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Fire Management Services
Introduction

The Florida Forest Service recognizes the need for certain Fire Management Services which in many cases can only be performed by an experienced forestry technician.

It is the policy of the Florida Forest Service to encourage maximum prescribed burning consistent with good forest management practices utilizing the Florida Forest Service's personnel and equipment while complementing activities of the private sector.

If a landowner does not have the necessary manpower or other resources needed, and no private contractors are available, then the Florida Forest Service may provide fire management assistance. Certain minimum charges may apply to fire management services.

Prescribed Fire Burning

Assistance may be given to a landowner as prescribed in a burning plan for purposes related to Silviculture, wildlife habitat management, grazing, fire hazard reduction, etc. This assistance may be as follows:

Burning Assistance

The Florida Forest Service may provide personnel and equipment at designated hourly rates to assist a landowner while the landowner or their agent burns their land. The landowner or their agent assumes full responsibility for control of their fire and is present during the burn. The Florida Forest Service reserves the right to leave the scene, after securing the fire, to respond to wildfires or other emergencies. The Florida Forest Service may provide burning assistance up to 250 acres per landowner in any fiscal year.

Contract Burning

The Florida Forest Service may contract with a landowner to carry out prescribed burning as prescribed in a land management plan. There is no acreage limit for contract burning.

Designated rates will apply to all contract burning. All prescriptions and burning must be done by a Florida certified burner. Burning will only be conducted under the supervision of a certified burner having completed the Interagency Basic Prescribed Fire Course. The FFS will be responsible for obtaining the burning authorization.

Prevention Burning

Florida Statutes allow the Florida Forest Service to conduct wildfire hazard reduction treatments on private property, if the landowner does not object, and the area is reasonable determined to be a wildfire hazard area by the FFS. These treatments can be:

Wildfire hazard reduction burning which is the application of prescribed burning to reduce vegetative fuels as a hazard.
Wildfire hazard mitigation which can be either the application of prescribed burning or other alternative fuel treatment methods to reduce vegetative fuels as a hazard.
Fire Line Plowing

Pre-suppression fire lines will be plowed only at the request of, the landowner or his/her agent on property owned in fee simple or in lawful possession of the landowner, and the property boundaries are properly identified by the landowner or his agent. Normally fire line plowing will be limited to eight hours per landowner, per county, per year. All plowing time will be charged at the designated rate.

Search the Forest Services Vendor Database to see if there is a private contractor in your local area or contact your local Florida Forest Service office if you would like to discuss one of these services.