Winter visitors to the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area -- up to 200,000 or more at Thanksgiving time alone -- mainly live within the geographical area of BLM's South Coast Fire Management Zone. This area of California lies within the boundry of the California Desert District and is ordered by the Angeles, San Bernardino and Cleveland National Forests. These winter desert recreationalists live in Southern California's' Wildland Urban Interface and utilize our local mountains in summer months for their recreation.

With the right audience in a limited area - why not bring fire-safety training to them?

Members of the Fire Prevention and the Burn Institute were concerned with the amount of burn injuries that occur with off-highway vehicle recreation. A partnership was developed between BLM and the Burn Institute, a nonprofit fire education and burn prevention group headquartered in San Diego. The emphasis of this combined effort was on "Fire and Burn Prevention."
The Cleveland National Forest also a BLM partner provided funding for Fire and Burn Prevention message banners. The BLM provided a travel trailer and setup for an information center at Buttercup Campground.

Most of the OHV camps at the Imperial Sand Dunes are laid out in wagon train fashion, in big circles. The Fire Prevention Team approached these camps with Smokey Bear in a fire prevention vehicle to attracted the attention of the visitors. When a group assembled, the Burn Institute van would set up a Dry Chemical Fire Extinguisher propane fired prop, as they often do for industrial fire training. A BLM prevention patrol would fill the prop with water and standby for safety purposes. Burn Institute Instructors Art Garcia and Aida Flores then instructed the visitors in the use of the Dry Chemical fire extinguisher until every adult had performed the operation once. BLM prevention personnel including Student Conservation Association/ Fire Education Corps leaders Mike Rielly and Siobhan Girling then lectured on Fire and Burn Prevention and handed message packets that were created for each OHV family, with burn prevention and wildland fire prevention messages. Children received handout "goodies."

The team did not expect the many thanks they received and were overwhelmed with the show of appreciation.

Numbers kept by the Burn Institutes Aida Flores show that in two days the team of six people contacted over 1,000 visitors at 50 camps. Of these, 98% had never practiced with or used a fire extinguisher - a sobering fact, when considering the large fire loss annually to recreational vehicles and the dubious fuel handling and storage at many camps.

Also, 300 children met Smokey Bear -- still a popular fire education icon.