The Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge fire crew traveled to Soldiers Delight Natural Environment Area, NW of Baltimore to assist the Maryland DNR in a prescribed burn to help restore the habitat for the endangered sandplain gerardia.  The state is restoring this unique serpentine grassland by utilizing a combination of mechanical thinning to push back the encroaching Virginia Pines and prescribed burning. 

On this last trip north, 42 acres of grasslands were treated with fire.  Crewmembers from the Maryland Conservation Corps, Maryland Natural Heritage Program, The Nature Conservancy, and members from the local county fire department as well as the ignition crew from Blackwater all worked as one team to accomplish the mission.

Glenn Therres, Associate Director of Wildlife and Heritage Service, for the MD-DNR was able to observe some of the ignition and holding forces in action and was impressed.  “The partnership that has developed over the past several years between your (BWR) burn crew and the Natural Heritage Program has worked extremely well from our perspective…We (DNR and BWR) both should be proud of our efforts to restore this ecosystem.”