Join us at Tall Timbers for the 2024 Red Hills Fire Festival, an event aimed at demonstrating the multiple benefits of prescribed fire and increasing the public’s familiarity and understanding of its role in the ecology of the Red Hills.
Mark your calendars for the fourth Fire Fest on Saturday, February 3, 2024, hosted at Tall Timbers from 11:00 to 3:00 PM overlooking beautiful Lake Iamonia.
We target new audiences by making it a fun and free festival. It’s an all-ages good time with live music, prescribed fire demonstration, live wildlife, wagon ride tours of healthy, fire-maintained forests, hands-on fire equipment, kids’ activities, and food vendors. Fire Festival happens through the collaborative effort of over 30 organizations pulling together around the central understanding that fire is a critical part of land stewardship in our region.
It also coincides with the annual Prescribed Fire Awareness Week in Florida and Georgia, the two states which account for the most acres burned by fire practitioners in the entire U.S.
Research has linked both ecological understanding and familiarity with fire as important factors for shaping approval of prescribed fire. A safe way to apply a natural process, prescribed fire ensures ecosystem health, reduces wildfire risk across the southern pine forest and is a valuable habitat regeneration tool.
The festival will be held at Tall Timbers, a non-profit research station and land conservancy, located off County Road 12 just south of the Georgia-Florida border (13093 Henry Beadel Drive).
Weather permitting, the event will include a live prescribed fire demonstration with color commentary from fire scientists to explain how burn teams safely conduct a burn. This year’s honorary prescribed fire ignitor is WCTV Meteorologist Mike McCall.
More than 20 exhibits will be at the festival highlighting live wildlife and science activities. Wildland fire trucks, along with other vehicles and equipment used in prescribed fire will be on display with opportunities to explore the equipment, including milk jug races using the fire hoses.
A technology barn will be set up to showcase the increasing use of tech in prescribed fire. Guided wagon tours through the fire managed forest at Tall Timbers will be provided throughout the event. The tours provide the opportunity to see firsthand how prescribed fire helps create important wildlife habitat.
The band Two Foot Level will provide a soundtrack for the event, playing from the porch of the historic Beadel House overlooking the vista of Lake Iamonia.
Please consider sharing the Facebook event with your friends to continue our efforts to spread the word.
