GREAT FOX ISLAND, VA - Nearly 100 years after it was first established, the Fox Island lodge and former education center between the Tangier and Pocomoke Sounds of the Chesapeake Bay has reportedly burned down.
The island where the center was located sits just south of the Maryland-Virginia border off the Cedar Island State Wildlife Management Area south of Crisfield.
Chopper 16 flew overhead on Monday morning, and saw virtually nothing remaining of the facility and smoke still smoldering from its ruins.
Frank Pruitt, Crisfield Fire Department Chief, tells WBOC the building has burned down but no local fire departments were alerted Friday night.
Crisfield has the closest fire boat in the area, according to Pruitt.
“It’s very surprising,” Pruitt said.
The center first began as a hunting lodge in 1929. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation took ownership of the island and launched the Chesapeake Bay Foundation Fox Island Education Center in 1978.
For over 40 years, Fox Island Environmental Education Center provided immersive learning experiences to tens of thousands of teachers and students from across the region.
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But the island and the Education Center would face a losing battle with rising waters in the Chesapeake.
The Foundation bid farewell to the building in 2019 and ceased operations there, saying it would inevitably become unsafe conducting their education program at the Fox Island Center due to sea level rise and erosion.
More than 70 percent of the island’s land area had washed away in the past 50 years the CBF said in their blog post in 2019.
“It’s hard to imagine CBF without it—Fox was our first residential education center,” the Chesapeake Bay Foundation said at the time.
JR Parks from Tangier Island told WBOC "It's a shame, I mean we all grew up around that seeing it as a landmark for the Island. I think everybody coming from Tangier to Crisfield learned how to get to Crisfield by looking for that first."
Jeff Howard from Marion Station visited the Island on a number of occasions. He said "It's a shame because I mean it was a landmark, especially for fishing. I fished around there all my life and it was just part of the landscape."
Howard said, like many children, his daughter visited the Island for an educational trip. "They had crab pots set and they told them and taught up about the bay, crabbing, fishing and just the general knowledge of the area," he said.
The cause of the fire is currently unclear. WBOC reached out to Virginia State Police, which investigates fires in the commonwealth. A spokesperson said they only investigate if a locality suspects criminality or if they are asked to assist.
On Wednesday, February 14th, Virginia State Police confirmed to WBOC they would be assisting the Accomack County Sheriff's Department in determining origin and cause of the fire.
