Summary

Description

This document establishes a Fire Management Plan FMP for the Great River National Wildlife Refuge and for purposes of this plan includes Clarence Cannon National Wildlife Refuge. The plan is written as an operational guide for managing the Refuges wildland fire program. It defines levels of protection needed to 1 ensure safety of employees, visitors, and adjacent landowners and 2 protect resources, given current understanding of the complex relationships in natural ecosystems. It is written to comply with both Departmental and Servicewide requirements that units with burnable vegetation develop a fire management plan. This FMP outlines a program that accounts for the safest, most cost efficient, and ecologically responsible suppression of all wildland fires. There is great potential for and continued need for the use of prescribed fire on the Refuge.