Fires significantly alter ecosystems and ecosystem restoration projects are often limited by monitoring post-treatment to determine the success of project treatments and to predict future needs. Remote sensing is a tool to map the current conditions of the landscape and then map imagery to use in modeling the ecosystem to predict current and future ecosystem health. Remote sensing covers larger landscapes with less time and effort as well as helps land managers understand the impacts of management practice treatments and give insight into soil stability and erosion that therefore impacts water quality. The primary goal is to map, measure, and model the watershed post-fire to assess the current condition and predict the future health of the re-establishment of native plant vegetation and to help keep non-native vegetation and invasive wetland species at low levels while also continuing to support ecological biodiversity and provide for wildlife (i.e., greater sage-grouse, big game species, and endangered fish species (i.e. Razorback Sucker, Colorado Pikeminnow, Bonytail, and Humpback Chub) and permitted livestock grazing. An additional outcome of this monitoring is improving monitoring of erosion control through soil stabilization. Soil stabilization efforts' goals are to limit soil movement to reduce the risk of alluvial slides moving onto roadways. Treatment areas contain primarily downy brome but other noxious and invasive species may be present. Invasive wetland species of concern include cattails and phragmites. Little is known about plant community composition changes in response to fire in wetland systems in NE Utah. This project is needed to elucidate those effects to aid in guiding future management efforts.

Previous treatments were selected to stabilize the environment post-fire to reduce the risk of non-native plant species invasion and soil stabilization. The fire in the proposed polygons burned hotter and left a higher percentage of bare ground. Monitoring will be conducted in the summer of 2024 within the burned treatment polygons. Multispectral imagery data that will be survey grade and used for modeling on a watershed scale impacts of wildfire management practice efficiencies for vegetation response monitoring and soil stability. Monitoring treatments will help land managers select the most efficient treatments for post-fire and reduce the likelihood of future large-scale fire events occurring within the treatment areas. Additionally, prescribed burning efforts to reduce encroachment by wetland vegetation are poorly understood in terms of plant community response, and the length of time that treatments remain effective (i.e. rate of recolonization of pond habitat post-burn).

The fire in the identified polygons burned hot and left a higher percentage of bare ground. Monitoring post-fire stabilization efforts will help reduce the effect of potentially invasive species and erosion and sedimentation post-fire within the Richard Mountain, Bear, Stewart Lake, and Pariette Wetland fires. Fires, resulting in a decreased risk to the values at risk in the Red Creek, Price River, and Green River drainages. Prescribed burning at Pariette has been occurring regularly for approximately 10 years. One major challenge for managers of this system is the need to quantify the effects of these treatments in terms of vegetation response and pond area reclaimed. This project offers a low-cost solution to this challenge that may be utilized statewide once developed.

The proposed project will meet multiple objectives found within different plans; Upper Colorado River Recovery Program works to recover endangered fish in the Upper Colorado River Basin while water development proceeds following federal and state laws and interstate compacts.; the Green River Comprehensive Management Plan, ensures that the ecological health, scenic attributes, recreation opportunities, and irrigation are maintained into the future; -ARMPA; In PHMA, integrated Vegetation Management will be used to control, suppress, and eradicate noxious and invasive species; treat areas that contain cheatgrass and other invasive or noxious species to minimize competition and favor establishment of desired species. This project will also serve to inform the BLM's Vernal Resource Management Plan, Pareitte Prescribed Burn Plan. The Utah Elk Statewide Management Plan has the following applicable objectives and strategies: Habitat Objective 2, strategy d -- Initiate broad scale vegetative treatment projects to improve elk habitat with emphasis on calving habitat and winter ranges. Habitat Objective 2, strategy h -- Emphasize improvement of upper elevation winter ranges to encourage elk to winter at higher elevation than mule deer. -The Utah Mule Deer Statewide Management Plan has the following applicable objectives and strategies:Support all habitat objectives and strategies in this plan to protect and improve mule deer habitat including energy development mitigation in crucial mule deer habitat. *Habitat Objective 2, Strategy D; Initiate broad scale vegetative treatment projects to improve mule deer habitat with emphasis on drought or fire damaged sagebrush winter ranges, ranges that have been taken over by invasive annual grass species, and ranges being diminished by encroachment of conifers into sagebrush or aspen habitats, ensuring that seed mixes contain sufficient forbs and browse species.

The fire in the identified polygons burned hot and left a higher percentage of bare ground. No action would likely result in an increase in cheatgrass, noxious weeds, and increased sedimentation into the Red Creek, Price River, and Green River drainages. Priority and critical habitat for sage-grouse and several big game species are found within the proposed burned treatment polygons. Wildland Urban Interface Values at Risk: -Highway 6 corridor -Railroad corridor -The communities of Helper and Martin, are located downstream of potential surface runoff and soil erosion from the fire. -Municipal water treatment plant: Price River Water Improvement District. -Historic mine structures. -Coal Mine infrastructure -Price River watershed and tributaries. -Price Canyon Recreation area. -Bristle cone pine stands and trail. -Wildland Urban Interface, values and infrastructure within 1.5 miles of the fire perimeter includes: Simplot's Clay Basin Booster Station: along the phosphorous pipeline from Vernal UT to Rock Springs WY the booster station recompresses the phosphorous to transport to Rock Springs WY. -Clay Basin Storage facility: Clay Basin is on the Wyoming-Utah border and is the largest underground storage reservoir of natural gas in the Rocky Mountain region. -Clay Basin man camp: (WUI) permanent community of workers associated with the Clay Basin Storage facility including primary residences, travel trailers, and other structures associated with the resident population. -Oil and Gas infrastructure: pipelines and well locations. -Green River The project is targeted to inventory noxious and invasive species within the Bear, Richard Mountain, Stewart Lake, and Pariette Wetlands Fire burn areas. Invasive annual grasses can alter natural fire cycles by increasing the fire frequencies, often resulting in shrublands being converted to annual grasslands. Noxious weeds may continue to spread with increased fire frequency. Over time native plant communities can be replaced by noxious and invasive weeds post-fire. The inventory of noxious weeds will further reduce the threat of weed spread throughout the burn area by helping land managers treat more effectively.

The Red Creek, Price River, and Green River Watersheds: Monitoring efforts are designed to help improve recovery efforts by analyzing grass, forbs, shrubs, and aquatic vegetation to help stabilize soils, and prevent erosion. Bare soil can lead to an increase in runoff, soil loss, and erosion (Thurow and Hester 2015). Erosion can lead to a reduction in soil productivity and can also increase non-point source water pollution, thus having the potential to affect water quality within a watershed over time (Thurow and Hester 2015). Water quantity may be improved by improving and promoting new shrub growth with a productive understory reducing overland waterflow. If this treatment is not done, there is a greater potential for cheatgrass and other noxious weeds to dominate and reduce the hydrological storage capacity within the local environment. The Red Creek watershed is an Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) that has been identified to manage to continue the reduction of sedimentation into Red Creek, and the downstream Green River. (VFO RMP 2008). Additionally, little is known about how prescribed burns in wetland ecosystems affect sedimentation rates, which can be measured through the monitoring of erosion.

No areas of concern for cultural were Identified within the proposed polygons by BLM Archeologist. DNA's were prepared for both the Bear and Richard Mountain Fire to address impacts from post-fire treatments.

The project will upgrade/replace surveying equipment that will collect aerial multispectral imagery data with survey-grade equipment and be used for measurements and modeling on a watershed scale the impacts of wildfire management practice efficiencies for vegetation response monitoring, soil stability, and future forecasting of ecosystem health. -Collect aerial remote sensing images from an unmanned aerial system in collaboration with USU's Unmanned Aerial System Program from Price. -Collect ground truthing data points to train and improve model post-processing vegetation identification. -Analyze images for vegetation response and soil stability to assess vegetation response of burn areas with models to forecast future ecological system classes similar to the TNC's Landscape Conservation Forecasting methods. -Model vegetation response, soil stability, and wildlife response to post-fire restoration response using LANDFIRE, a Watershed and Land Management Simulation Model to assess current conditions and identify current problems. -Process and analyze data with input from UDWR, BLM, and other stakeholders. -Work with the stakeholders to customize the model input parameters to meet stakeholders' current and future needs.

Pre-post pictures will be taken at sites where treatments are applied. The data collected will be used to construct a modeling tool that will be customizable for future post-fire monitoring needs as well as assess current conditions and identify current problems to predict future ecosystem health.

Utah State University will be conducting most of the work with guidance from the Utah Watershed Restoration Initiative, BLM Green River District, and Utah Division of Wildlife Resources to complete this project. Utah State University will work with local UDWR biologists and Utah BLM on developing an appropriate action for the proposed treatments on BLM and DWR lands.

The area will continue to be monitored for future treatments. Follow-up treatments which include cheatgrass treatments, continued spot treatment of noxious weeds, and seeding may be needed if monitoring determines it's necessary. The data collected will be used to construct a modeling tool that will be customizable for future post-fire monitoring needs to help future land managers with treatment selections.

Grazing permittees have been impacted by the wildfire. In the long term, this project will likely have an overall positive impact on wildlife and domestic livestock grazing because of added forage value following habitat improvement projects. This area is popular for wildlife viewing and hunting. Local biologists have also identified this area as a crucial habitat for sage grouse and several big game species. The project's ability to reduce the effects of erosion into the Price River and Red Creek will also have an indirect effect downstream in reducing sedimentation and improving water quality.