Contributed
CURRIE – Moores Creek National Battlefield will be conducting a controlled burn in the park on Wednesday, March 1. The burn will begin at approximately 10 a.m. and will last approximately 5 hours, with residual smoke and small spot fires continuing through the rest of the day and evening.
For the safety of visitors and the staff conducting the prescribed fire, some areas of the park will be inaccessible during the controlled burn.
The areas affected include the Savannah Fire Management Unit and a portion of the Southeast Fire Management Unit (see map above), which is situated across NC 210 from the park. The Savannah Unit is the area in between the Visitor Center and Battlefield, and the park’s History Trail encircles it. The park will be treating approximately 11 acres.
Moores Creek conducts these burns annually for the following reasons:
1. By applying prescribed fire on a regular and rotational basis, the park reduces the amount of fuel loads that exist in the park that, if left untreated, would pile up and cause a major forest fire, posing serious threats to the park and neighboring lands.
2. By applying prescribed fire on a regular and rotational basis, the park is transforming the landscape back to what it may have looked like historically in 1776 at the time of the battle. This measure reduces the amount of invasive and weedy trees that tend to grow in areas that are not maintained by fires which naturally occurred historically.
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