Welcome back, everyone! It’s that time of year when we are prepping for the spring fire season and the return of our Single Engine Air Tankers and helicopters at the tanker bases in Hazleton and MidState. Let’s take a moment to look at the annual report from 2023 for the Wildland Fire Program.
Our program protects 17 million acres of land and 10 million
acres of wildland-urban interface and intermix from wildfire. We have 928
volunteer Forest Fire Wardens and 356 fire-qualified employees. Our mission is
to safely and effectively manage wildland fires to enhance and protect life,
property, and natural resources for the public benefit within Pennsylvania.
For those of you who have been following our blog for a bit,
you know that last year’s wildfire season was above average with 1,901 wildfires
being reported during the year. This is interesting because that makes four
years in a row that we have had more than 1,000 reported wildfires – something we
haven’t seen since the 1980s. Several large fires did occur across the state,
the largest of which was the Crystal Lake fire, burning over 4,000 acres.
Crystal Lake fire at night.
Some quick statistics for the 2023 season:
- 1,901 wildfires
- 9,186 acres burned
- 99% of the fires were human-caused
- 3 residences were destroyed
- 24 other structures were destroyed
Our employees and volunteers
conducted 540 wildfire prevention events last year, that involved 3,450 hours
of work and reached around 500,000 people.
Smokey Bear paid a visit to Governor Shapiro's office to record a public service announcement to address wildfire prevention.
The Crystal Lake fire required
our Incident Management Team to be deployed, while other team members were also
deployed as single resources to western wildfires throughout the year to maintain
and enhance their qualifications.
Incident Management Team members on the Crystal Lake wildfire, April 2023.
2023 saw 142 volunteer fire
organizations awarded $883,143 in grants to purchase wildland firefighting PPE
and firefighting equipment. These grants are made possible by funding through
the USDA Forest Service. Our FederalEexcess program obtained over 209 items valued
at $665,555 for distribution to local fire departments.
Speaking of firefighting
equipment, here is a quick breakdown of operations within the Fire Cache last
year:
- 65,000 items received
- 45,000 items issued
- 21,200 delivery miles
- The cache supported the mobilization of crews, engines, overhead, and training
2023 was an active year for wildfires
nationwide as well. A quick breakdown of our Wildland Fire Crew’s assistance
provided:
- Four Twenty-person Type 2IA Hand Crews
- One Wildfire Suppression Module
- Eight Type 6 Wildland Fire Engine Assignments
- 69 Single-Resource Overhead Assignments
- 167 Total Resources Assigned
Let’s not forget about the Air
Operations within the state:
- 39 wildfires supported
- 186,000 gallons dropped on wildfires
- 84 hours of flight time on wildfires
- 51 hours flown for fire reconnaissance
Air tanker dropping retardant on the Crystal Lake fire.
A quick look at our Wildland Fire
Training and Qualifications:
- 113 classroom training sessions
- 1,522 students completed classroom courses
- 594 students completed online training courses
- 113 Task Books issued
- 74 Task Books completed
Finally, a look at our Prescribed
Fire program: 50 prescribed burns covering 1,471 acres of DCNR lands were completed.
Statewide, 423 individual burns were conducted on 14,600 acres. Some prescribed
burning was reduced or shortened due to extremely dry conditions in the late
spring and early summer.
“DCNR would like to thank everyone who assisted the wildland
fire program in 2023, especially our valuable network of volunteers. We could
not succeed without your dedication and service!”
