Econ River Wildlife Area temporarily closed ahead of prescribed burns

Oviedo, Florida. – The Econ River Wilderness Area is closed for the next two weeks while the Seminole County Natural Lands Program prepares the park for prescribed burns.

During this time, crews mow 17 acres of land to create a safer environment for planned fires.

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“I would like people to see it over and over and see the results,” said Seminole County Natural Resources Coordinator Allegra Bayer. “See what it looks like after mowing, after the fire, and then a year later, because the results are really going to be spectacular.”

Although the project looks like a destructive mess, it is actually beneficial to the habitat. The buyer said it was all done with animal welfare in mind.

“While we are on fire, we try to move slowly and leave plenty of escape routes for the animals,” Bayer said. “They can also go into the burrows of gopher tortoises during the prescribed burn. So these burrows are very deep, and they will hide there as long as the fire burns. What we’re trying to do is not burn too much habitat at one time so that animals can always enter (it).”

The buyer also said that the prescribed burns help stimulate the growth of new vegetation such as wiregrass.

“Yes, so when we burn, we are actually releasing nutrients into the soil, because the vegetation burns all the nutrients, they stay with it, and it all sinks into the soil, which helps new plants grow,” Bayer said.

The buyer said the wire grass is an important source of food and shelter for animals such as gopher tortoises.

“It gives them food and gives them space to dig really deep burrows,” Bayer said.

However, not only gopher tortoises love the native plant wiregrass.

“Many animals require frequently burned habitats, for example, quails, turkeys and even some salamanders really like this wire grass,” Bayer said.

The buyer encourages people to come out and see for themselves the progress of the restoration of the habitat.

“By next year, it will be hard to say that we have done this work at all, and ideally the habitat will look much better,” Bayer said.

The park will open between the mowing and burning stages of the project. The buyer said that they would like to start the burning phase approximately two months after the completion of the main part of the project.

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