The newest issue of the FIRE ADAPTED COMMUNITIES LEARNING NETWORK NEWSLETTER is available. 

​North Carolina: There’s a nice article in the McDowell News about the recent fire adapted communities work day where crews from The Nature Conservancy, U.S. Forest Service, North Carolina Forest Service and the Appalachian RC&D Coalition’s Fire Adapted Communities program teamed up with property owners to clear 30 feet of defensible space around seven homes in the community. For more, contact Adam Warwick (awarwick@tnc.org).

North Carolina: Marshall Ellis (marshall.ellis@ncdenr.gov), co-lead of the South Mountains landscape in the Southern Blue Ridge FLN, was a panelist for a discussion of the ecological effects of the Party Rock Fire that burned in November. The panel was the first of four seminars in a series hosted by the Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy. The panel drew about 50 people—but good use of video and media contacts expanded the audience significantly: another 50 or so watched the livestream on the town of Lake Lure’s YouTube channel, and a local station (WLOS) had nearly 10,000 views on its Facebook broadcast. A reported from the Henderson Times-News also published a transcript.

South Carolina-North Carolina: The Southern Blue Ridge Escarpment landscape team met last month at Table Rock State Park in South Carolina. The 25 people from 13 partner groups in the Carolinas worked to develop the next steps needed after the fall wildfire season, and discussed controlled burns for 2017. Partners will be conducting controlled burns across the mountains of South Carolina this winter, from the Sumter NF (Andrew Pickens RD) to Table Rock State Park. Of particular note are the plans of South Carolina State Parks, which include four first-entry burns on three of their mountain parks. Public outreach efforts are underway to provide background on the need for fire in our mountains—as well as on how to protect property using Firewise principles, and help our communities become more fire adapted.