To help protect wildlife, prescribed burns are planned for Big Pine Key refuge areas
During the first two weeks of November, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to conduct prescribed burns at one or more locations within the National Key Deer Refuge on Big Pine Key.
The Service did not give exact dates.
“We will know 72 hours ahead of time,” said Brian Pippin, fire operations for the south zone of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “It’s all based on the weather.”
The purpose, the government said, is to protect residents and private property by removing excess vegetation that acts as fire fuel.
The burns can help prevent or reduce the threats of wildfires by reducing the available “fuel.”
“Prescribed burns are important for the continued survival of local species such as the federally endangered Key deer, the Bartram’s hairstreak butterfly and the butterfly’s host plant, pineland croton, which has evolved to be dependent upon fire,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a statement.
Updates will be posted on the Florida Keys National Wildlife Refuges Complex’s Facebook page and the agency’s website over the next few weeks.
The National Wildlife Refuge System protects wildlife and wildlife habitat on more than 150 million acres of land and water from the Caribbean to the Pacific, Maine to Alaska.
