As I’ve mentioned before, I’m on the mailing list for notifications from the forestry service, and I get e-mails almost daily regarding planned burns, but I did not get a notification for the burn between Hunters Creek and Hillfield Road (Dove field) in Jones county. Regardless, they did a pretty comprehensive burn in that area on the 25th or 26th of March. I’m thinking early on the 26th, but I can’t be 100% sure.
The burn was pretty intense, but the damage to the trail appears to be minimal, at least in the areas I had time to check. One interesting, unexpected result was that, where the leaves were packed down by foot traffic on the trail, the ground did not burn as completely; not at all in some areas. The trail almost acted as a fire break. As you can see in the photograph of the hollow tree, the trail is now clearly delineated by the burn on either side of it.
The blazes that were still on the trees survived the fire, so the trail is still marked with the blue-and-white blazes. The weirdest thing, to me, was that the forest felt even more naked, having lost much of it’s ground vegetation. I’m kind of happy that they were able to do the burn and it didn’t adversely impact the trail. In some places, it probably improved it. The entrance to the trail from Hillfield at the southern terminus is definitely easier to navigate.
