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The National Park Service has canceled the Independence Day fireworks display at Mount Rushmore National Memorial this year because of growing fire danger in a forest decimated by pine beetles.
Navnit Singh, chief of interpretation and education at the memorial, said Wednesday that the annual celebration of the Fourth of July holiday will go on at the popular memorial. But the events will not include a fireworks display on the evening of July 3.
"We spoke with the governor today, and all the congressional delegates are on board," Singh said. "This is approved at the highest levels of the National Park Service. The risk is unacceptable, given the current condition of the national forest in and around Mount Rushmore."
Pine beetles have killed most of the trees in the Black Elk Wilderness, which butts up against Mount Rushmore National Memorial. The memorial contains about 1,200 acres of forest.
Foresters say dead and dying trees pose a much greater risk of wildfire.
"The condition of the forest is such that, unlike any other year before, there is a greater risk of a wildfire growing into a catastrophic fire, because there's more dead forest close to the park than any other previous year," Singh said.
He said the cancellation doesn't mean there won't be fireworks in 2011.
"We'll assess the risk every year."
The fireworks display has been a part of the Independence Day celebration at Mount Rushmore since 1999. It was held then to commemorate new facilities at the memorial and has been maintained almost every year since, said Paul Hammett, safety and occupational health director at Mount Rushmore.
The fireworks show was canceled in 2002 because of dangerously dry forest conditions that caused wildfires in the Black Hills, Hammett said. A laser show presented in place of the fireworks was not popular with the public.
Last year, the show was disappointing because clouds and fog rolled in and obscured the fireworks.
Even without the fireworks, the memorial is expected to be packed, as it is every year at the memorial, he said.
"Last year, the very next day, July 4, before the park gates opened, traffic was backed up all the way down to Keystone," Singh said. "So the people came, and we had capacity crowds without lifting a finger, basically. There's no reason to think that anything is going to be collapsing because of this. People will come."
Singh said Park Service employees and others who work on the Fourth of July celebration schedule would be "challenged to find a spectacular alternative to the fireworks." He said Rushmore staff has just begun planning for the celebration.
"We normally have a full day of programs scattered throughout the park and the amphitheater."
With fireworks canceled, the staff will have more flexibility in planning and scheduling celebration activities, Singh said. "Ideally, my thought would be to have a series of special programs and a much more robust evening program."
Singh said the area has a plentiful supply of entertainers, patriotic programs and historical re-enactors.
"We're going to look at all of those options."
My guess is it may not totally be related to the "danger" but more the costs.... Im sure the danger figures in, but I have a hard time seeing this cancelled 7 months in advance based on that fact alone...
I find it odd. Social Worker I concur. They have done the show for the last 12 or 13 years with no major issues. There were several dry years with extreme fire dangers. I thought they ran a laser show a couple times. It was a logistical nightmare at any rate. Considering the fire concerns, they are always there... Unless the hills receives copious amounts of moisture... years like that wildland fire junkies like me, lamented that California couldn't even burn.
That's too bad. I only saw the 4th fireworks over Rushmore once but it was in the top 2 displays I've ever seen. If we'd been close rather than watching from a distant hill it might have made #1.
I wonder if because of budget considerations that they (forest service) were perhaps unable to remove as much dead fall in 2009 or project less removal in 2010 as they would like. It seems strange to predict dry conditions when much of the area is still under several feet of snow.
Not sure how much snow they are under. But the monument and land proximal to the Mount is maintained by the National Parks Service (department of Interior). I am not sure where the land boundaries lay, but neighbors include Forest Service (USDA) and perhaps some state land.
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