Flagstaff crews use prescribed burns to reduce wildfire fuel, train new firefighters

A staff member said prescribed fire is used to reduce hazardous fuel near Flagstaff and to restore a fire-adapted ecosystem while giving new firefighters practical experience.

"A fire is a natural part of the ecosystem, and it always has been," the staff member said. "And as a result of actually suppressing fires, we have an increased amount of fuel on the ground. So we do prescribe fire for 2 reasons. 1 is to clean up some of that fuel that's on the ground and reduce the risk of undesirable wildfire entering our community. So we pick these really high priority pockets to be able to do these burns at."

The staff member said the work also reflects the ecology of the region. "The other is we live in a Ponderosa Pine Forest, and that is a fire adapted ecosystem at its core. So when we actually burn stuff on the ground, a healthy amount of fire is important for the forest ecosystem," they said. The staff member added that the burns coincided with a training session for recruits from Highland Summit and the Flagstaff Fire Department, noting that "statistically, they will fight more wildfire than they do structure fires."

Explaining the training goal, the staff member said exposing recruits to prescribed fire shows firefighters how to be proactive. "We don't just show up when we're needed. We show up beforehand to make things easier for us, to make things safer for us and our community when we have to show up for that wildland fire that's moving pretty fast," the staff member said.

The session combined operational objectives (reducing fuel and restoring fire-adapted Ponderosa Pine ecosystem processes) with hands-on training for newly recruited firefighters. No formal vote or policy action was recorded in the transcript.