Photos from the Prescribed Burn, March 2025
The burn will help to rejuvenate a rare pitch pine-scrub oak barrens habitat in Memorial Forest and the Desert Natural Area. The burn was conducted by Star Tree Wildfire Protection LLC of New Jersey.
WMCT-TV of Marlborough was on hand and has posted a video about the event on its YouTube page.
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On the morning of March 27, Priscilla Ryder of the City of Marlborough (left) and Laura Mattei and Dan Stimson of SVT (at right) met with representatives of Star Tree Wildfire Protection to discuss the burn plan.
The City, SVT, and Star Tree had previously discussed the burn plan with the Sudbury and Marlborough Fire Departments and the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation's regional fire warden. We scheduled the burn at a time when fire personnel would be on hand to assist
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The original plan--which we developed in 2024--called for us to burn 75 acres, but MassWildlife's Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program required us to leave about 15 acres unburned to provide a refuge area for threatened species of moths and salamanders.
To ensure wildlife safety, we conducted a turtle sweep prior to the burn to make sure that radio-tagged turtles were in a safe zone. Most wildlife are able to either flee or escape to an underground burrow. The fire does not penetrate the soil beyond the surface layer.
In the long run, a controlled fire helps to prevent wildfires that would kill more wildlife, and it also improves the habitat for wildlife species in peril of extinction.
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To ensure the fire could be contained, SVT and the City had previously cleared large trees from our properties in the burn area.
We also cleared fire breaks to prevent the fire from jumping to other parts of the conservation area.
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The timing of the burn was always weather dependent. Safety was paramount, and as it turned out, we weren't able to burn all 60 acres as expected.
We had planned to burn 30 acres each day, but with the windy weather conditions on the morning of Friday, March 28, the Sudbury Fire Chief required us to conduct a burn with even higher levels of control and over a smaller (11-acre) area.
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Brandon Parker, SVT's Facilities Manager who is certified to participate in prescribed burns, donned protective gear and lent his skills to the effort.
In the months ahead, we will share photos of the burn area to demonstrate how quickly the plants respond, and we will recruit volunteers to help remove invasive plants from the habitat area.
The Spring 2025 prescribed burn received grant funding from MassWildlife, the DuPont Clear Into the Future program, and Hollis Declan Leverett Memorial Fund, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee.