Prescribed Fires at Savannah River Site: More Than Just Smoke, Flames

Each winter and spring during an active prescribed fire season, firefighters from across the United States train and work alongside SRS firefighters to improve their firefighting knowledge and gain fire line qualifications.

Likewise, SRS firefighters travel to other forest units in the U.S. for training and experience fighting fires in diverse forest conditions. Interagency agreements allow for the exchange of resources to help ensure that firefighters maintain specialized qualifications needed to fulfill their duties on SRS and when they respond to federally designated catastrophic wildfires or other emergencies across the country.

SRS regularly hosts federal, state and other partnering agency firefighters enrolled at the National Interagency Prescribed Fire Training Center in Tallahassee, Florida. They gain entry-level and supervisory experience with prescribed burning activities involving various fuel types found on SRS.

On a local level, Forest Service agreements with the University of Georgia and other schools allow students studying natural resources and fire ecology to work with trained firefighters in the application of prescribed fire at SRS. The students can see the effects of fire firsthand and how it can help grow a healthy forest. These valuable opportunities also offer a glimpse into federal firefighting opportunities.

State and federal air quality regulations dictate when prescribed burning can take place during the year and how much of an area can be burned. In southeast U.S., these opportunities most often occur in late winter and early spring when relative humidity and temperatures are lower. Lower humidity allows the smoke to go higher in the atmosphere where winds will disperse and transport the smoke away from the burn area. This helps to decrease the impact of smoke on employees on the site as well as nearby residents. The lower temperatures allow firefighters to work more safely and conduct prescribed burns to remove dead and downed woody debris on the forest floor, helping reduce hazardous fuels that would otherwise build up year after year.

-Contributor: Joe Orosz