HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. – Wildfires can be dangerous, destructive, and costly. Prescribed fire, though, can be a valuable tool for improving the ecosystem and keeping small fires from turning into large ones.
On Saturday, Jan. 27, 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. The event will be from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Lake Conservation Park, 17302 N. Dale Mabry Hwy., Lutz, FL 33549. The festival is free, but the park has an entry fee of $2 per vehicle.
Read: Hillsborough County Fire Rescue Battle Back-To-Back Blazes In Riverview And Brandon
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 dangerous, uncontrolled 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 Land Management conducts dozens of prescribed fires each year on County conservation lands.
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