The Nature Conservancy Celebrates Prescribed Fire Awareness Month in June

Organization Aims to Raise Awareness for Improving Public Safety and Restoring Habitat in Pine Barrens Region

Cold Spring Harbor, NY — May 20, 2008 — The Nature Conservancy announced today that the organization will be celebrating “Prescribed Fire Awareness Month,” a resolution introduced by New York State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle and State Assemblyman Steven Engelbright, and co-sponsored by the majority of Long Island’s senators and assembly members.

Prescribed fires are intentionally ignited fires under prearranged and monitored conditions by trained land management professionals. This type of fire is an essential land restoration tool that promotes a healthy environment and helps protect residential areas from catastrophic wildfires.

“Prescribed fire is a critically important ecological tool for maintaining healthy pine barrens and grasslands,” said Brian Kurtz, forest and fire conservation manager for The Nature Conservancy on Long Island. “Fire keeps pines in the pine barrens. And because Long Island’s largest, pure drinking water supply comes from underneath the pine barrens, its protection is important for all of Long Island.”

“Long Islanders have had the unfortunate experience of witnessing an uncontrolled wildfire that destroyed much of the pine barrens region,” said Senator Kenneth P. LaValle. “A prescribed fire is a carefully monitored and useful tool that helps protect the natural environment from wildfires as well as restore animal and plant life. It is critical that people are made aware of the many benefits of prescribed fires and their use in the protection and management of our natural ecosystem.”

A celebratory kick-off event and award ceremony will take place on Wednesday, May 21 at Uplands Farm Nature Sanctuary in Cold Spring Harbor. The Nature Conservancy will recognize Bryan Gallagher of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and Deborah Long of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) with the “Prometheus Award” for their outstanding contributions to forest management on Long Island through the use of prescribed fire.

Bryan Gallagher has been involved with fire management on Long Island for the past 10 years. In the last five years, he has led the DEC’s wildland fire management program in intense fire management planning, training local fire departments, assisting in the coordination of the NYS Wildfire and Incident Management Academy, establishing restoration treatment demonstration sites, reintroducing fire into forest and barrens ecosystems, engaging DEC lands and personnel, and providing invaluable support on partner lands.

Deborah Long’s leadership has re-engaged the USFWS in active natural resource management. She has restarted a fire management program on Long Island’s National Wildlife Refuges including grassland and wetland restoration projects. Her efforts have helped to restore an array of habitats for species ranging from mud turtles to quail, northern harriers to ospreys, from forests to tidal wetlands. In addition to implementing projects on wildlife refuges, Long has provided personnel support to conduct mechanical and prescribed fire treatments (and associated monitoring) to multiple Long Island partner landowners.

The prescribed fire program on Long Island, operated by the Long Island Interagency Fire Team, a crew made up of Nature Conservancy, DEC, USFWS, NY State Parks, local fire departments and volunteers, has received national attention and funding. In fact, in the past six months alone, The Nature Conservancy has received nearly $215,000 in grant funding to improve public safety and decrease the impacts to the forest from catastrophic wildfires in and around the Long Island pine barrens by using prescribed or “controlled” burning.

The funding, sponsored by the NYS Wildlife Grant and the National Fire Plan Grant, will support personnel, mechanical equipment and supplies, and monitoring of habitats. In these areas, a combination of prescribed fire and mowing or cutting of vegetation will be used to restore habitat and reduce wildfire risk to neighboring residences. So far this year, over 150 acres have been treated with prescribed fire.

The Nature Conservancy is a national leader in using fire to restore habitats. Since 1961, the Conservancy has been at the forefront of planning and conducting prescribed burns to maintain and restore healthy plant and animal habitats. In 2003, the Conservancy partnered with the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Interior to work with communities to carefully restore fire-adapted ecosystems across 38 million acres of public and private land.

Visit the following links for more information:
http://nature.org/initiatives/fire/
http://www.dec.ny.gov
http://www.umass.edu/nrc/nebarrensfuels/
http://www.forestsandrangelands.gov/

The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org.