This week is Prescribed Fire Awareness
Week in Florida.
Prescribed Fire Awareness Week is a
time the state uses to draw attention to the state’s practice of doing
controlled burns on Florida's nearly 17 million acres of public forestland.
Prescribed fire uses slow-moving,
low-grade fire to reduce the brush and overgrowth that would otherwise serve as
fuel for a dangerous wildfire.
Besides cutting down on hazardous
ground fuels, prescribed fires return nutrients to the soil, provide better
forage for wildlife and livestock, and help control certain plant and tree
diseases.
People who own forest land and are
interested in adding prescribed fire to their land management practices can get
state assistance in doing so.
In an average year, the Florida Forest
Service issues about 90,000 prescribed burning authorizations.
In addition, there are currently more
than 1,600 certified prescribed burn managers in Florida that manage more than
2.3 million acres of agricultural and natural lands annually with prescribed
fire.
And Florida has an app that lets you
keep up with controlled burns around the state.
Floridians can download the Florida
Forest Service’s “FLBurnTools” app to access an interactive fire map that shows
prescribed burns, smoke dispersion models, drought information and wildfire
conditions in real-time.
Prescribed burn practitioners can also
use the app to plan and submit authorization requests.
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