TOWER — It was a cool but windy day last Thursday. Fire danger was not high, but the period between snowmelt and greenup can be a busy time for those tasked with fighting wildland fires. The city of Tower had just received its formal notification of being named a Firewise USA community, joining nearby Eagles Nest Township in this program. As part of this process, the city’s forestry board had decided to organize events to make community members more aware of what steps they could take to stay safe from wildfires.
“We did a small event at last fall’s Big Truck Night,” said Mayor Dave Setterberg, “but we wanted to do more.”
With help from several partners, the forestry board organized an afternoon-long educational event at Vermilion Country School, which included fifth- and sixth-grade students from Tower-Soudan Elementary.
“It went really well,” Setterberg said. “The kids were engaged, and the presenters made it fun. They got the kids thinking and talking.”
Setterberg and fellow council member Joe Morin spent the afternoon learning alongside the students.
Students moved through a series of five stations, both outdoors and inside. They had the chance to see real wildland fire trucks in action, created sample go bags to bring back to their school, and spent time learning the nuts and bolts of making a home (or school) more Firewise.
The event also introduced students to careers available for wildland firefighters. Students did drills running with hose packs and got a chance to spray water from one of the fire trucks. Older students spent time checking out the mechanical specifications of the two trucks on display, and were especially interested in the smaller tracked vehicle, which allows firefighters to move into more rugged, wooded areas to douse smaller fires.
“This really fits into the experienced-based education at Vermilion Country School,” said Victoria Jari, forest management forester at the Tower DNR Office. Jari said this was her first visit to the school, and she hoped to arrange more outreach in the future, to talk about forest management, fire hazards, and career options in the DNR. She also noted that the woods around the charter school could use some clearing to make the area less susceptible to wildfire, something that would be a good student project.
“Firefighting can be a good career choice for someone who is handy and good with engines,” she said.
Gloria Erickson, North St. Louis Firewise coordinator, noted that part of the responsibility of a Firewise community is to do outreach and education.
“They thought it would be a cool thing to start with the kids,” she said.
Besides hands-on time with fire trucks, students learned to create a go-bag for emergencies. They learned what items should be part of this emergency-preparedness tool, and created three sample go-bags, one for each of the two schools, and one for the city to use at future events. A donation from the Tower Firemen’s Relief Association funded this part of the day.
Students learned about how to plan an evacuation, and played games to reinforce how this could work.
Then they moved outdoors to see what could be done to make the Vermilion Country School safer from wildfire.
“The endgame of the exercise,” said Erickson, “was to have the students roleplay what they would tell a landowner about making their property safer.”
Erickson had reviewed the science of fire and embers first, and the students had clearly listened, she said. The tools she was teaching them were all based on the actual science of wildfire, she noted.
They looked at the zone immediately adjacent to the building, and students noted that garbage shouldn’t be kept right next to the building. They also saw spaces between the rafters and roof where embers could get sucked in, she said. And then, they saw some spaces underneath the foundation that should get sealed.
Then the students reviewed the area within 30 feet of the building, and talked about what vegetation should be removed and what brush and trees should be trimmed or cut.
“They really grabbed onto the ideas and understood it,” she said. “There are simple things that can be done.”
Students also learned about what could be done to make a home easier for a firefighter and fire equipment to access.
The goal, Erickson said, is for the students to bring this information to their own homes and talk with their families about things they could do to make their own homes less susceptible to wildfire.

It takes a village
The program was organized at the request of the Tower Forestry Board, which has worked to get the city of Tower certified as a Firewise Community. Other individuals and organizations helping with the event were: Gloria Erickson, North St. Louis County Firewise Coordinator; Mayor Dave Setterberg and Councilor Joe Morin, Tower; Teresa Floberg, Fireshed coordinator/Dovetail Partners; Kesley Ebbs, Ely Fuels Planner/Nature Conservancy; Laura Murphy, Firewise community specialist/NE Region DNR; Victoria Jari, Joe Weflen, Andrew Saarela, Tyler Kuiken, all from Tower DNR. Local teaching staff assisting the program included Sam O’Brien, Vermilion Country School, and Michelle Anderson and Sarah Hansen, Tower-Soudan Elementary.
There are lots of free resources, downloads, and information sheets for the Firewise program available at https://www.nfpa.org/education-and-research/wildfire/firewise-usa.