IF Fire Department conducts Control Burns on Milligan Road for Independence Day

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI)-Idaho Falls Fire Fighters on Milligan Road trained newer recruits on Sunday to deal with on brush fires, while preparing for the Independence Day Celebrations near the Water Front.

"With the fireworks celebration, there's a lot of fallout that results from the the giant mortars that they send up in the air. Those can land anywhere around around the river here. So we like to get the dry grass taken care of early so that we're not chasing those little spot fires while everyone's congregated here down around the river," said Captain Levi McAfee from the Idaho Falls Fire Department.

Sunday is usually the day they choose to do the controlled burn as there's usually less people and generally less calls in the morning that they will be needed on. They also use the day to train many of the year's newest recruits. "To get them some experience with kind of the grass fires situations and stuff like that," Captain McAfee said.

The reason they choose to do it on the 25 and not sometime next week is to give them plenty of time to do a "second coating" if need be. "If we need to come back and touch anything up next week before the fireworks show, that gives us a little bit of time to do that as well." They also had the right people on shift to help oversee things.

As we get closer to the 4th Captain McAfee reminds people that if you do light you're own fireworks to use caution afterwards. "Save your fireworks for your own displays at home. And we also like to remind people that once they're done lighting off their fireworks at their own properties, that they they soak them in a metal can full of water, make sure they're cooled off."

He says don't leave the fireworks can anywhere since it can start a stray fire.