Job Corps students visit the Fire Lab

Submitted by fl_admin on Tue, 04/05/2016 - 08:13

The Missoula Fire Sciences Lab recently hosted a tour of students and staff from Trapper Creek Job Corps Center. The Trapper Creek center is one of 125 Job Corps Centers throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico, and is located in northwestern Montana. The students are participants in the Natural Resource career track, one of nine career programs offered at Trapper Creek. FFS Program Manager Colin Hardy welcomed the group with an introduction to the lab. Research Forester Mark Finney, Research Mechanical Engineer Bret Butler, and Research Ecologist Sharon Hood gave short presentations on fire spread research, safety zones, and fire ecology. The tour went on to the Soils lab where Forester Jim Reardon and Forestry Technician Molly Retzlaff, explained their research, and then to the Chemistry lab, where Steve Baker explained studies on smoke emissions. The finale was a burn demonstration in the Lab’s combustion chamber.