C&O Canal's First Prescribed Fire: 50 Acres at Spring Gap

The prescribed fire at Spring Gap helped restore a sensitive area with rare plants. NPS/C. Fishtaler.

A first for the canal

In late March 2024, staff from 10 national park units gathered at Spring Gap, near Oldtown, Maryland, for a prescribed fire at Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park. Such burns happen at other parks in the National Capital Region (NCR), but this was the first at the C&O Canal.

About 50 acres were treated, to:

• reduce flammable wildland fuel;
• restore and maintain the cultural landscape, as the park's management plan calls for;
• improve wildlife habitat;
• train firefighters for wildfire response.

Sarah Brown lights the burn with a drip torch at Spring Gap. NPS/C. Fishtaler.

Skills for real wildfires

Working together on planned burns builds the qualifications and skills crews need to fight wildfires in every park in the region.

• The NCR typically has about 15 wildfires a year; in 2023 it had 22, caused by everything from power lines and equipment failures to arson.
• The regional wildland fire office at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park helps every NCR park with training, prevention, risk assessment and fuel reduction.

When the crews finished, about 50 acres had burned. NPS/C. Fishtaler.

Help that goes both ways

Regional fire management officer Zeke Seabright says that when it isn't fire season in the East, NCR staff travel west to help fight wildfires. It supplements crews where fires are burning, and brings back experience that helps protect visitors, park buildings and rare ecosystems at home.

Sources

Based on "Prescribed fire at Chesapeake & Ohio (C&O) Canal National Historical Park leads to multiple benefits," National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain.