Urban forestry professionals from across the country to train in Jonesboro and Trumann this week.
Urban and community forestry professionals from across the Southeastern U.S. will converge in Jonesboro this week for a mock-disaster training event.
The training, hosted by the Arkansas Department of Agriculture’s Forestry Division, will qualify participants to deploy in Urban Forest Strike Teams (UFST) following natural disasters nationwide.
It will start Tuesday (May 17) and continue throughout the work week.
How many will end up participating in the sessions was not immediately known.
During the training, crews will assess damaged and downed trees in Trumann, where residents continue to recover from tornadoes which devastated the area last winter. UFST trainees will survey the community tree canopy to identify safety risks and provide information to the municipality for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) public assistance applications for debris removal.
Personnel doing the damage assessments will conduct interviews with instructors and trainees. Classroom instruction sessions will be held at the Embassy Suites in Jonesboro. Field training will be conducted in Trumann.
