HARKER HEIGHTS, Texas — The Harker Heights Fire Department wants to help Central Texans prepare for fires this August.
The Department will host a Home Wildfire Safety Class on Saturday, Aug. 24 to teach residents about the dangers of wildfires and how to protect themselves, their families and their property.
The class will be held from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the Harker Heights Library and Activities Center, located at 400 Indian Trail in Harker Heights.
"I think that there is a large amount of complacency with citizens and homeowners," said Chris Mahlstedt, the Assistant Fire Chief for the Harker Heights Fire Department. "They feel like this happens in California or Arizona, it's not going to happen in Harker Heights, Texas, when in fact there's been a number of large-scale major incidents where residents have been directly threatened."
Mahlstedt recalls the 72-acre grassfire at Dana Peak Park in 2021 that threatened homes. That fire and several others are what motivates him to ensure citizens are prepared and equipped.
"This is a priority for the city of Harker Heights and the Fire Department, because we've seen a number of larger fires along the southern border of Harker Heights," Mahlstedt explained. "I think it's important to make the citizens aware of things they can do to better protect their homes and their families."
Wildland Urban Interface Coordinator with the Texas A&M Forest Service Kiley Moran will be featured as a guest speaker at the class.
"This year has been a little bit unusual because we had so much rain earlier this summer," Moran explained. "What that has done is it's caused our vegetation to grow a lot and now it's really drying out. So, now it's even more important to get prepared because when the fire is happening, that's not the time to try to prepare your home. The time to prepare is now."
Topics covered in the class will reportedly include home hardening, fire resistant landscaping, structure ignition zone preparation, fire breaks and fuel (vegetation) reduction.
Moran said area fires will be discussed as well.
"We'll be going over some of the things that happened there, why some homes survived and what people did right and what we could do better," Moran added.
Harker Heights Mayor Michael Blomquist is appreciative of the HHFD and Texas A&M Forest Service for hosting the class as he believes it provides great tools and information to help the community.
"It's always good to be fire smart, to have a plan because fires aren't going to happen when it's most convenient to you," Blomquist added.
Blomquist understands as he experienced a fire that threatened his home in May 2012. That fire prompted him to take preventative measures.
"That caused me to take precautions on my house and encouraged my neighbors to do the same," Blomquist said. "I went ahead and started clearing all the brush and trees around the house out to the perimeter there of my property."
Blomquist recommends citizens do the same. He also said the City is working on its own line of defense against fires.
"We're working on a phased plan to make a fire break along the southern boundary of Harker Heights," Blomquist said. It was broken into three phases. They've completed phase one, which started from FM 2410 and worked easterly to a certain point, just shy of where Dana Peak starts. Then the next two phases are scheduled to begin. That gives the firefighters an opportunity to provide a line of defense and to move laterally along that line to get to the fire if they have to, Blomquist said.
Mahlstedt said it's all to lessen the danger to the city and citizens.
Harker Heights FD said coffee, water and light refreshments will be provided.
For more information on the class, call 254-699-2688 or contact Assistant Chief Chris Mahlstedt at cmahlstedt@harkerheights.gov.
More local stories from 6 News: