eNews
Summer 2019 | Vol 12 | No 3
Red Hills Fire Festival is Back!
Mark your calendars for the third Red Hills Fire Festival on Saturday, January 25, 2020, hosted at Tall Timbers from 11:00 to 3:00 PM. Fire Festival is one of our general public prescribed fire outreach initiatives to increase familiarity with fire and understanding of the ecological benefits. Research has linked both ecological understanding and familiarity with fire as important factors for shaping approval of prescribed fire.
We target new audiences by making it a fun and free festival. It’s an all-ages good time with live music, prescribed fire demos, live wildlife, wagon ride tours of healthy 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.
After launching the Red Hills Fire Festival in 2017 and 2018, our planning team challenged other communities in the North Florida Prescribed Fire Council region to host their own festival in 2019, as the Red Hills version transitioned to a biennial event. Partners in the Gainesville, Florida area enthusiastically accepted and replicated the fire festival formula at the University of Florida Austin Cary Forest in January 2019 with great success.
Planning for the January 25, 2020 Red Hills Fire Festival is underway and received a great surprise in June, when Cliff Leonard of Hook Line & Sinker Graphic Design in Tallahassee offered to donate his services to craft a logo for the event. Cliff is a big fan of prescribed fire and is always looking for opportunities to help burn. We think his connection to fire shows in this fantastic new logo that will help us continue to build brand recognition for the festival and our mission to increase and sustain public approval for prescribed fire.
Please consider sharing the Facebook event with your friends to continue our early efforts to spread the word. https://www.facebook.com/events/386652465216978/