State Forestry to Resume Prescribed Burn Project in Pine

Pine-Strawberry, AZ (12/5/21) – Starting Monday, December 6, the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management and the Pine-Strawberry Fire District will resume ignitions to a prescribed burn project at Camp LoMia within the community of Pine. 

Favorable weather conditions give the agencies the opportunity to complete the 100-acre project that began last month. Ignitions are set to begin Monday morning and pending no disruptions in the weather pattern. The overall goal of the project is to help safeguard Mogollon Rim communities by decreasing the threat of wildfire and increasing forest health. DFFM hand crews will conduct the project using hand-firing operations to help efficiently reduce the fuel load within the project area.

The areas targeted for this second phase have significantly more fuels than the prior project area and therefore smoke will be noticeably heavy within the community of Pine especially during the nighttime hours. Smoke will again be visible to drivers along State Routes 87 and 260. Road signs will again be in place to inform drivers of the project and the possible smoke impacts to the highways. Heavy smoke is expected to settle into the Pine Creek Canyon-area overnight.

Currently, DFFM has at least six prescribed burn projects across the state scheduled for the upcoming months. Prescribed fire projects are beneficial to the landscape as they help reduce overgrown fuels, remove diseased vegetation and invasive species, protect watersheds and, most importantly, safeguard communities from potentially destructive wildfires.

As with all prescribed burn projects, ignitions remain weather dependent and must have prior approval from the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality.

For day of burn information and other pertinent prescribed burn updates, go to DFFM’s Facebook and Twitter sites. You can also find more information on the Camp LoMia Rx Burn on the Pine-Strawberry Fire District’s Facebook page.