Orting High Student Raises Wildfire Awareness and earns scholarship

Hi, I wanted to share this story with you that I wrote for the Department of Natural Resources blog. Ben Kesti is a local student who got his community's attention!

High school students do amazing things! And we’re hopeful that one day these amazing students will find careers in natural resources. Take Ben Kesti, for instance. He not only completed his high school senior project with DNR, but he made his neighborhood safer from wildfire and received an $800 scholarship while doing it.

Ben received the scholarship from Hancock Forest Management after ‘shadowing’ a wildfire expert on the job and completing a wildfire prevention project. Ben’s project was to conduct wildfire risk assessments for homeowners in his neighborhood of Cascade Springs. The small residential community in southeast Pierce County is in the wildland-urban interface — an area where residences are encroaching on forestland.

Within these areas, firefighters are spread too thinly to defend every home threatened during extreme wildfires. So Ben did what homeowners associations (and involved residents) in the urban interface should do: take steps to reduce the community’s vulnerability to wildfire.

Door-to-door, Ben talked with his neighbors about wildfire prevention and the Firewise Program,  a program that teaches people how to protect themselves before wildfires occur. Ben showed his community how to remove fire hazards from the outside of their homes. There are a lot of flammable materials (fuels) around the exteriors of homes that we don’t give a second thought to: wooden fences, low-hanging branches, thick brush, clogged gutters, cedar shake roofs, etc.

Ben created an awareness of wildfire prevention that Cascade Springs has never had before. He also created and handed out a wildfire prevention packet that included safety tips for homeowners. The packet also included Smokey Bear material for younger children in the household.

Cascade Springs experiences about 20 human-caused wildfires every year, based on data collected by DNR. Many of these wildfires are caused by residential outdoor burning that has escaped. This suggests that more fire prevention and public awareness programs are needed. As Ben stated in a letter to his neighbors, “Over the years more and more new homeowners have come to Cascade Springs, so we must start taking fire precautions to protect our lives, homes and property.”

Ben learned a little bit about the science aspect of fire and what we can control. He says, ‘the good news is that we can reduce the risk of wildfire by concentrating on one element, fuel, within the fire environment, which is fuel, weather, and topography.”

For the summer, Ben is working with the family landscaping business, Kesti Crew Landscaping, and may just get an opportunity to apply the Firewise principals firsthand. This fall he plans to attend Green River Community College’s Natural Resources Program, putting that $800 scholarship to good use.