Preserve fire obeys the plans

EAST LAKE -- County officials had two goals for a 20-acre prescribed burn on Tuesday: First, reduce the amount of dry brush and overgrowth that could feed a forest fire. Second, keep the smoke away from people's homes.

It looks like they succeeded at both.

Pinellas wild land firefighters and state forest rangers set fire to an area at the Brooker Creek Preserve on the northern end of Ridgemoor Drive near the Coventry Village subdivision.

By doing so, they hope to create a buffer zone between the preserve and neighboring homes.

But the trick was to keep smoke from the controlled burn from drifting into people's homes. That's what happened in January when smoke from a prescribed burn blanketed the Ridgemoor area thanks to an unexpected fog that helped trap the smoke.

On Tuesday, a wind coming from the north blew the smoke back to the preserve and away from homes.

"If the wind stays blowing in that direction, we should be in real good shape," John DeWolfe, a Florida Division of Forestry forest ranger, said Tuesday afternoon while watching over the smoldering remains of the burn.

Recent rain, along with favorable humidity, wind and other weather conditions, made it possible for the county's wild land fire team to set the controlled fire. For several years, county officials have not had the right conditions for prescribed burns, creating a backlog for such safety measures.

As a result, officials are eager to try to catch up on the prescribed burns when the conditions are favorable, said Craig Huegel, Pinellas environmental lands division administrator.

They have good reason to do so.

The prescribed burns are good for the preserve's ecology because they rejuvenate flowers and plants such as grasses and blueberries, Huegel said. The burns also cut down on the brushy overgrowth that could shade out the plants underneath them if left unchecked, Huegel said.

That's in addition to reducing the fuels -- dry vegetation and shrubs -- that feed forest fires.

"You have to balance the public safety in doing prescribed burns as safely as possible with the need to get prescribed burns so the fuels are as low as possible," Huegel. "That is where we are caught. Right now, we are just trying to be good neighbors and be as safe as possible."

By nightfall on Tuesday, the East Lake Fire Department had not received complaints from residents about smoke.

"Not one," said East Lake fire Lt. Jim Dalrymple. "And we are hoping there won't be any tonight."

After the controlled burn on Jan. 9, some residents complained that the thick smoke irritated their eyes and throats, kept them awake at night and made their homes smell like smoke. Some homes had to be professionally cleaned.

That didn't seem to be the case on Tuesday.

Gail Newby and Don Kracke, who live in Ridgemoor about 1.5-miles away from the prescribed burn, said they didn't even notice the smoke until they jogged right next to the burn area on Ridgemoor Drive. That's a big difference from what happened in January.

"It looked like a rolling fire last time," said Newby, 35. "This looks wonderful, really controlled."

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