The goal is to eliminate invasive species, reduce brush
SENEY -- The Seney National Wildlife Refuge attracts an estimated 88,000 visitors annually and is home to countless animals, everything from bald eagles to black bears. One section of the refuge got a little makeover today--a controlled burn with a purpose:
"To prevent invasive species from getting a stronghold in it, and also to reduce the amount of brush that's grown into it. Supposed to be an open wetland," explains Gary Lindsay, Fire Management Officer for the refuge.
Plumes of thick, white smoke filled the air as the nine acre fire burned for about an hour Monday afternoon. This section of open wetland hadn't seen fire in 75 years.
"When we write the prescription to light these fires, you have to have a certain amount of parameters--temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, wind direction--that have to be in place before we're allowed to light the fire," says Mark Vaniman, Refuge Manager.
For all that info, they called on the expertise of National Weather Service meteorologists.
"The Weather Service is here today really to test out our equipment just in case a bigger fire does pop up somewhere in the U.P. We'll be ready to go," says NWS meteorologist, Kari Fleegel.
When you consider that the entire refuge includes 25,000 acres of wilderness, nine acres isn't all that big. But today's burn also offered an educational experience for a local school.
"This is an easier burn. Most of the effort in this one is setting up to allow the school group to be adjacent to the burn," Lindsay explains.
It was a pretty cool field trip for a lucky group of third and fourth graders from Three Lakes Academy, an environmental education charter school in the town of Curtis. They were right on the front lines for the burn, learning the advantages of planned fires on-location.
The burn was a sucess, and the Seney National Wildlife Refuge remains open to tourists.
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