Tennessee firefighters prepare for wildfire season
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – With the warm temperatures of spring upon us, as well as the wind, the wildfire season is now underway.
We only have to look back to March of 2022 and the Hatcher Mountain fire in East Tennessee to be reminded of the dangers.
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To get ready for the season, last month the Tennessee Department of Agriculture and Division of Forestry began taking proactive measures to confront the threat head-on. More than 600 wildland fire personnel from Tennessee and across the region convened at two wildfire training events, one of which was held right here in Nashville.
Robin Bible, fire program specialist for the Tennessee Department of Agriculture’s Division of Forestry, explained the purpose of the meeting.
“We get together and we do some training,” Bible said. “We talk about the upcoming season; we have some briefings. So it gets our teams ready for the coming season. A lot of it is just getting to know each other as a team. We have a lot of team-building exercises, so when we get the call to go out, and it could be anywhere in the country, essentially.”
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Some of the firefighters have already been deployed out of state this year.
“We’ve already sent one team out this year to Texas into the panhandle,” Bible explained. “Texas and Oklahoma are still experiencing elevated fire conditions.”
“We rotate around and whenever the team is up, they’ve got to be ready to roll within 24 hours,” Bible said.
It’s reassuring to know that the people who are there to protect life and property when wildfires break out are ready to go.
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