USDA Forest Service federal fire management specialists are planning to conduct a prescribed burn on 440 acres today in the Cole Mountain area of the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest, Glenwood Pedlar Ranger District.
Prescribed burns are low-intensity fires, ignited by trained personnel, to remove excess vegetation and dead wood that would enable wildfires to burn hotter and longer.
Today’s prescribed burn is located near Wiggin Springs Road and Hog Camp Gap in Amherst County. The Appalachian National Scenic Trail and Old Hotel Trail #515 will be closed throughout the day.
Smoke may be visible near the towns of Montebello, eight miles from the prescribed burn and Fairfield, 10 miles northwest of the unit. The wind direction will be coming from the south.
Some smoke will settle around the general area of the burn. If encountering smoke on roadways; please slow down, turn on your low-beam headlights and use caution when encountering prescribed burning operations and smoke.
Prescribed fire plays an important role in the health of forest ecosystems. Applying prescribed fire on the land at the right place, at the right time, under the right conditions benefits the land and the surrounding communities. If you have any questions, please contact the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest at 540-291-2188
“Virginia State Police is investigating a small plane crash that occurred this morning (April 26, 2025) at approximately 10:45 a.m. in a field near Weyers Cave Road in Augusta County.
A small plane, with two people on board, lost power shortly after taking off from Shenandoah Regional Airport.
A small plane, with two people on board, lost power shortly after taking off from Shenandoah Regional Airport.
The plane was able to crash land in a nearby field. It did strike a fence before coming to a stop.
Neither of the two occupants were injured.
The FAA has been notified.
Matthew Demlein
Public Relations Coordinator
Virginia State Police”
Embrey released the following info around 6:20 Tuesday evening.
“This afternoon, Officers with the Harrisonburg Police Department executed a Search Warrant at a residence within the City of Harrisonburg. Ms. Katelynn Ann Hipes was found to be inside this residence, and she was taken into custody without incident.
This has been a fluid and active investigation since our office was first began the investigation on Friday, April 18th. We would like to thank the following agencies, who have worked diligently and tirelessly to assist our Office in the safe apprehension of Ms. Hipes:
Augusta County Sheriff’s Office
Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office
Staunton Police Department
Harrisonburg Police Department
Virginia State Police
United States Marshal Service
Our office will provide more details on this case in the coming days.
Sheriff Mark E. Embrey”
Here is a more detailed release below from the Harrisonburg Police Department about their participation in the apprehension.
“The Harrisonburg Police Department (HPD) has arrested Katelynn Ann Hipes, 22, of Augusta County. Ms. Hipes was wanted out of Nelson County for the following charges:
• 18.2-32: Second Degree Murder
• 18.2-53.1: Use of a Firearm in Commission of a Felony
On Friday, April 18, HPD received information from the Nelson County Sheriff’s Office that Ms. Hipes, who was wanted in connection with the early morning homicide of Kevin Scott Small, may be in the Harrisonburg area.
HPD officers, in coordination with the U.S. Marshals Capital Area Task Force, were able to identify her location at a residence on Lee Ave. in Harrisonburg, and HPD’s Criminal Investigations Division then obtained a search warrant for the address.
Just after 4 P.M. on April 22nd, the HPD Special Weapons and Tactics (S.W.A.T.) team executed the search warrant at the residence. With assistance from the Crisis Negotiations Team (CNT), Ms. Hipes was taken into custody without incident.
The Harrisonburg-Rockingham Emergency Communication Center (ECC) issued a shelter-in-place order at approximately 4:13 p.m. directed at the affected neighborhood and nearby streets. This decision, made by law enforcement, aims to alert the public about a potential threat within their vicinity. Residents are advised to remain indoors in a safe place during a shelter-in-place order, and they should anticipate a substantial police presence in the area.”
“At approximately 5:28 p.m. on Sunday (April 20, 2025), Virginia State Police’s Med Flight-1 received a request for a hoist rescue of an injured mountain biker along the Cashaw Creek Trail System in Amherst County. Virginia State Police Senior Trooper Pilot Andy Wood, Chesterfield Firefighter Chris Orr, and Chesterfield Lieutenant Mike Abbott then flew the 87 nautical miles to site, located about one mile up into the mountains.
Once on scene, Firefighter Orr was lowered to the scene, which was surrounded by trees (the hole in the tree canopy that Orr was lowed into was 15’ by 15’). While Firefighter Orr was on the ground, assisting a ground crew and loading the juvenile patient into the Baumin Bag device for hoisting, Med flight 1 remained airborne. The helicopter then hoisted Orr and the patient in tandem, and flew the patient to UVA Medical Center.
Med-Flight is currently in its 41st year. Med-flight is a publicly funded operation and does not charge for its services.
Med-flight 1 is a partnership between Virginia State Police and Chesterfield County Fire and EMS.
Matthew Demlein
Public Relations Coordinator
Virginia State Police”
“Lovingston, VA – Over the past twenty-four hours, Nelson County Investigators have been working in collaboration with other jurisdictions to locate the individual who is currently ‘Wanted’ by our agency in connection to the homicide of Mr. Kevin Scott Small of Shipman, Virginia.
The suspect in this case is identified as Ms. Katelynn Ann Hipes, a 22-year old female, who is a life-long resident of Augusta County, Virginia. Ms. Hipes currently has outstanding Felony Warrants for her arrest for the following offenses:
• Second Degree Murder
• Use of a Firearm in the Commission of a Felony
In an effort to protect the ‘Integrity’ of the investigation, it was not plausible to release Ms. Hipes’s name during yesterday’s Press Release. The timing of that release may have ‘jeopardized’ our attempts to locate Ms. Hipes during the overnight hours, as well as hindered several components of the investigation, despite warrants having already been obtained.
We would like to re-iterate that Ms. Hipes IS NOT currently in the Nelson County community, nor has she been since prior to yesterday’s Press Release. Our office has been in direct communication with the law enforcement agencies serving the jurisdictions that Ms. Hipes may presently be located in. Those agencies are working diligently with our office to locate and apprehend Ms. Hipes.
A photograph of Ms. Hipes is attached. We encourage anyone who knows her current location, or that may have any information that will lead to the arrest of Ms. Hipes, to please contact the Nelson County Sheriff’s Office.
Sheriff Mark E. Embrey”
Original post:
On Friday, April 18, 2025, Nelson County Deputies responded to a private residence in the Shipman-area of Nelson County for a report of an ‘unresponsive’ male subject. Upon arrival, Deputies located an ‘unresponsive’ male subject that was found outside of the residence who had a single gunshot-wound to the chest cavity. The male was pronounced deceased at the scene by EMS personnel who also responded to this address.
The victim has been identified as Mr. Kevin Scott Small of Shipman, Virginia. Due to the nature of this case and the pace of the ongoing investigation, our Office has identified a single suspect and obtained the following felony arrest warrants for this individual:
Second Degree Murder
Use of a Firearm in the Commission of a Felony
At this time, the suspect is still at-large, and is no longer believed to be in Nelson County. At this time, there is no threat to the Nelson County community. Our Office will continue to provide updates to this case as the investigation is fluid and will continue to develop.
For old timers, it’s the same location Bistro 151 and Mossy Creek 2 were in over two decades ago.
We peeked over the paper covering the windows and it looks very nice inside! Total remake!
The new Don Lupe sign went up above the soon to open restaurant in the past few weeks in the Valley Green Center in Nellysford. This photo was taken April 8, 2025.
One of the co-owners reached out to us to let us know the restaurant was “coming soon.” We have asked a couple of times for a followup on a more specific timeline and haven’t heard back.
It’s just one of several happenings in Nellysford. Across the road, Belties continues preparations for a start date as construction is in the final phases with opening anticipated in the next several weeks.
Once we know more about Don Lupe, we’ll let you know.
Our first cover of then Nelson County Life Magazine back on April 1, 2005. To the right our first publishers statement when we just began. Click on the image above read the very first From The Publishers.
Back then there were a few wineries here in Nelson. No breweries. No distilleries. And other than a hand-full of long-established local eating places, the only other dining option was Wintergreen Resort. The resort has already sold twice since those days and is now leased and managed out of Utah.
Back then we didn’t have kids and spent most of our days renovating a 1900s farm house we’d bought in Greenfield the year before in 2004. When finished up for the day we’d either get a pizza from the old Ashley’s Market nearby or head up the road to D’Ambolas Italian Restaurant to eat.
Yvette in March of 2006 renovating our first house here in Nelson County. She was building bookshelves in what would eventually become the parlor. We sold that house after 10 years in Greenfield and bought our current farm in Roseland in 2014.
Our path to starting the magazine was a bit curvy, with lots of twists and turns, much like the mountain roads we drive today here in Nelson. We met in the TV news business back in Tennessee and continued reporting into the early 2000s in Memphis.
Circa 2000. Yvette and me on the set of Action News 5 (WMC-TV) the NBC affiliate in Memphis, TN where we both reported and I did occasional weather. This was about 3-4 years before we left the TV news business permanently.
At the same time we were developing an exit strategy from that business. It was certainly better then vs now, but not by much. We literally sold drinking jars on the internet to get out of the news business to be able to buy our first home here in Virginia.
There we are almost two decades ago. October 2002. NW Tennessee. We literally sold drinking jars with handles and canning jars on the internet. This was just a small part of the inventory. The company we founded was RuralRoot.
We sold that company, RuralRoot, about a year after moving to Nelson in 2004. It’s long since closed down. But the couple we sold it to did a great job with it until the markets changed. (Google, Wal-Mart and the like took it out several years later.)
We launched Nelson County Life Magazine on April 1, 2005. Facebook had technically started just a year before, but was barely heard of back then and had no advertising component at all. We filled that void.
We survived the housing bust of 2008. That almost took us out. In just a month more than a third of our revenue disappeared. It took five years to get back to where we were. But we did by 2013. Because Yvette and I had started the business from scratch, we’d done every single job there was to do, from delivering magazines, to taking photos, to laying it out and selling all of the ads. So when 2008 happened we went back to the basics, survived, kept hunting unique story ideas, and kept publishing.
August 2011, Brian Shanks (L) and John Washburn, founders of Bold Rock Hard Cider stand on the original grounds of the cider barn construction. In the coming years the operation would double in size time and time again. The local company eventually sold to a large adult beverage corporation.
When a new brewery or eating establishment was planned, we were there. From the time the footers were poured, to the roof going on, until they were in operation. Many of those establishments advertised, but as they were sold off to corporations, they dropped off. It was an evolution, and a predictable one.
October 2008. Jason Oliver, Head Brewmaster for Devils Backbone Brewing, stands behind the bar under construction. Nelson’s second brewery would open to the public several weeks later. The entire operation eventually sold to Anheuser-Busch Companies, a division of InBev.
December 2006 – Blue Mountain Brewery founders Matt Nucci, Taylor Smack, and Mandi Smack look over the property where Nelson County’s first brewery would open about a year later in October 2007. Blue Mountain continues today as a locally owned brewery.
As the years ticked by, digital media grew. It began taking more and more of our market share. But there was still place for a printed magazine like BRL, especially in a big tourist location such as Nelson. It was actually the only way to get the message out to some in a county with still-sparse internet in places, prior to plentiful fiber these day.
Enter the Covid scare of 2020 which essentially shut down all restaurant and hospitality organizations for weeks. What was left standing of those businesses greatly curtailed or eliminated their advertising dollars.
Enough of how we got there. We. Are. Here.
Within a couple of years of 2021 we knew the day was approaching that we’d shutter the long running print side of the publication. Long before any of us heard of covid. We were already looking for the right time to exit.
We’d already been propping up the magazine in some months with money from other companies. So we decided that instead of limping along. April 2021 would be our last print issue. Exactly 16 years after we started.
Photo By Kate Simon : You’ve become accustomed to seeing our family in the publisher’s photo each month for 16 years. This was one of our final ones taken in March 2021.
This website (blueridgelife.com) continued. The Blue Ridge Life Magazine brand continues, maintaining it mainly for breaking news and weather information, as we’ve always done. Like the wildfires last week! We all remember that derecho!! Our social media pages remain. They all have thousands and thousands of followers, well in excess of 12,000.
We cannot adequately express our gratitude to each and every one of you for the past 20 years. You and the advertisers were and are the reason for the magazine’s success. You always saw us out front, but there are countless people behind the scenes over the years that made it happen. Names like Jennie Tal Williams, Paul Purpura (Mountain Photographer), Diana Garland, Jenn Rhubright, Marcie Gates, Hayley Osborne, Kat Turner, Lisa Davis, Stephanie Gross, Kate Simon, Victoria Godfrey, Elizabeth Ferrall, Woody Greenberg, Lynn Coffey, Mary Withers, Chet White, Lee Luther, Olivia Carter, Kim Chappell, Rachel Ryan, Ray Whitson, Woody Elliot, Earl Hamner, Jr, Norm Shafer, Joanie Dodd, Christina Kline, to name a few. There are so many more over the 20 years who I can’t remember right now, but you mattered just as much.
September 26, 2013 marked the final publication of The Hook that was launched back in 2002. Hawes Spencer the publisher was a loyal confidant in helping us get our start at BRL.
Steve Crandall in this photo I took back in May 2006. This is the exact field where Devils Backbone Brewing stands today. Steve told me not long after we met in late 2004 that he dreamed of having a brewery there one day.
The late Steve Crandall of Roseland. Steve was our first advertiser when he was still running Tectonics II. His son Justin has taken over that business today. Steve bought an entire year of advertising the first day we launched back in 2005 and paid the whole thing on the spot! He took it on faith. He didn’t really know us either. We have never forgotten that. Years later after founding Devils Backbone, we all prospered once again. Though it was a tough ride those first few years.
Finally and most importantly: my wife, Yvette. All 193 print ssues you have read, she put together. Through derechos, blizzards, child birth, illnesses, she never, ever missed a single deadline. Not one. That’s unheard of. But then again, that’s Yvette. She deserves the praise.
Yvette back in November 2006 with our rescue kitty Angelo. She was busy laying out one of the early issues. Our final issue of April 2021 marks issue 193.
Thank each and everyone of you for sticking with us all of these years, it’s been a ride and glad we’re still here!
Here’s an update from Wintergreen Fire & Rescue as of 4:45 PM Friday afternoon.
“Good Afternoon,
Although we still don’t believe there is any significant threat to Wintergreen, it should be noted that fully containing the Glass Hollow Fire has been more difficult than anticipated. The official status of this fire is currently “uncontained”. The fire is approximately 4 miles from Wintergreen.
The amount of federal and state resources assigned to this event is encouraging and impressive. Firefighters will not be getting any assistance from mother nature this weekend.
As mentioned in previous messages, whenever there is a major fire within 10 miles of Wintergreen, residents and guests should monitor Alert Wintergreen messages closely and be prepared to leave the area if requested.
Due to the elevated fire risk, the use of outdoor recreational fire pits at Wintergreen will not be allowed this weekend.”
Original post:
We first told you, here in this post, about a large wildfire that broke out Thursday afternoon in the Afton area near the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was located near Cherry Grove Lane on the east side of the BRP not terrible far ad adjacent to Humpback Rock on the other side.
According to a post by Wintergreen Fire & Rescue late Thursday night, the fire had been contained. We are waiting the same confirmation from the U.S. Forest Service. The state forestry status page says the blaze is about 50% contained as of 8:30 Friday morning. Additional fire fighting equipment from land and air will arrive again Friday to help get the fires under better control.
Status update from the Virginia Department of Forestry early Friday morning.
Above, a post this morning from Cameron Lenahan at the Afton Overlook. The forestry service says we may continue to see smoke and flames within the containment area for several days to come as it eventually burns out. Friday – March 28, 2025.
The fire began in the afternoon hours Thursday and quickly spread up the mountains toward the BRP from the Glass Hollow vicinity of Afton.
Above a firefighting helicopter dips water from a local pond near Cherry Grove Lane Thursday afternoon to help get the wildfire under control.
The chance for some scattered showers Friday afternoon across the area and more substantial rains Sunday into Monday should help conditions creating fires across the area.
And finally, a big thank you to everyone that sent and posted photos and video to our Facebook page during the fire. We didn’t get to re-post them all but greatly appreciate you sending them!
Updated 9:57 PM via Wintergreen Fire & Rescue: “The “Glass Hollow Fire” which we notified you about this afternoon has been contained. Local firefighting crews have been placed in service.
The National Park Service will continue to monitor the fire.
Expect to continue seeing fire/smoke in the area for the next couple of days as the fire continues to burn fuel within the containment lines.”
As of 8:20 PM Thursday night many of the local crews have been released and left the scene. Other forestry crews remained to control any existing fires. Even once it’s all controlled, and mostly out, smoke will continue to be visible for the coming days.
Fire is still visible upon the mountains as night settled in.
A complete wrap up later in the morning Friday.
Above a water support helicopter is seen gathering water from a pond near Cherry Grove Lane in Afton where a large wildfire is burning. Thursday – March 27, 2025
3:37 PM – Helicopters preparing to begin dropping water on the fires.
3:17 PM Helicopters heard arriving in the area
Reader submitted : Water support helicopter arrives near Cherry Grove Lane – Thursday – March 27, 2025 around 3:49 PMSubmitted by reader : The fire as seen from Cherry Grove Lane in Afton on Thursday afternoon around 3:30 PM – Thursday – March 27, 2025
Fire crews from several agencies are now gathering to work on putting out a large, currently, uncontrolled wildfire burning off of Cherry Grove Road burning towards Humpback Rock on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Above the rough area where much of the fire is burning from the basin to the west / southwest. Thursday – March 27, 2025Photo John Hellerman : Smoke seen rising above the forest fire near the Blue Ridge Parkway close to Humpback Rock Thursday afternoon – March 27, 2025.Photo By Liz Taylor : Another view of the wildfire as seen from near Paulie’s Pig Out on 151 in Greenfield. March 27, 2025
Updates and photos added frequently, be sure to refresh your browser.
Rockfish Gap Turnpike
At The Roundabout 151/250
Albemarle County, Virginia
Traffic came to a smelly halt, a stinky stop, in every direction Wednesday night after a manure truck overturned at the 250/151 roundabout on Rockfish Gap Turnpike just inside Albemarle County.
Photo By Lauren Hughes : As you approached the roundabout Wednesday night traffic was snarled and stopped due to an overturned manure truck in the intersection. March 26, 2025
After the roadway was shutdown for several hours it reopened around 10:15 PM Wednesday night.
