SARASOTA, Fla. — On January 24, Sarasota County is hosting their 7th Annual Fire Fest at T.Mabry Carlton Jr. Memorial Reserve from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
It's a corporation between Sarasota County, Parks and Rec, and Sarasota County Fire Department.
“Residents who want to come out and see it tomorrow can expect to see all kinds of cool things,” said Jay Bailey, the wildfire mitigation officer for Sarasota County Fire Department.
Bailey says it’s an event for the whole family. They’ll have different vendors, fun activities for the kids, nature walks and free food. The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office will bring their K-9 Search and Rescue Team to show the public how they search for lost people in the woods.
And, it wouldn’t be Fire Fest without some flames.
The sheriff’s office will also have their helicopter at the reserve to demonstrate how they do their water drops on wildfires. But before they can do that, they’ll need some help from the fire department.
“We’re going to have some live fire demonstrations, some small fires that were going to be showing how we do prescribe burns and the techniques we use,” Bailey said.
Ahead of Fire Fest, our 10 News crew got an exclusive first look at how the fire prevention division handles prescribed burns and why they’re important.
Before firefighters can fuel the fire, they must check the weather, wind speed, and most importantly be able to control the direction of the smoke.
“We are burning the underbrush, the dead vegetation, and historically the stuff burned every three to four years naturally,” Bailey said. “So, what we’re doing is we’re trying to go in and mimic how that occurred throughout history with lightning strike fires and we’re trying to do it under a more controlled environment.”
Prescribed burns are widely recognized as one way to remove extra fuel that builds up in ecosystems. Bailey says, in Sarasota County they do controlled burns for a number of reasons.
“The two main things we do it for is ecological restoration to improve the habitat for the wildlife that is native to this area, and the other big thing we do it for is to reduce the hazard reduction,” Bailey said.
To put it simply, these controlled burns are what protect our community from wildfires like we've seen in the past.
“In the 90s and in the early 2000s we had some big ones,” Bailey recalled. “We had two years in a row where we had ones on this property the Carlton Reserve that were over 6,000 acres each, so the trajectory we were going on before was not sustainable, so we realized we had to do these prescribed burns in order to keep these at bay.”
Last year in Sarasota County the fire department oversaw nearly 70 burns. They try to burn most areas every three to four years.
“Since this program began in 2002, we’ve had very little wildfires out here,” Bailey said.
The county usually sends out notifications on social media before they do a prescribed burn. If you see smoke, you can call (941)-861-5000 to find out if there is a prescribed burn in your area.
“If residents are ever concerned of smoke they might see it’s ok to call and find out what it is,” Bailey said. “It’s better to be safe than sorry because it could be a wildfire, but most likely it’s a prescribed burn.”
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