Prescribed Burn Scheduled for Garcon Point Water Management Area

MEDIA ADVISORY: Feb. 9, 2015

CONTACT: Tyler Macmillan or NWFWMD Public Information Office (850-539-5999)

PRESCRIBED BURN SCHEDULED FOR GARCON POINT WATER MANAGEMENT AREA

MILTON – Area residents may see smoke rising from the woodlands on Garcon Point on Feb. 12, 2015 as part of a prescribed burn conducted by the Northwest Florida Water Management District, the Florida Park Service and Westervelt Ecological Services (WES).

The prescribed burn is scheduled to begin Thursday morning, weather permitting. The burn will take place on connected properties containing 949 acres within the District’s Garcon Point Water Management Area, 110 acres of Florida Park Service land and 126 acres of WES’s Pensacola Bay Mitigation Bank. It will take place in Santa Rosa County south of Interstate 10 between Avalon Boulevard and Garcon Point Road, north of Mary Kitchens Road.

The prescribed burn is an important land-management practice that helps restore and maintain plant and animal habitats and prevent wildfire on this 1,185-acre piece of property consisting of mostly wetlands, pine flatwoods and native prairie.

“Prescribed burns are an important part of the District’s routine land-management operations that help us restore natural communities and better protect our area’s water and natural resources,” said Tyler Macmillan, District Bureau Chief of Land Management Operations. “Prescribed burns are a safe, efficient and effective way to apply a natural process, to ensure ecosystem health and reduce wildfire risk in the water management area totaling 3,250 acres.”

Although every effort will be made to ensure smoke will not affect homes or highways, drivers should exercise caution in case smoke does lead to reduced visibility on the area’s roadways.

“Prescribed burning provides us the opportunity to use favorable weather patterns to divert heavy amounts of smoke away from smoke-sensitive areas such as interstate highways and residential areas,” said John McGuire, Senior Project Manager for WES.

The burn will be conducted by certified prescribed burn managers, with assistance from the Gulf Coastal Plain Ecosystem Partnership. The final decision to burn is based on the day’s predicted fire weather forecast and comes after a burn authorization from the Florida Forest Service is obtained.

The Gulf Coastal Plain Ecosystem Partnership is a public/private voluntary landowner partnership collectively managing more than 1 million acres in northwest Florida and south Alabama. The 11 partners include the Department of Defense (Naval Air Station and Eglin Air Force Base), the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Florida Forestry Service, the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission, the Longleaf Alliance, the National Park Service, the Northwest Florida Water Management District, National Forests in Alabama, the Nature Conservancy, Nokuse Plantation and Westervelt Ecological Services.