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We Meet with Fire Specialists to Learn About Sarasota County's Fire Fest

Gustave Pellerin via Flickr

Toward the end of last year, the Camp Fire ravaged Paradise, California. The wildfire took dozens of lives and some people are still missing. A few months prior to that fire, Montana’s Glacier National Park was also ablaze. The specialists tasked to extinguish these fires, as well as inform local communities about how to prevent them, work hard to do so. But what happens when those very people ignite fires purposefully?

This Saturday, Sarasota County Parks will hostFire Fest, it's an event where residents can learn about prescribed burning from park and fire officials. Jeff Weber, environmental specialist withSarasota County Parks,Recreation & Natural Resourcesjoins us in the studio to discuss details of Fire Fest. AndJay Bailey, wildfire mitigation officer from theSarasota County Fire Department, also joins us to help us understand why these purposefully started fires are necessary.

Copyright 2019 WGCU

Julie Glenn is the host of Gulf Coast Live. She has been working in southwest Florida as a freelance writer since 2007, most recently as a regular columnist for the Naples Daily News. She began her broadcasting career in 1993 as a reporter/anchor/producer for a local CBS affiliate in Quincy, Illinois. After also working for the NBC affiliate, she decided to move to Parma, Italy where she earned her Master’s degree in communication from the University of Gastronomic Sciences. Her undergraduate degree in Mass Communication is from the University of Missouri at Kansas City.
Mike Kiniry is producer of Gulf Coast Live, and co-creator and host of the WGCU podcast Three Song Stories: Biography Through Music. He first joined the WGCU team in the summer of 2003 as an intern while studying Communication at Florida Gulf Coast University.