The National Parks Service contains some of the most diverse landscapes imaginable, and of course each Park or Monument deserves the right to choose how they protect their heritage from invasive species threats. Don't Move Firewood thinks it is smart to keep visitors from bringing firewood into the parks, especially if those visitors are coming from known high risk areas. With that in mind, we want to give a big shout out to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for their very easy to read list of quarantined counties, accurate as of May 2012, to educate people on where firewood is absolutely prohibited by arriving with visitors from that county. Nice job! It makes it really easy for us to answer this recent question in our advice column;
Dear Don't Move Firewood,
We live in Blount County (TN). Cades Cove (valley within Great Smoky Mountains) is in Blount County. Can we take our fire wood?
Yours,
Dorothy in Tennessee
Dear Dorothy,
Because Blount County is on the list of quarantined counties, even though your destination is in the same county, you still can't take firewood with you into Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I know that's a little confusing, but the idea is that there are extra precautions in place to keep pests like the emerald ash borer out of the National Park. Thanks for asking, and enjoy your trip!