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News ReleaseRI Department of Environmental Management 235 Promenade Street, Providence, RI 02908 (401) 222-2771 TDD/(401) 222-4462
DEM ANNOUNCES ARBOR DAY CELEBRATION, OPEN HOUSE TOURS OF FORESTRY HEADQUARTERS, TO MARK 100 YEARS OF RI FOREST SERVICE The 10 a.m. ceremony will include a speaking program, an arbor day presentation by Ms. Beth Ann Colvin's 3rd grade class from the Clayville Elementary School in Scituate, and the planting of a Paperbark maple donated by the Rhode Island Tree Council. This year's planting is in recognition and honor of the divisional employees past and present, and the division's partners and cooperators who have served a vital role in protecting and conserving forests in the state over the past 100 years. Tree seedlings donated by the Rhode Island Chapter of the New England Division of the Society of American Foresters will handed out to the school children. The speaking program will include the award of this year's America the Beautiful Grants, which will result in the planting of nearly 200 trees throughout much of the state. In the past 15 years, DEM's Division of Forest Environment has awarded more than $1.8 million in America the Beautiful grants, matched by over $3 million in local funds. (See this year's grants below.*) During the open house, the fire tower will be open to guests, and forestry personnel will explain how staff detect and fight fires. In addition, patrol trucks and fire-fighting equipment, both modern and antique, will be on display. As a special treat, Anne Holst, of the Cloud Hill Victorian House Museum located in East Greenwich will display, at the Forestry open house, a sampling of the museum artifacts and vintage forestry memorabilia from the 1930's to the present. The 1928 fire truck used by her late mother, Anne Crawford Allen Holst, to fight forest fires in the 30's and 40's will also be on display. Anne Crawford Allen Holst, a great grand-niece of the founder of the Factory Mutual Fire Insurance Systems, is thought to have been the first woman fire chief in the nation. She became chief of Rhode Island's Cedar Hill Fire Department, in Cowesett, in 1931. Known as Nancy, Chief Holst was also a pilot and was very active in forest fire management. The New England Association of Fire Chiefs published her papers, "Forest Fire Weather" and "The Airplane Angle of Firefighting". She later became deputy state fire marshal, and developed the first forest fire control plan for the State of Rhode Island. The DEM Division of Forest Environment Headquarters open house will be held from 11a.m. to 2 p.m. on Friday, April 28, and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 29, with a rain date of Sunday, April 30 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. -30-
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