With 19.8 million acres of forest or timberland in the state, forestry is a major industry in Mississippi that in some way touches a lot of people, the state’s outreach forester said.

“You go back and look at families, somebody’s touched by forestry. Somebody’s a logger, a forester, or somebody’s worked in a mill or lumberyard. Forestry’s had that big an impact on people,” forester Bill Kitchings told the Vicksburg Kiwanis Club.

He said the overall mission of the organization “is to provide active leadership in forestry protection, management, inventory,” a job that is done through a system of programs to control wildfires and assist foresters and others to conserve and improve the state’s forestlands.

One of those missions is fire suppression, adding that from July 1 2013 to June 30 2014, Mississippi had a total of 1,928 wild fires that burned 25,870 acres. “The fire size was kept to 13.4 acres.

“Those are just the fires the forestry commission responded to,” he said. “Those (total) numbers are higher because there are some fires we don’t go to. They’re either small, or the fire departments don’t need us and we don’t respond to them. During that period, he said, Warren County had one fire for one acre.”

Besides fighting woods fires, he said, the Forestry Commission, working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Forestry Service, has programs designed to help rural volunteer fire departments acquire equipment. One, the Firefighter Property Program, allows volunteer departments to buy surplus military equipment, such as trucks, for $100.

“Most volunteer fire departments don’t have a lot of money they can work with, so this is a way they can get more equipment,” he said.

Another program, the Rural Community Fire Protection Program, allows the state to provide matching grants to help eligible departments buy equipment.

“Since 1975, there have been 999 grants up to $2,000 each to rural fire departments,” Kitchings said. Under the program the commission is able to supply the departments with equipment, by purchasing it for them through state purchasing, he said.

The commission’s firefighting program includes a law enforcement arm to investigate wildfires and make arrests.

“We have four law enforcement officers who are trained in wildfire investigations,” he said. “They can make arrests, issue citations, and investigate fires. They have made cases, they have made arrests and we have had several convictions of people for setting wildfires across the state. The top two causes of fires in Mississippi are arson and debris burning, they issue citations for fires that have gotten out of control, because somebody’s burning.”

Kitchings said the Forestry Commission offers assistance to landowners to help them better manage their lands and provides technical and financial assistance to non-industrial forest landowners.

The commission is also charged with managing the estimated 438,000 forested acres on public school trust, or 16th Section land.

“It’s our goal to maximize timber production on a stable yield basis on school lands classified as forest lands,” he said.

In response to a question about 16th Section land, he said the commission is moving toward a more businesslike management of 16th Section land, adding, “now it’s more like the timber industry management — a lot of it is clear cutting and replanting seedlings or seeds.”

The Forestry Commission, he said, is managed by a 10-member board appointed by the governor, adding two of the members are ex officio, which means they have no vote.

“The state is divided into seven forestry districts with a district forester with two assistant district foresters and a service forester, he said. “Just about every county has a service forester there are a few counties that have one service forester for two. Then you have a technician and many of the counties have forest rangers.”