Safety Heralds

By Marc Titus

As fires ignited over the Mother's Day weekend, National Forests in Florida Fire Staff Officer James Hart had many things to consider. Extended drought had plagued the southern region for many years, making the Florida forests extremely dry and very susceptible to any source of ignition.

The scenario reminded Hart of fire seasons between 1998 and 2001. The forests already had experienced 1,521 fires year-to-date, totaling around 115,000 acres. Wildfires had resulted in evacuations, highway closures, and structure losses. Heavy media attention, along with loss of homes and proximity to the wildland-urban interface, primed local residents for wildfire preparedness and prevention messages. With resources now moving to the Palm Bay area to fight several fires started by an arsonist, Hart was beginning to see a familiar pattern.

Florida had seen its fair share of catastrophic wildland fires, and the staff on the National Forests in Florida learned that when the fire danger tips into the extreme range, a single human-caused start could have devastating consequences. The late-May fire situation resulted in the mobilization of state Type-1 and Type-2 incident management teams and the need to call in national resources. With local and national resources stretched beyond capacity, the ability to battle these ongoing incidents and aggressively attack the new fire starts was compromised. These ingredients are a recipe for disaster in this southern landscape, where the rural population is scattered throughout the dominant southern longleaf pine stands.

When the Tracy Fire started on the Ocala National Forest on May 21, with a potential to grow rapidly and threaten homes, a decision was made. Hart had been consulting with Fire Prevention & Education Program Manager Ava Young, and the two were quick to mobilize a National Fire Prevention & Education Team. Within 24 hours, team members began arriving and setting up a base of operations near the fire. Immediately, the team began efforts to inform local residents about Firewise principals, taking advantage of the teachable moment — at a time when people are primed to listen and learn and want information on how to better protect them from the immediate threat. The prevention team capitalized on the opportunity to provide fire information and prevention messages while the incident was ongoing.

Within 48 hours of the team being in place and fully functional, they completed a situation assessment, communication and action plan to fulfill the needs of the delegation of authority from the National Forests in Florida. The delegation included signatures from representatives of the local forest staff, Florida Division of Forestry staff, and Hart and Young. With this interagency support, the team's activities during the Tracy Fire were very successful. The team provided information and prevention messaging to thousands of interested and concerned residents.

As the Tracy Fire and the complex of the Mother's Day fires were winding down, the team shifted gears to address the delegation's spelled out desires:

1. Raise overall awareness of the high wildfire danger, restrictions and precautions currently in place on public and private lands in Florida.

2. Reduce the number of human-caused wildfires on private and public lands.

3. Provide information about fire restrictions in Florida to forest visitors, residents and communities via the Internet, news media and other methods.

4. Promote the nationally recognized Firewise Program to local residents communities, and visitors in Florida.

5. Establish a record-keeping process to provide a complete and organized electronic record of the team's activities and accomplishments, contacts, expenditures and recommendations for future action.

Over the next five weeks, the team attacked these objectives like firefighters on the line by meeting with the public, local officials, local and regional media outlets, and more. As one local area was saturated with fire-prevention messaging, the team moved on setting up shop in Lake City, Fla., on the Osceola National Forest then closing out on the Apalachicola National Forest near Tallahassee. It's activities impacted thousands of people and a dramatic reduction in human-caused fires was observed.

As the fire season in the south now is winding down, fire officials on the National Forests of Florida are breathing a sigh of relief. Aside from the Mother's Day fires, which occurred primarily on state and private jurisdiction, the National Forests in Florida have made it through another fire season. With a history of catastrophic fires in the past like the 1998 and 1999 fire seasons and fires like the Bugaboo in 2007, officials know it could have been much worse.

National Fire Prevention and Education Teams have been used effectively since early this decade. They are available through the Resource Ordering and Status System, can be ordered through the local Geographic Area Coordination Center and are very cost-effective. Compared with the cost of mobilizing a Type-1 incident management team or a couple of days of aviation costs for a Type-1 heavy helicopter doing initial attack, the estimated daily cost to operate a prevention team is around $3,000, which is very reasonable. They have been shown time and time again to have dramatic impacts in reducing human-caused ignitions.

As of Aug. 5, six teams were deployed to New Mexico, two in North Carolina and one to Northern California.

Marc Titus is a former regional fire prevention coordinator and wildland firefighter for the Washington State Department of Natural Resources. He is the secretary of the IAWF board of directors and chairs the Wildfire magazine editorial advisory board. Titus now is a consultant living in Sedona, Ariz. He is qualified as a Prevention and Education Team leader and a Type-1 helibase manager.