INFLUENCE OF EMPLOYEE COMPETENCE AND WORK ENVIRONMENT ON THE QUALITY OF FIRE MANAGEMENT SERVICES WITH AHP METHOD

The purpose of this study is to find out the influence of employee competence and the work environment on the quality of fire management services in the South Jakarta Administrative City Fire and Rescue Service Tribe. The method used is a quantitative method through the dissemination of questionnaires, with a population of 473 people or respondents and the sample is 83 people using SPSS Version 23 for windows with the aim to facilitate and ensure the calculation and processing of data has been done correctly.

Assessing the impact of fire on spider abundance through a global comparative analysis

Fire is an important ecological disturbance; however, in many regions fire regimes are changing due to anthropogenic factors. Understanding the responses of species and ecosystem to fire can help to develop predictive models and inform fire management decisions. Despite their massive diversity and abundance, relatively little is known about the impacts of fire on invertebrates. Spiders are a diverse and ubiquitous group, with variation in ecological, behavioural and life history traits, and can offer important insights into the impacts of fire on invertebrates and whether these depend on environmental factors, phylogenetic history, or species traits. We conducted phylogenetic comparative analyses of published data from studies investigating the impacts of fire on spiders. We investigated whether fire affects family level abundance and whether this effect depends on ecologically relevant traits or site-specific factors (vegetation, latitude, fire type, time since fire). We found that time since fire had a significant effect on the abundance of some spider families (Lycosidae, Linyphiidae, Agelenidae), and within forest vegetation types. There was no relationship between family level traits and response to fire, suggesting that a trait-based approach does not increase predictive power in this group at this taxonomic level. Overall, it is difficult to make broad generalisations about the impacts of fire on spider abundance due to variation in site- and fire-specific factors. We did, however, find evidence that short fire intervals may be a threat to some spider families, and in forest ecosystems, where abundance initially decreased after fire, which may have important implications for fire management strategies. Finally, we show that analyses of published data can be used to detect broad scale ecological patterns and provide an alternative to traditional meta-analytical approaches.

George Washington Carver National Monument plant community report: 2004–2020

The Heartland Inventory and Monitoring Network completed its sixth year of plant community monitoring at George Washington Carver National Monument in 2020. Plant community monitoring focused on the restored prairie community. We visited seven monitoring sites in each of the six years and collected data on plant species and ground cover. In this report we also included two environmental factors—precipitation and recent fire history—to better understand the vegetation community status and trends. Since 2000, precipitation has often been below the 30-year normal. Moreover, annual precipitation was below normal for all but one of the monitoring years. We found that the drought in 2012 stood out as possibly influencing plant guild cover. Although prairies are adapted to drought, further analyses might reveal more about the role of climate change in these vegetation communities. Fire management also plays an important role in shaping plant communities. Prescribed fire occurrence became more frequent and consistent through the period of plant monitoring. Additional treatments, including herbicide and mowing, also supported a healthy prairie. The prairie plant community continues to be moderately diverse despite recent increases in tree seedlings and small saplings. Species richness in 2012 was different than in two of the six years monitored. However, diversity indices (H′ and J′) were very similar across monitored years. Species guilds (also known as functional groups) exhibited differing patterns. Woody plants, long a concern at the monument, were statistically similar across years. In 2020, grass-like species increased, but grass species appeared to have declined below prior years. Grass cover in 2004 was statistically different (greater) than in 2008 and 2020. The reasons for this are not clear. Of particular interest to the park is the status of two sumac species (Rhus glabra and R. copallinum). These species were in decline as a result of focused management actions since 2012. However, the blackberry species (Rubus spp.) seemed to be replacing the sumac in some sites. In 2020, nonnative species richness and cover were below peak levels, demonstrating management actions have been successful in maintaining low levels. The vegetation monitoring protocol experienced some changes between 2004 and 2020. A key difference was a shift from sampling twice during the field season to sampling only once in a monitoring year. Although a decline in species richness was anticipated, that pattern was not apparent. However, the abundance of grasses may have been affected by the shift in seasonality of sampling. Additionally, we remedied inconsistencies in how tree regeneration was recorded (stem tallies in some cases and cover estimates in other cases). We converted all cover data to stem tallies and density was calculated to be consistent with the protocol. The monument has had success with coordinating fire management and invasive species management. A decrease in sumac across the prairie is evidence of this success. These actions will continue to be important for maintaining the prairie in good condition into the future.

Indigenous impacts on north Australian savanna fire regimes over the Holocene

Fire is an essential component of tropical savannas, driving key ecological feedbacks and functions. Indigenous manipulation of fire has been practiced for tens of millennia in Australian savannas, and there is a renewed interest in understanding the effects of anthropogenic burning on savanna systems. However, separating the impacts of natural and human fire regimes on millennial timescales remains difficult. Here we show using palynological and isotope geochemical proxy records from a rare permanent water body in Northern Australia that vegetation, climate, and fire dynamics were intimately linked over the early to mid-Holocene. As the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) intensified during the late Holocene, a decoupling occurred between fire intensity and frequency, landscape vegetation, and the source of vegetation burnt. We infer from this decoupling, that indigenous fire management began or intensified at around 3 cal kyr BP, possibly as a response to ENSO related climate variability. Indigenous fire management reduced fire intensity and targeted understory tropical grasses, enabling woody thickening to continue in a drying climate.

Multiproxy Holocene Fire Records From the Tropical Savannas of Northern Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, Australia

Paleoecology has demonstrated potential to inform current and future land management by providing long-term baselines for fire regimes, over thousands of years covering past periods of lower/higher rainfall and temperatures. To extend this potential, more work is required for methodological innovation able to generate nuanced, relevant and clearly interpretable results. This paper presents records from Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, Australia, as a case study where fire management is an important but socially complex modern management issue, and where palaeofire records are limited. Two new multiproxy palaeofire records are presented from Sanamere Lagoon (8,150–6,600 cal BP) and Big Willum Swamp (3,900 cal BP to present). These records combine existing methods to investigate fire occurrence, vegetation types, and relative fire intensity. Results presented here demonstrate a diversity of fire histories at different sites across Cape York Peninsula, highlighting the need for finer scale palaeofire research. Future fire management planning on Cape York Peninsula must take into account the thousands of years of active Indigenous management and this understanding can be further informed by paleoecological research.

Assessing the role of short-term weather forecasts in fire manager tactical decision-making: a choice experiment

Background Weather plays an integral role in fire management due to the direct and indirect effects it has on fire behavior. However, fire managers may not use all information available to them during the decision-making process, instead utilizing mental shortcuts that can bias decision-making. Thus, it is important to evaluate if (and how) fire managers use information like weather forecasts when making tactical decisions. We explore USDA Forest Service fire manager confidence in relative humidity, precipitation, and wind models. We then use a choice experiment where key weather attributes were varied to explore how sensitive fire managers were to changes in specific weather variables when choosing to directly or indirectly attack a fire that is transitioning to extended attack. Results Respondents were less confident in the accuracy of wind and precipitation forecasts than relative humidity or weather forecasts more generally. The influence of weather information on the decision depended on the framing used in the choice experiment; specifically, whether respondents were told the initial strategy had been to directly or indirectly attack the fire. Across conditions, fire managers generally preferred to indirectly attack the fire. Decisions about the tactics to apply going forward were more sensitive to time in season when the fire was occurring and wind and precipitation forecasts than to other attributes. Conclusions The results have implications for the design of decision support tools developed to support fire management. Results suggest how fire managers’ use of fire weather information to evaluate forecast conditions and adjust future management decisions may vary depending on the management decision already in place. If fire weather-based decision support tools are to support the use of the best available information to make fire management decisions, careful attention may be needed to debias any effect of prior decisions. For example, decision support tools may encourage users to “consider the opposite,” i.e., consider if they would react differently if different initial decision with similar conditions were in place. The results also highlight the potential importance of either improving wind and precipitation forecast models or improving confidence in existing models.