This newsletter comes to you at the beginning of 2025. I hope you were all able to enjoy the cool and dry weather this holiday season with family and friends on your property, the property of friends, public lands, or however the opportunity presented itself.

A lot has happened since our last newsletter. In this issue, I want to present my thoughts on where our organization is – in terms of the NFPBA’s positive influence on “the greater Rx fire community” and the ability to put more fire on the ground.

As we prepare for another prescribed fire season, a brief reminder to be safe out there. There are great rewards and many reasons to use prescribed fire, but we should always do it mindfully.

There’s been a lot of excitement happening with the North Florida PBA.

Even though this was a challenging burn season, with first drought and then rain, we were still able to burn approximately 1700 acres on about 60 burns.

As I sit writing this, I find myself wondering if it will ever rain again. It seems mighty dry here in St Johns County and the Florida Forest Service has not issued burn permits for weeks.

Happy New Year and Happy Birthday North Florida PBA!

Yes, at the end of January 2023, NFPBA will be 5 years old. We have grown from the original 17 members to over 90.

Fall is here in North Florida bringing with it respite from the heat and humidity. Thank goodness most of us were spared the worst from Ian.

Hot, caliente, chaud. Did I mention it is hot in North Florida? Too hot to burn? Thank goodness the afternoon thunderstorms have returned to cool things a bit.

I will begin with acknowledging my predecessor, Ben Williams. I feel a bit like John Adams taking over from George Washington: big shoes and all. Ben represents the heart of our association and has been instrumental in every policy, decision and effort made.

As I set this down the media is hard into its’ annual bout of reflection and prognostication precipitated by the arrival of a “New Year”. Though, if we as a society were truly acknowledging a “New Year” the bulk of this sort of thing would have occurred in the few days running up to and just after December 21st.

Liability surely weighs on the individual burner’s mind, mostly within the context of where our smoke will go and who/what will be impacted by it. Not that the potential for escapes eludes our consideration but rather that when it’s all said and done smoke is usually our greatest concern.

A couple of topics stand out as needing covering in this issues’ President’s Letter, one dealing with NFPBA in general, the other related to NFPBA’s education and outreach functions.

Reciprocation, participation, force multiplication and enhanced safety, the first two being fundamentals of a cooperative organization such as NFPBA, the second two being among the positive outcomes of having the first two.

There are lights at the end of the tunnel.

Yes, “lights.”

One of them is bright white, the sort of white typically associated with our emerging from a difficult situation or a trying time.

The coronavirus has presented obstacles to NFPBA’s progress as surely as did the torpedoes (mines) to Admiral Farragut’s. And while our response has been somewhat less than “full speed ahead”, the postponing of our Annual Meeting and other in-person events having been judged as prudent safety measures.

The current very dry conditions, coupled with the unknowns of Covid-19, notwithstanding, I’ll stick by that assessment. Yes.. the dry has left us with not as many opportunities to do good with fire here of late.

There's a small block of 22 year old pines on our place that LouAnn and I have burned 4 times in the last 6 years

As the President of the NFPBA, I was recently musing about our organization and I thought of my parents…

Ignition is an important fire term and that is what this inaugural newsletter is… the starting point for landowners to return fire to the land as a tool for ecosystem maintenance