If fire ants are nesting in a structure (in a wall void, for example), the nest should be treated directly, usually by drilling and injecting with a residual insecticide. Treatment of ant trails or barrier treatment to keep fire ants from foraging in occupied areas are generally not acceptable choices for Park Service facilities.

Mound Treatment

Treating individual ant mounds is time consuming, but it is generally the most effective method of control. It takes from a few hours to a few weeks to "kill" the mound, depending on the product used. Individual mound treatment is usually most effective in the spring. The key is to locate and treat all the mounds in the area to be protected, not always a simple task. If many young mounds are missed, re-infestation of the area can take place in less than a year.

Ant-Proofing

Fire ants, like other ants, may be nesting near buildings and can enter and move through a structure through innumerable tiny cracks and openings. Caulking and otherwise sealing cracks and crevices being used by fire ants can often have great effect in suppressing the population inside. Many effective, easy-to-use silicon sealers and expandable caulk products have been recently developed, including some designed specifically for pest management.

Mechanical Disturbance

Mounds can be dug up and moved or destroyed, but not without some risk that the fire ants will successfully attack the digger. Dragging, or knocking down, mounds may provide a limited level of control, but only if mounds are dragged just before the first hard freeze. Mounds are destroyed by pulling a steel I-beam drag, weighing about a ton, behind a tractor across the ant-infested area. Destroying mounds during the warm season will not reduce the number of active mounds; ants quickly rebuild their nests.

A number of mechanical mound pulverizers, ant electrocuters, even nest exploders, have been developed for fire ant control, but so far the effectiveness and practicality of these devices is open to question.