FireFest occurs every October at Jonathan Dickinson State Park.
The event has hay rides, live music, food trucks, kids’ activities and nature tours.
Fire crews demonstrate controlled burns for the public to see
Prescribed fires are an ancient conservation practice first used by Native Americans.
TCPalm enterprise reporter Jack Lemnus learned about FireFest while covering Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Great Outdoors Initiative, which aimed to build three golf courses in Jonathan Dickinson State Park in Hobe Sound.
He found himself visiting the park more and more, then learned about the event, which features a mix of his favorite things: the outdoors, live music and good company.
Q: What is your favorite local event or festival and why?
A: As a reporter, I naturally gravitate toward nuance and complexity. I’ve always been fascinated in all things counterintuitive.
That may explain why I took an interest in the paradox of controlled burns. I’m fascinated by how we purposely set fire to our most precious resources in an act of stewardship, so new life can emerge from our human-made inferno.
I was given an opportunity to witness this ancient practice in person at Jonathan Dickinson State Park for its 18th-annual FireFest on Oct. 19, 2024, when a live controlled burn was accompanied by live music, food trucks and craft beer on tap.
Q: What do you do there?
A: I watched as fire crews herded the prescribed burn while crowds gawked with children on their shoulders and phone cameras in their hands. It’s a humbling experience to watch the crews harness this chaos, knowing fully that we’re never fully in control.
Aside from the burns — scheduled at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. — guests can take a hayride, carve a pumpkin, or lumber through the park on a swamp buggy, which looks like an open-roof tour bus with a tractor’s body.
If you stay late enough, there’s a spooky Halloween trail wending through the scrubland, where there’s no guarantee all the spiders will be fake.
Unfortunately, I was too tall for the bouncy castle, but I did get to pet a Florida crocodile — which my girlfriend said felt like a purse.
FireFest warns that “smoke will be present at this event.”
Q: What is the cost?
A: Admission is $6 per vehicle, but free for annual state park pass holders. The 2024 prices were:
Bounce house all-day pass: $5
Pumpkin carving with craft kit: $10
Hayride: $7 for general public and $5 for members
Swamp buggy ride in the afternoon: 1-4 p.m. $25 for general public and $20 for members
Swamp buggy ride in the evening: 4-9 p.m. $30 for general public and $25 for members
How do control burns work?
At a time when some of the most cataclysmic wildfires in a lifetime rage across the West, it might seem counterproductive to deliberately char more acres of forest. But fire is crucial for many landscapes to flourish.
Prescribed burns mimic natural fire cycles that help clear land, spur new plant growth, and even allow some seeds to germinate. By clearing away the old vegetation, controlled burns also help mitigate the severity of future wildfires.
Many animals rely on prescribed fire for survival as well, such as the Florida scrub-jay, which likes to forage in open areas.
Florida’s Indigenous peoples, such as the Seminoles and their ancestors, knew how important fire was to a balanced ecosystem.
For generations, Native Americans incorporated controlled burns into their conservation and hunting practices until Europeans settlers enforced an era of fire suppression as they developed the land.
Governments since have returned to controlled burns as an accepted means of conservation.
For a controlled burn to work, crews must consider factors such as weather conditions and how big the fire will be. They then light low-intensity fires using drip torches or lighters and let them burn until they hit human-made firebreaks or are doused with water.
