Controlled burn on Long Island at Hempstead Plains Preserve aims to prevent future wildfires
GARDEN CITY, New York (WABC) -- A controlled burn took place on the Nassau Community College Campus Tuesday morning.
The Hempstead Plains Preserve is an endangered tallgrass prairie that spans 17 acres. It's the largest of its kind in the Eastern United States.
The controlled burn was done to prevent a wildfire like the ones that devastated parts of California, forests upstate, the Carolinas and in Canada.
"What you have here is available fuel, flammable fuel, and you have weather and all you need is a spark. So, there's a couple hundred days a year you could have a fire in here," a fire official said.
The preserve was once 40,000 acres and is now only 17 -- but it has shocking historic value. It's not just decades old, but thousands of years ol.
"And what we really want to do is to keep this as it looked for 10,000 years, since the end of the Ice Age, this is a primeval landscape that we have here," said Paul Van Wie with Friends of Hempstead Plains.
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The nonprofit Friends of Hempstead Plains say the prescribed burn protects the sensitive ecosystem while also promoting its long-term health.
This isn't the first time a controlled burn has been done on the property. The last time was in 2023.
This time Star Tree Wildfire Prevention LLC is partnering with the nonprofit to oversee the next phase of the ecological restoration effort.
Hempstead Plains Preserve is the largest remaining section of what was once a vast 40,000-acre ecosystem.
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