If you are traveling past Paul M. Grist State Park and notice smoke, there is no reason to be alarmed.

The Alabama State Parks Division is conducting controlled burns on 225 acres of the park throughout December to open up scenery and improve wildlife habitat.

The burn, state Parks Forester Don Burdette said, will make the park more aesthetically pleasing to visitors and motorists.

“What we’re trying to do is when you drive through the park and down the parkway, a lot of times where we haven’t been managing there is just a solid wall of vegetation and you can’t see 15 feet off the road,” he said. “You’re driving through a tunnel and there is so much more to the park than that. We’re taking that wall down through fire and thinning.”

The burns, Burdette said, are a practice that is performed periodically to control undergrowth. Wildlife in the area often benefit tremendously from the burns.

“We burned some areas three years ago and it’s excellent for deer. They are really out there,” he said. “If it got much taller we wouldn’t get the benefit of being able to see them and it would go back to being a blind spot. Every three or four years we try to burn it to keep it from going back.”

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