Don’t panic at the sight of smoke or the smell of burning in Rome Wednesday morning.
It will be an intentionally set blaze, according to the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, which sent out advance notice.
The burn is set for 10:30 a.m. Wednesday on state park land off Watson Pond Road in the area known as Blueberry Hill. The site is about fifteen miles northwest of Augusta.
Forest Rangers from the Maine Forest Service will be in charge of the burn and will be training civilian wildland firefighters.
According to the department, benefits of the burn are control of brush (that could allow the spread of wildfires), maintenance of the scenic vista, enhancement of blueberry bush propagation for recreational use and improvement of field nesting bird habitat.
If the controlled burn effort proves successful, the forest service anticipates doing it on a three-to-four-year rotation.
Forest Rangers prepared the site on April 26 by digging fire lines and limbing trees near the edge of the field. The forecast for Wednesday calls for warm and dry conditions. According to the release, those are good conditions for a safe, slow moving surface fire.
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