State employees use controlled burns to maintain healthy forest environments

By Sophia Ramirez

Chapel Hill residents were left confused and concerned when a cloud of smoke descended on the town earlier this year. The source of the haze, the Chapel Hill Fire Department explained, was a controlled burn in Chatham County, part of a larger effort to contain wildfires and manage vegetation.

Carolina Connection’s Sophia Ramirez recently traveled to Pilot Mountain to learn more about how this counterintuitive strategy is being utilized throughout North Carolina.