State foresters and Nature Conservancy fire ecology experts will draft a fire management plan for Manuel Correllus State Forest on Martha’s Vineyard, to guide ongoing fire work, thanks to recent funding from the U.S. Forest Service.

The $374,000 also will cover the partnership to restore 925 acres in Massachusetts with prescribed fire over the next year, to manage ecosystems and improve public safety.

“These funds will provide the needed staff to push the scope of our work to the next level,” said Nature Conservancy fire manager Bob Bale. “We expect to burn twice as many acres as we did last year.”

Without safe, professionally controlled fires to reduce the fuel load, the pine barrens of southeastern Massachusetts face the risk of wildfires – like a 1957 fire in Plymouth that blazed across 15,000 acres in a single day.