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Firefighters

Wildfires a Concern in W.Va., Too

Thanks to television and movies, most of us think of wildfires — and the crews trained to fight them — as a western phenomenon. But the fire season is busy and dangerous here, too — and West Virginia is fortunate to have its own crew of dedicated men and women who fight them.

According to the state Division of Forestry, the spring and fall fire seasons for 2022 included 890 fires in which 20,395 acres were burned.

“It was a very active season,” said Assistant State Forester-Fire Jeremy Jones.

While New River Gorge National Park and Monongahela National Forest are maintained using federal resources, the rest of the state relies on the folks at the DOF, who last year fought fires with causes such as: campfires (9), children (19), debris burning (311), equipment use (254), incendiary (174), lightning (3) and miscellaneous (68). In other words, much of it could have been prevented. The DOF politely refers to those fires caused by debris burning as “fires escaped due to poor planning.”

While that is unfortunate and should serve as a lesson to plan and use more common sense and caution next time, the more disturbing category is the 174 fires that were intentionally set.

“WVDOF (is) specially trained to work with these fires,” Jones said. “Most fires are not something small that can be squirted out with water. Foresters utilize special tools and techniques to ‘fight fire with fire.'”

Thank goodness they do. While most of the men and women at the DOF are the kinds of people to prefer flying under the radar, they deserve to be recognized for their hard work in protecting and preserving our wild and wonderful woods. And they deserve for us to be smarter and more considerate in following the fire laws that would slow down their seasons a little.

Learn the rules at wvforestry.com/fire_laws/ and take them to heart. Our Department of Forestry firefighters are very good at what they do, but it would be nice if they had to do a little less.

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