MORGANTOWN – For the second time in just over a year, fire has closed a portion of Morgantown’s oldest park.
BOPARC Executive Director Greg Travinski said a bridge that connects the lower portion of the Whitemoore Park trail down to Valley Crossing and the Deckers Creek Trail has been partially destroyed.
BOPARC personnel made the discovery Tuesday during a routine patrol of the park property for encampments and other unwanted activity.
“They found that one of the bridges in Whitemoore had been set on fire. So there was a post that is completely burned off,” Travinski told the Board of Park and Recreation Commissioners. “We sent our trail guide and our head of maintenance out to check it out today. So, we’re going to close it for a bit until we can get some engineering folks out there to look at it just to ensure that if we make repairs on it, that it’s going to stay where it is and it’s going to be safe for the public to use.”
Asked if there was evidence of an encampment in the area, Travinski said a fire pit and sleeping bags were found.
While the park will remain open, the bridge will be off limits until BOPARC can determine if it can be repaired and remain usable.
“It’ll block, essentially, the lower third of the trail from being used. You can’t really go around it,” he said.
On Nov. 12, 2024, the Morgantown Fire Department responded to a ground fire that burned across approximately two acres of the 8.6-acre park.
The park trail was temporarily closed in the days that followed as BOPARC and personnel from the MFD assessed the damage and investigated the cause of the fire, which was never officially determined.
