Civic group: Resume controlled park burns

A prominent Montauk environmental group is calling for the return of regular controlled burns in their local parks, which were halted seven years ago because of disagreements over who would pay for them and be responsible for damages from out-of-control fires.

The Concerned Citizens of Montauk has the support of the volunteer fire department. Bruce Horwith, who once directed local controlled burn programs, recently spoke at a post-Earth Day program about how it clears the undergrowth in woods so local plant species can reproduce.

About 70 percent of the Montauk area is made up of county and state parks. Rav Freidel, director of the Concerned Citizens of Montauk, said he would like to see controlled burns resume where they were historically done, as part of native grass restoration projects. The burning not only gets rid of the accumulation of leaves and wood that could otherwise feed a major forest fire, but also allows local grasses to spread in areas that have been taken over by newer, invasive species.

"We have grasses that exist no place else but Montauk," Freidel said. "We have rare moths and beetles and other things we probably don't even know about yet."

Fire department officials said controlled burns provide valuable training.

"Brush fires move, they have a dynamic response to different wood conditions and terrain, the different vegetation you go through," said Jim Grimes, 55, the Montauk volunteer firefighter who is coordinating the effort to resume controlled burns so his department can get the kind of experience he acquired more than 20 years ago. "When you get a really bad brush fire, you realize how little you know."

The Concerned Citizens group, whose 800 members make it the largest civic group in Montauk, wants the first open burning to take place at Theodore Roosevelt County Park, a symbolic site because the park was the land surrounding the house where Hilda Lindley lived when she founded the organization in 1970.

Getting approval for a controlled burn will take months because it must come from the county and the state Department of Environmental Conservation. In addition, experts must be found who can run a burn -- which is strictly controlled. For example, it cannot take place if the wind is too strong.

The group would like to see controlled burns start next year.

State Assemb. Fred W. Thiele Jr. (I-Sag Harbor) said the burns have helped reduce the threat of wildfires in the Pine Barrens of central Suffolk and the wooded areas of Montauk.

"I'd be interested in what they are saying," he said of the group.