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Date: March 9, 2009
Contact: Corky Hays, 435-692-1234 (x15)

The National Park Service will continue with a prescribed fire project at Natural Bridges National Monument this month according to Superintendent Corky Hays. Currently the project is scheduled to begin Tuesday, March 10, weather conditions permitting. The burn project should take 3-4 days to complete the approximately 50 acres planned for ignition.

The project involves burning the remaining 2,500 hand piles of slash along the monument entrance road. The controlled burn is the final phase of a fuel break along the four-mile stretch of road from State Highway 95 to the monument visitor center. Fire managers thinned out the dense pinon/juniper woodland and removed dead and downed fuels to lessen the risk of a dangerous crown fire. The fuel break will aid firefighting and evacuation procedures in the event of a large wildfire in or around the monument.

Fire managers want to emphasize that this prescribed fire project will only occur if and when optimum weather, fuel moisture and smoke parameters are met. For additional information please contact Brad Harris, Mesa Verde National Park acting Fire Management Officer, at 970-529-5066.