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National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy Success Story

Annual Cades Cove Burn Maintains Cultural Landscape, Promotes Native Species
Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee
Cohesive Strategy - Maintain and Restore Landscapes
2012

Firefighters performing prescribed burning in Cades Cove.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park gets more visitors than any other park in the country, which makes Cades Cove the busiest site in the nation's busiest park. With excellent dispersion conditions, smoke lifted out and dispersed on the transport winds without affecting visitors.

At Great Smoky Mountains National Park, autumn means turning leaves and prescribed burning in Cades Cove, one of the park’s most popular areas. On November 1, 2, and 8, 2011, firefighters conducted a 500-acre prescribed burn, treating approximately a third of the Cove’s entire burnable acres.

With its mandate to maintain the cultural landscape of Cades Cove as it was when this area was used for agriculture, the National Park Service uses prescribed fire to kill hardwood saplings and brush that encroach on the fields. Left on their own, these plants would eventually grow up to replace the meadows with forest.

By burning in the fall, the park also helps reduce the amount of non-native fescue grass in the Cove. This cool-season grass, which was introduced to feed livestock, is severely affected by fall burning. By reducing the amount of fescue and exposing bare soil, autumn burns give the seeds of native grass species a chance to grow.

The burn was conducted by the Great Smoky Mountains Wildland Fire Module, assisted by the Great Smoky Mountains engine crew, the Cumberland Gap Wildland Fire Module, an engine captain from Cape Hatteras National Seashore, and a structural engine from the Townsend Volunteer Fire Department. The Great Smoky Mountains vegetation management crew also worked closely with the park fire management staff, filling several fireline positions. The burn thus served the purpose of increasing the park’s fire management capacity and its ability to work with neighboring fire departments.

For local newspaper coverage of the burn, please see Prescribed burns help keep Cades Cove's historic landscape Prescribed burns help keep Cades Cove's historic landscape.

Contact: Dave Loveland, Great Smoky Mountains National Park Fire Management Officer, dave_loveland@nps.gov, (865) 436-1247