Prescribed Fire and Fuels Work in Six Great Lakes National Parks, 2024

The work

In 2024, fire staff of the National Park Service's Great Lakes Fire Management Zone, based at Indiana Dunes National Park, used Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding for prescribed burns, mechanical fuel reduction, pile burning, ecological surveys and resource monitoring in six parks across four states — more than 50 projects on about 2,400 acres. The results: less fuel, restored habitat, better cultural landscapes, and defensible space around historic buildings.

Park by park

• Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore (Michigan) — crews thinned and cleared three acres around the historic park headquarters to create defensible space and improve the cultural landscape, and funded endangered species and archeological surveys clearing the way for future burns.
• Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (Michigan) — on South Manitou Island, sixteen miles offshore, crews treated 22 acres around historic buildings and along key trails. Because firefighters would take a long time to arrive, the island's buildings must be able to survive a fire on their own. On the mainland, three prescribed fires covered more than 950 acres, reducing wildfire risk and renewing red pine and jack pine habitat, with fire effects monitoring to check whether the burns met their goals.
• Ice Age National Scenic Trail (near Madison, Wisconsin) — mechanical fuel reduction and restoration.
• Mississippi National River and Recreation Area — a prescribed fire near Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport advanced oak savanna restoration.
• Saint Croix National Scenic Riverway (Wisconsin–Minnesota) — three prescribed fires, several pile burns, multiple thinning projects and monitoring, on more than 400 acres.
• Indiana Dunes National Park — more than 780 acres: six prescribed fires, two pile burns and twenty thinning projects, including shaded fuel breaks and defensible space around historic structures.

A building on South Manitou Island, Sleeping Bear Dunes, before fuel reduction in June 2024. NPS photo by J. James.

The same area after thinning. NPS photo by J. James.

The Nelson House pile burn at Indiana Dunes, creating defensible space and managing the cultural landscape. NPS photo by M. Bell.

Sources

Based on "Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds multi-park prescribed fire and fuels management work in National Park Service's Great Lakes Fire Management Zone," National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The source gives the funding as about $800,000 in one place and $300,000 in another; this page gives neither.