| In 2004, the National Park Service
in the Pacific West Region increased its involvement
in Camp Smokey, an interagency event at the California
State Fair. This year’s involvement, coordinated
by Whiskeytown Fire Education Specialist Carol Jandrall,
succeeded in incorporating a stronger “Benefits
of Fire” / fire ecology message into the overall
program. Other themes presented were indoor fire safety,
the dangers of wildfire, emergency preparedness, defensible
space, stewardship through minimum impact recreation
and recyling, and Smokey’s 60th birthday. The
event took place from August 19 through September 5,
2004 at the Cal Expo fairgrounds outside Sacramento.
Camp Smokey is a permanent installation
which includes 4 miniature houses, a trail, a fire lookout
tower, a FIREWISE garden, and a grove of redwood trees.
The California State Fair is a significant attraction,
and was featured in the travel section of the New York
Times earlier in the summer, although Camp Smokey was
not mentioned.
NPS participation this year included
3 fire education specialists, 2 fire program SCAs, 2
interpreters, 1 camping program manager (park guide),
and 1 trails crew member who is also a volunteer firefighter.
Participants were invited to stay in the McClellen Training
Center dormitories, courtesy of gracious USFS hosts.
Camp Smokey is a family-oriented event
conducted by interagency staff and partners from across
the state. The experience is activity-oriented, much
like a junior ranger program, in which completion of
a passport booklet by visiting multiple stations earns
participants a take home award. In addition to reaching
the guests at the fair, the event is also part of an
outreach effort directed at Generation Green, an organization
of high school students in the Fresno area from multi-cultural,
and primarily farming backgrounds.
In 2005, the PWR Fire Education, Prevention,
and Information work group hopes to expand outreach
in conjunction with Camp Smokey to include:
- Mentoring to Generation Green students
about careers in the National Park Service;
- Offering a region wide detail opportunity
targeting GS-5 and GS-7 level employees with public
education skills; and
- Collaborating
with the other agencies to design a Camp Smokey website
to promote the event, and create a fire education
opportunity for children who cannot attend the fair.
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