Members of the Brownwood FFA on Wednesday morning visited the Texas A&M Forest Service, located at 6801 FM 45 South, for presentation over prescribe burns and how they are helpful for the environment.

The Brownwood FFA Ag Issues team of Riley Morton, Ella Locker, Hayden Deen, Gavin Brandstetter, Tynlea Wilson, Paige Franqui, and Kaidence Giles recently won first place in Eastland and will compete in the Leadership Development Events area round competition on Nov. 20.

Sebastian Lopez, with Texas A&M Forest Service, said, “This group of young FFA students reached out to us wanting to know more information about prescribed burns and what it takes to put one in place, as a team they put a debate on where they discussed pros and cons about prescribed burns.”

During the presentation, the students were able to provide information about prescribed burns, from what it takes to put a prescribed burn together as well as the benefits of conducting a prescribe burn on the local area and state wide level.

“They were able to hit some really good information as well as cons that people might run into when prescribed burns are put in place,” Lopez said. “Some of the points they talked about were how this benefits the environment, as well as preventing fires in the near future like we have seen in the past across the state and how towns and communities can benefit from them.”

The students shared problems that people sometimes might run into during prescribed burns from smoke, health issues and many other things that come along a prescribed burn. The FFA students were then able to answer questions at the end of the debate from the public audience at the end as well as asking us questions that might be beneficial to them.

Lopez added, “These guys did a really good job. They took some of the information we gave them and really expanded, this a very hard thing to do when explaining to the public but they showed that they could do it. It makes me very proud to see this group of FFA students give this type of information out and be able to inform the public.”

Jeff Webb, Task Force Coordinator for TAMFS, said. “These guys did an amazing job by putting this together and giving this information out. It is not a very easy task to do when it comes to prescribed burns but they nailed it.”

Sgt. Kevin Kelly, with the National Guard Camp Bowie, said, “This group of kids put in a lot of hard work into this and it shows but most importantly they put their heart into it and you can tell by the information they gave out and the way they presented this.”

The Texas A&M Forest Service along with the United States National Guard will like to congratulate this group of young FFA students on moving on to Area and wish them good luck as they progress and move forward.