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National Fire Plan Success Story

Fire Prevention Education Team Trailer
North Carolina Division of Forest Resources
2008

Fire Prevention Education Team Trailer.
Fire Prevention Education Team Trailer.

The North Carolina Division of Forest Resources is converting one of its travel trailers into a fully-equipped Fire Prevention Education Team (FPET) mobile office. Nearly completed, this office-on-wheels is wrapped with a colorful eye-catching veneer that delivers multiple wildfire prevention messages to onlookers.

The office space contained within will offer all accommodations, tools and hardware necessary for a FPET to fully function anywhere in the state and throughout the southeast United States. An FPET ‘Long Team’ of up to seven members can comfortably work within the 23-foot long office. The trailer will have its own power source for remote operations along with satellite news and weather to support situational awareness and information delivery. In the past, the Division has relied on using state, county and local government agency and private industry facilities to host FPETs. The operation of this new fire prevention office will remove the burden from team members to locate suitable office at the onset of mobilization, thus allowing the mobilized team to focus on the prevention mission at hand as opposed to diverting team resources to scout out suitable office space and communication links to support FPET operations for the duration of the assignment.

Besides supporting FPET dispatches, the Division also plans to exhibit the trailer at county fairs, town festivals, football games, and other large public gathering events that occur during North Carolina’s traditional Spring and Fall wildfire seasons. In this manner, the FPET office will be used visually to attract event patrons to receive a wildfire prevention message delivered by attending prevention team members and public information officers. Tours of the mobile office will also occur to facilitate customer awareness of FPET operations and what NC’s residents, business owners, and visitors can do to prevent human-caused wildfires. A Firewise exhibit and free publications will also be located outside the office to deliver a Firewise message. Multi-tasking the FPET office in this outreach capacity is critically important to the state’s population as North Carolina is recognized as having the highest amount of wildland urban interface in the United States.

Contact: Bill Swartley, North Carolina Division of Forest Resources, bill.swartley@ncmail.net.