KM National Park conducting prescribed burns

BLACKSBURG - Kings Mountain National Military Park will be conducting prescribed burns in the park through early May. The park hopes to complete four burns.

The park's prescribed fire program is in its sixth year. The objectives of the prescribed fire program are threefold: hazard fuel reduction, habitat restoration and cultural landscape restoration.

Park officials stress that there is a significant difference between prescribed fire and wildland fire. The inherent danger for a catastrophic wildfire increases each year across the country due to fuel buildups caused by insect damage, violent storms and drought. Prescribed fire, unlike wildfire, is practiced when conditions are favorable for fire personnel to conduct the burn for the desired effects.

The benefits of prescribed fire are immeasurable. Prescribed fire will greatly reduce the heavy fuel loads that currently exist as a result of forest pests and ice damage.

It will also enhance the biodiversity of the forest which will be beneficial to the wildlife populations within the park. Botanists recently in the park indicated that the inventory of vascular plants would increase significantly after the prescribed burns.

Rangers advise that it is difficult to give an exact day for the burns, as weather conditions will dictate the time in which the burns will take place. A strict burning prescription will be followed to implement all burns within the park.

To insure safety visitors will be prohibited from the burn areas. Therefore, any trails near any area being burned will be closed until the area has been secured and made safe by the park. Visitors to the park can expect to see a burned area until the native grasses and legumes regenerate after the burn.

Once a burning regime is established for fuels management and cultural landscape restoration, visitors can expect to see a forest similar to that of the 18th century. In Dr. J.B. Landrum's book, "Colonial and Revolutionary History of Upper South Carolina," the Iandscape was described in the following manner: "Up to the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, the woodlands in the upper regions of South Carolina

were carpeted with grass and the wild pea vine ... while flowers of every description were seen growing all around. The forests were imposing, the trees were large and stood so wide apart that a deer or buffalo could be seen at a long distance."