Prescribed fire is a valuable tool for improving the ecosystem and keeping small fires from turning into large ones.
On Saturday, January 25, Hillsborough County will hold a Prescribed Fire Fest to introduce residents to the time-honored land management tactic that’s been in use for centuries.
Prescribed Fire Fest will include interactive workshops, displays, guided nature walks, food trucks, and a prescribed fire demonstration. Kids can compete in a variety of games to test their wildland firefighting skills using a hose. The event will be from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. at Edward Medard Conservation Park, located at 6140 Turkey Creek Rd. in Plant City. The festival is free, but the park has an entry fee of $2 per vehicle.
The use of prescribed fire is a time-tested way to apply a natural process under more controlled weather conditions, thus ensuring ecosystem health and reducing the risk of wildfire. It is a land management tool used to restore and maintain fire-dependent ecosystems, enhance forest health, improve wildlife habitat and reduce the chances of wildfire by decreasing hazardous fuels.
Fire promotes healthy ecosystems by clearing out competing vegetation, cycling nutrients into the soil, stimulating growth and seed production of fire-dependent plants and providing food for wildlife. One of the greatest benefits of prescribed fire is that it reduces underbrush, branches, pine needles, leaves and dead plant debris that build up on the forest floor over time. Reducing these ‘fuels’ every few years helps reduce the intensity, heat and destructive force of a wildfire if one occurs.
To help manage the biological integrity of more than 64,000 acres of environmentally sensitive areas, Hillsborough County Conservation & Environmental Lands Management conducts dozens of prescribed fires each year on county conservation lands.
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