TEAM UNSTABLE MESSAGE BOARD

[scott]

Protect our trees; don't move firewood when camping

The DNR asks for campers' help keeping Emerald Ash Borer (EAB), an invasive insect that attacks ash trees, out of its camping properties during the last busy camping weekend of the year. Restricting hardwood firewood brought through the gate is the best way to do so.

The tiny insect is devastating to ash trees, killing millions in Michigan, Ohio, northeastern Indiana and several other states in the past few years.

To help manage EAB and preserve the shade, campers should not bring any type of hardwood firewood with them from any Indiana county under EAB quarantine. Hardwood firewood of any type, not just ash, may not be brought into any Indiana state park, reservoir or state forest campground. An interactive map showing quarantined Indiana counties is at http://www.IN.gov/dnr/entomolo/5349.htm.

Visitors from quarantined counties should not bring hardwood firewood from home as it will be confiscated. Visitors may bring pine or scrap, kiln-dried lumber, or packaged firewood that has a federal certification label or a state-compliance agreement label, or campers may purchase firewood after entering the property.

Under a federal quarantine, no firewood may be brought into Indiana from Michigan, Ohio or Illinois, or from parts of Pennsylvania, New York, Minnesota, Missouri, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia. A map of federal quarantine locations is at http://www.IN.gov/dnr/parklake/files/ep-MultiState_EABpos_20090401.pdf.

For more information on Emerald Ash Borer, visit www.entm.purdue.edu/EAB or call Purdue's EAB Outreach and Education program at (765) 494-0822.