Officials of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore have postponed their plans to conduct a “prescribed burn” in the Port Oneida Rural Historic District.
The deliberately-set fires are used to maintain open fields in the area, reduce the accumulation of fuels for bigger, more destructive fires, and provide habitat for a variety of birds and wildlife.
The prescribed fire planned for this spring was to have taken place prior to significant “green-up,” but that window has passed for this spring, park officials said.
Prescribed fires can only be ignite when the wind, temperature and humidity factors will allow for a fire which is not too intense, but still will burn enough to meet the park’s management objectives.

“We knew we were shooting for a very limited window of opportunity,” park natural resources chief Steve Yancho said in a news release. “The timing and amount of rainfall and the progression of the fields to a ‘green-up’ condition just kept us from being able to use fire as a tool this spring.”

Lakeshore officials said they will continue to monitor conditions and may consider conducting a prescribed fire in late summer or early fall.