acre in five gallons of

water with fixed-wing aircraft on

September 28 through October 3,

1999. On April 28, 2000, an additional 3,960 acres were aerially

treated. In November 1999, grass

seeding with drills and aerial seeding

were completed on the burn. In

December, the aerially seeded areas

were chained to incorporate the seed

and break up burned brush, pinyon,

and juniper trees.

In the spring of 2000, Fosse, along

with the seasonal spray crew, checked

all the roads again and in the fall the

seasonal ATV crews work back

through the burned area to spot-treat

any escapes. “We achieved 90% to

100% control of squarrose knapweed

with this program. Overall, we had

more areas with 100% control in the

spring treatments, based only on our

visual analysis,” Fosse states.

Fosse says land managers should be

confident that they can achieve the

same results on other knapweed

species. “Based on university

research, squarrose knapweed is one

of the more difficult species to control, so results should be similar or

even better on Russian, spotted, or

diffuse knapweed.”

“Re-seeding is critical in our situation,” she says. “Plant competition

enhances herbicide effectiveness and

herbicides enhance grass competition. The two practices are integral

in areas without adequate understory,

so I recommend that if you don’t

have the budget to re-seed, then

don’t waste your money spraying.

You must look at the understory

with weed work to know a site’s

capability and how much competition is enough to keep unwanted

weeds from re-invading the site.”

Fosse also says that no one agency

can do it alone. Their success is only

achieved through the cooperation

and assistance of local counties

(Juab County and supervisor Bob

Garrett in the Railroad Fire), state

lands, the Utah Department of Agriculture, the USDA Forest Service

Rocky Mountain Research Station,

Utah Division of Wildlife Resources,

and other agencies.

“Your plan and management tools

must be operational to be successful,” Fosse concludes. “Cooperation

with private landowners and other

agencies is the best way to save time

and money so you can get the job

accomplished.”

Keys to Emergency Fire

Rehabilitation Weed 

Management 

1. Be prepared. In your Normal

Year Fire Plan and NEPA make sure

you include detection, control and

monitoring for noxious weeds.

NO. 53 DATE 10/29/01

Range

Forestry

*Trademark of Dow AgroSciences, LLC
Then when a fire burns through an

area in which weeds occur or are

likely to spread, you only need to

complete a tier to your existing

NEPA document.

2. Make sure that your Pesticide

Use Proposal (PUP) covers the

entire area under your jurisdiction,

not just where you plan to treat for

that year. This allows flexibility, not

only to treat any new, small infestations of noxious weeds as they are

found, but also to treat within any

burned areas, as necessary.

3. Have an existing GIS inventory

completed! When the fire is controlled, layer the fire perimeter over

the weed inventory. It will be very

helpful, not only in justifying your

request for weed management funding in your EFR plan submission, but

also in planning where to start your

intensive weed mapping for post-fire

weed management. To begin mapping, put the perimeter of the fire(s)

over your weed inventory in GIS and

print your maps. This will give you a

good idea where to start. If you do

not have an existing GIS inventory,

don’t let it prevent you from post-fire

weed management. Weeds are easily

seen to map and treat following a fire

and it may be a good opportunity to

start your GPS inventory. One tip in

EFR projects is to use different colored flagging to indicate different

treatments. Example: drilling is

marked by green flagging, chaining

by orange flagging, survey corners

and areas to avoid within the drill or

chain areas are marked with pink,

weeds with blue, etc. Once areas are

flagged, GPS the different treatments and use your Arc View maps

to prepare contracts.

4. Most noxious weeds are easily

mapped in the fall following a fire.

They are the first, and sometimes

the only, species to emerge from the

blackened soil during the first few

months following the fire. For

example, many plants of squarrose

knapweed are 18 inches tall and in

full flower during September or

October following a fire.

5. Take your spray tank with you

when you are mapping. Any very

small infestations can be treated

immediately without slowing you

down in your mapping effort. Bigger infestations should be mapped

either for ATV, truck, or aerial treatment depending on the size and

density of the infestation.

6. Our ATV crew starts in burned

areas in September. Roads and trails

that will be used by other agency staff

working on the EFR effort should be

checked and if necessary, treated as

highest priority to stop spreading

weed seed into the burned areas.

7. We have been very successful

with October and April aerial and

ground treatments following a fire.

Research completed by Steve

Dewey, USU Extension Weed Specialist, shows that if knapweed

occurs in an area that is burned and

no treatment is completed, the

knapweed would increase as much

as 120% in one year.

8. Develop an Agreement or MOU

with the County Weed Department.

The county procurement process is

much less time consuming than Federal agencies. Therefore, if you have

an Agreement or MOU in place,

money can be transferred to the

counties and they can hire the aerial

contractor or complete work that

you do not have the capability to

complete. There are two documents

that can be used to transfer money to

counties – Justification for Noncompetitive Procurement (JNCP) and

Assistance Agreement (AA).

9. In areas you plan to aerial spray

for weeds, do not include any forbs

or shrubs in the seed mix for that

area. If you spray in the fall, spray at

least two to three weeks before you

fly the seed on, so the herbicide does

not affect the grass seed. If you spray

in the spring, you must wait until the

seeded grasses have their second leaf.

In Utah, that is about mid-April.

10. Use an aerial applicator who

has planes or copters equipped with

GPS, as they are much more accurate in applying the herbicide where

it is intended. If areas are mapped

and flagged, it is easy to talk to the

pilots every time they land and

guide them through the areas. It is

necessary to have someone very

familiar with the area to do this.

11. Aerial treatments should be

“cleaned up” by ATV crews about 6

months after the initial treatment to

control any obvious survivors and

protect your investment.

12. Any treatments should be

monitored with at least photo plots.

Permanent transects can also add

valuable information.

Range

Resource Notes are intended to be early

announcements of technical and informational topics for

Bureau of Land Management personnel and some of their customers.

Information in this Resource Note is based on the opinion and

experience of the author and has not been peer-reviewed. Conclusions

and opinions expressed herein do not

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