On May 11, Chilean forestry-control officer Héctor Adrizola Smith visited the Bureau of Land Management High Plains District Office in Wyoming.

Smith visited BLM as part of a Rotary Group Study Exchange Program. The program provides travel grants for teams of participants to exchange visits between paired areas in different countries.  For four to six weeks, team members study the host country’s institutions and ways of life, observe their own vocations as practiced abroad, develop personal and professional relationships and exchange ideas. 

Rotary sponsored four Chilean visitors on a multi-city tour of Wyoming. They started their visits in Denver on April 25 and left for home on May 23. At the same time the Chilean visitors were here, Wyoming had a delegation of people in Chile.

“I think all of us had a very positive experience from their visit," said Bob Auflik, chairman of the Rotary Club's Group Study Exchange program in Casper, Wyo. “This included all the families and Rotary clubs that hosted the Chileans, as well as the Chilean's themselves. They were and are such positive people. We all can benefit from these people to people exchanges in so many ways. In each city they visited they devoted some time to job shadow various professionals in Wyoming that closely relate to their own professions back in Chile.”

Smith works in the Forest National Corp., Region of Lagos, in Chile. He is in charge of the forest-fire program in the Osrno National Park. Smith also is also the lead in formulating the management plant for the biosphere reserve of the rain forests tempering of Austral Andes on the regional forest. He supervises 32 people including a brigade for wildfire combat. Smith notes that they use native forest and other control instruments in their national forest.

Smith started his tour at the High Plains District Fire Division with fire-management specialist Kristi Bulock. They discussed how the Chilean Forestry Program worked versus how the BLM fire program operates.

In Chile, the state only owns 18 percent of the land, and the rest is privately owned. The state sold the forest land to the public in 1974. The state still retains control over the private land through a forest-stewardship contract. The landowners are paid to cultivate forests. Chile has more than 5 million acres of planted forest. Types of trees in the forest include Monterey pine, which Chile uses for cellulose and lumber, and Eucalyptus trees. It also has 11 million acres of cold rainforests in the South with bamboo and evergreen trees.

The second most important sector in Chile, according to Smith, is forestry. Chile provides cellulose, lumber and plywood from its forests. Other important sectors include copper and iron mining, salmon farms, vineyards for wine and fruit. Smith said that Chile sells a lot of fruit to the United States including apples, pears, peaches, grapes, kiwi, blueberries and chestnuts.

After visiting with Bulock, Smith took of tour of the High Plains Dispatch Center. He also toured the fire ready room with firefighter Zeb McWilliams, who provided practical insight concerning BLM’s fire-preparedness and -suppression operations.

In Chile, Smith is in charge of a 10-person fire brigade for the forests and receives help from the city if the fire gets out of control. Private landowners are in charge of initial attack of forest fires on their land. All of their forest fires are human caused; “It’s too rainy for natural forest fires to start,” Smith noted. “We only had 52 fires last year.” Fires in Chile average 12 to 15 acres. Landowners are quick to respond, Smith said, because their livelihood is in the forests.

Smith was especially impressed with all of the fire equipment and the Hummer Fire Engine, “It would be a dream to get one of these,” he said. “This is wonderful. We don’t have all these things, only one bus.” Smith was very impressed with the knowledge, skills and professionalism he encountered at BLM. He mentioned several times, he would like to see a firefighter-to-firefighter exchange between Wyoming BLM and his Chilean National Forest.

Chile also has its own version of Smokey Bear — Forestin the beaver. Forestin works with kids and teaches them about good and bad fire just like Smokey. Forestin has his own Web site and educational materials.

Smith ended his tour of Casper with a visit to the National Historic Trails Center with the other three Chilean guests. The other three guests, which Rotary sponsored, included lawyer Karin Andrea Neira Mera, tourism manager María Angélica Ojeda Zúñiga and business administrator María Francisca Klein Martin.

Smith, Mera, Zúñiga, and Martin were all smiles as they toured NHTIC and tried out the stagecoach, Mormon handcart, and covered-wagon rides. They commented on how interactive the NHTIC was. Smith shared some of the history about his country and their own pioneers. He noted, “This place is very special. It’s great.”

“This was a wonderful experience,” Smith said as they parted with BLM employees and headed out for the rest of their tour of Wyoming. “I really enjoyed it.”