Single Publication

Janet is a Supervisory Botanist, but she identifies as a vegetation ecologist. While true botanists focus their work on individual species; her interest lies in how species interact with the landscape and how communities of plants respond to environmental stressors.

Janet manages and coordinates the vegetation programs at Olympic National Park including rare plant inventory and management, invasive plant management, native vegetation restoration, vegetation research, and the hazard tree program. Most of her day job is administrative, so she relishes the opportunity to work in the field with a Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) team.

Janet has a strong interest in the ecological role of fire and has been serving on wildfire assignments since 2009. During her first permanent job in the National Park Service (NPS), she worked at a park that had experienced major fire events. She observed both benefits to the ecosystem, like clearing out thickets of young white fir, and harms, like non-native plant invasions. Her experience and interest made her an excellent fit for her first BAER assignment as the lead botanist for the Reading Fire at Lassen Volcanic NP.

On the Sourdough BAER, Janet has been putting together a puzzle of plant behavior and biology against a background of wildfire disturbance. In the field, Janet surveyed invasive plant populations in unburned areas that were immediately adjacent to burned ones in the Complex. These weeds, like Scotch broom and bull thistle, are the potential seed sources for future invaders of burned ground. Back in the office, she researched Complex policies related to invasive plant management, spoke with local experts, and analyzed existing invasive plant data to learn what non-native species are most likely to show up in the Sourdough Fire footprint.

Non-native invasive plants are a major concern after the Sourdough Fire. Invasives establish themselves in recently disturbed, open spaces, which can slow the recovery of native species including the forest canopy. The first year after a fire is critical to ensure that the desired recovery occurs over the 3-4 years a BAER project is funded. Managers at the North Cascades National Park Service Complex will collaborate with other agencies and organizations to implement the treatments as designed in the BAER process.

Wildfire has a big impact on vegetation since plants compose most fire fuels. The issues Janet focuses on are those in which fire suppression activities impact rare plants, intersect with invasive plants, or when trees damaged by fire create hazards for humans or infrastructure. BAER, and its extension Burned Area Rehabilitation (BAR), provide an opportunity to ensure that native plants have a strong start and successfully revegetate burned areas, without letting invasive non-native plants take over.

In the case of the Sourdough Fire, most plants will enter winter dormancy very soon. As spring plants start to emerge in the burn scar, restoration crews funded through BAER and BAR will survey the area and implement recommended treatments for mitigating invasive nonnative plant populations.

Janet compares visiting a recently burned area to visiting a loved one who is in the hospital with a severe illness. The burned area is in a very delicate state and its recovery can be set back by an unknowing visitor. She hopes that visitors to recently burned areas are careful not to bring weed seeds into a burned area on their boots, clothes, or packs.