Division of Forestry reports 15 wildfires last year

The Division of forestry issued its annual report to the county commission last week which outlines much of the work that state foresters do in Franklin County.

The Division oversees nearly 60 thousand acres of woodland in Franklin County.

Forestry managers said that over the year that ended June 30^th, foresters dealt with 15 wildfires which burned just over 328 acres.

That’s double the number that was seen last year.

Of the 15 wildfires, 3 were caused by lightning, 2 were considered arson, and 2 were caused by debris burns that got out of control.

There was also 1 that was caused by a child.

6 are listed as unknown.

The Division has also done plenty of other work – including issuing 105 authorizations for outdoor burning and they have done controlled burns on over 57 thousand acres of state owned forest land.

The total cost to the county for the work was just over 4100 dollars – which comes out to about 7 cents an acre.

The state covered the rest of the cost to the tune of over 36 thousand bucks.

The Division of forestry even presented the school system with a check for almost 133 thousand dollars this year which represents 15 percent of the total revenue collected from state forests that include timber harvesting and park fees.  

http://live.oysterradio.com/