Setting fires in the Linville Gorge Wilderness Area is contrary to the 1964 Wilderness Act. 

The USFS and its partners are pushing the use of “controlled” burns in the Linville Gorge so that they can benefit from a $4.5 M grant from the federal government that includes prescribed burning requirements.  The award of the grant required prescribed burning and the 12,000 acre Linville Gorge Wilderness made for an easy target to reach the grant’s requirement for 50,000 acres of “treatment”.  If they can’t justify using prescribed burns they will not meet the grant requirements, therefore forfeiting the grant money.  Everything else is a smokescreen.

There are two particular endangered species: Hudsonia montana and Heller’s blazing star that the USFS and partners continually refer to “needing” fire.  These species don’t need fire they need open space, open space can occur naturally, or can be done by hand tools.  Fire can also kill these endangered species, and is not a panacea. These species are already increasing in population and do not need fire to continue increasing .  The references to the “endangered species” are intended to appeal to people’s uninformed environmental sympathies.

On the other hand, setting fires in the Gorge will dramatically increase the spread of invasive species.  One such species is the Princess tree, which needs the kind of open dry ground that fire produces.  The Princess tree does not reproduce in moist low light areas that comprise most of the Gorge.  Removal of this Eurasian tree requires manual cutting and chemical poisoning. 
When it comes to “returning” fire to the Linville Gorge Wilderness, the proponents are neglecting the important fact that fire has not left the Gorge and that there are thousands of acres that have either burned by either lightning or accidental ignition in the last 12 years. 

Lastly suggesting that controlling fire in the Linville Gorge is ludicrous, this steep mostly inaccessible terrain does lend itself to being controlled.  Remember “controlled” burn in the Croatan National Forest last year?  The USFS lost control of the planned 1,500 acre burn and instead caused a 21,000 acre wildfire.

If “suppression of natural fire ignitions is against the spirit of Wilderness” wouldn’t intentionally lighting an artificial fire be against the “spirit of the wilderness”?

Frankly, you are just plain violating the Wilderness Act. It is also insane to think you can control fire in the wind and steep terrain of this area. Leave the Linville Gorge alone.  We do not want a managed forest replacing the native plants and not all of the flora and fauna here is fire adaptive.