Photo By Christopher Wilson | A Fort Sill firefighter watches a prescribed burn near the West Range March 15 to make...... read more read more
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FORT SILL, Oklahoma — With Southwest Oklahoma in severe drought conditions, Fort Sill’s Directorate of Emergency Services is doing its part to prevent wildfires.
DES fire departments conducted pre-scheduled prescribed burns of 406 acres March 15 of the West Range. The burns are designed to protect the Soldiers and equipment in the training area as well as life and property in the communities around Fort Sill, said Jay Young, chief, Fire Department Station 4.
While much of Southwest Oklahoma is under a burn ban, Young said prescribed burns are the safest way to protect the community.
“We do this to protect the public, Soldiers and military equipment,” Young said. “By eliminating the fuel in this area, it eliminates a fire that could get out of control and spread or escape off post. So, this prevents that and keeps everyone a little safer.”
Prescribed burning involves setting planned fires, said Young. These burns are scheduled for a time when the fire will not pose a threat to the public or to firefighters. Also, area conditions should call for a controlled burn and weather patterns should be right to allow burning but not enable a fire to spread out of control. Materials, referred to as “fuel,” burned in a planned fire include dead grass, fallen tree branches, dead trees and thick undergrowth.
Due to training in the areas combined with drought conditions, if left unchecked, the vegetation could quickly catch fire and spread, Young said. When done on a regular basis, prescribed burns help to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires and protect surrounding communities by reducing the amount of fuel.
However, more goes into conducting a prescribed burn than just going out and lighting fires, said Young.
“We plan these as much as a year in advance,” Young said. “We follow a strict set of parameters that not only protect us, the firefighters, but everyone on Fort Sill and the local communities.”
Before a prescribed burn is started, a plan is made and approved by DES. This plan includes details such as the size of the fire, what it will burn, and what firefighters hope to accomplish with the fire. The plan also includes the weather and environmental conditions under which the fire will burn and any situations that might require the fire to be extinguished. Young and DES leaders will also map out how the fire will be set, how the smoke will be managed, how to inform the public, what protective equipment might be needed, and what firefighting resources should be standing by.
“As strange as it sounds, we sometimes have to set fires to prevent fires,” Young said. “We have eight areas on Fort Sill where we plan annually to conduct controlled burns. By our team controlling what burns and where, we can prevent wildfires from starting.”
| Date Taken: | 03.15.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 03.18.2022 12:20 |
| Story ID: | 416735 |
| Location: | FORT SILL, OKLAHOMA, US |
| Web Views: | 41 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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