Focus — A Story of Note
ILCA Firm Stands Tall When Fires Break Out
by Meta L. Levin
Your average landscape
contractor almost never can be found fighting wildland fires in northern California, but that’s exactly what Tom Flader of Libertyville based TGF Enterprises/TGF Forestry and Fire was doing in August and September 2020. It all started about 10 years ago, when Flader recognized the need for prescribed burns, especially in nearby prairie areas. “We do a lot of prescribed burns within 100 miles of our office,” he says. A firefighter/paramedic since the age of 17, he decided that if he was going to provide prescribed burns, his employees needed specialized training, so he sent them to school in northern Wisconsin. “If we were going to light fires, I thought, let’s have the basic training in how to put them out,” Flader says. “It’s totally different than fighting house fires.” In Wisconsin, they also learned about the excitement of fighting wildfires in places like Georgia, Florida, Wisconsin, Colorado and California. That led to a new division of his company, called TGF Forestry and Fire, as well as regular
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stints in the heat, smoke and dust of wildland fires. Since that first training, Flader has sent his crews for more all over the United States. “I send them to the best classes,” he says. Some of his staff now teaches basic classes for the University of Illinois firefighting program. TGF became a federal contractor for the US Forest Service more than 15 years ago. It’s crews typically respond to two to four fires per season, spending anywhere from 14 to 60 days fighting them. Don’t misunderstand, Flader still runs a landscape contracting business that provides landscape design/build, irrigation, landscape lighting, snow removal and other services that you normally would find from a landscape company. He also serves on the ILCA Irrigation Committee. But his company’s other arm takes things beyond what you generally would find in the landscape industry. “We contract out to fight wildland fires all over the nation,” says Flader. (continued on page 14)
The Landscape Contractor February 2021
