Standard Protocol for Resource Advisors in Federal Fire Management Operations

Fire management officers often hire resource advisors to provide information about the locations and qualities of both cultural and natural resources at a fire site. With the help of resource advisors, fire management officers can try to reduce the risk that cultural resources will be damaged by fire. In many cases, resource advisors are local land managers, familiar with local landscapes, who are already familiar with the fire site and significant resources located there. Prior to emergency situations in their role as land managers, the resource advisors have often conducted pre-fire inventories to comply with the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, in some cases with the assistance of archaeologists and historians (DeBano, Neary, and Folliott 1998), reviewed the National Register of Historic Places, and gathered information from local residents about significant cultural resources. Resource managers may be involved with consulting Native American communities prior to conducting any fire operations on Indian lands and in Native American sacred places in accordance with the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. In non-emergency situations, resource advisors/managers influence the design of fuel management plans, recommending appropriate strategies for reducing fuels while maintaining the integrity of valuable sites. They also contribute to the development of prescribed burn plans and participate in designing wildfire suppression strategies. In areas dense with cultural resources, resource advisors could (under the direction from the fire management officer) accompany firefighters during a fire incident and post-fire mop up and rehabilitation programs. Some other duties that a resource advisor may perform if directed to do so by a fire management officer, are: to brief fire workers about cultural resources at risk; mark or “flag” important resources; guide the movement of mechanized equipment; assist with the construction of firebreaks, helipads, water areas, camps and staging areas; and monitor the use of fire retardants. After a fire, resource advisors/managers may oversee assessments of the effects of fire on cultural resources, contribute to the design of programs to restore the burned ecosystem, and monitor their implementation.

In the cases where a wildland fire relatively small and the suppression operation is less complex, a single resource advisor is responsible for overseeing all resource issues. In moderate-size fires, fire management officers may recruit a resource advisor plus a cultural resource specialist and a natural resource specialist. In highly complex fire situations the cultural resource specialist has a team made up of an archaeologist, a tribal representative, a historian, and a historical architect. The resource specialist for a large, highly complex fire may have a team composed of a botanist, a fisheries specialist, a forester, a hydrologist, and a social scientist.