Fire in the Refuge: Wildland Fire Suppression & Prescribed Fires
Wildland Fire Suppression
St. Marks NWR maintains a well trained and equipped fire management team, which is capable of responding to and suppressing wildfires quickly & safely. The management team comprises of a Fire Management Officer, a Fire Control Officer and five forestry technicians, who are also trained fire fighters.
The staff is augmented by a 4WD, 200 gallon ICS Type VI engine and a 300 gallon slip-on unit. The staff is further assisted by a Type III Caterpillar dozer/ tractor plow with transport and a Type II dozer unit with Lowboy. In the event that additional fire fighters are needed, members of the maintenance, management and visitor use/protection staff are trained in and maintain fire-fighting certification. These collateral fire fighters can be mobilized quickly should the need arise.
The fire crew is trained to mobilize and be on site of a wild fire, which is burning any where in the Refuge, within minutes of the initial call. The St. Marks NWR Fire Management Crew was mobilized during the 1998 Florida wildfires and assisted several state and local agencies in suppressing the fires that were burning within their communities. During that time, several fires broke out within the refuge, itself. Two factors were responsible for the rapid suppression of these fires, the first being the rapid response on the part of the initial attack crews, and the second being the fact that the fires burned in areas which had been previously burned through prescribed burning.