Fire Breaks Prepared for Spring 2022 Prescribed Burn Season

On the coldest days of the year on a snow covered Cape Cod, Staff from the Eastern Massachusetts National Wildlife Refuge Complex (EMNWRC), including Deputy Pl Tom Eagle, Maintenance Worker Joe Geyster and newly hired Prescribed Fire Specialist Keith Hawk: were joined by Falmouth Rod and Gun Club Member A.D. Colburn to map out and mow fire breaks in preparation for the Spring 2022 Prescribed Burn Season. The crew blazed lines through thick trees and brush to guide our Bobcat Skid Steer with mastication mower attachment to clear 1.25 miles of new fire breaks on the Falmouth Rod and Gun Cub within the Mashpee National Wildlife Refuge. Clearing these new fire breaks will hopefully enable the New England Zone Fire Crew to conduct prescribed burning to reduce hazard fuel loading on close to 30 acres of forest within the Wildland Urban Interface and protect adjacent housing development from the risk of wildfire. These prescribed burns will also promote early successional forest growth and improve the diversity and quality of habitat for a wide variety of rare and unique wildlife and plant species that thrive in fire adapted ecosystems like this.