Wildland fires are primordial and ancient forces of nature, incomparable to a structure fire. But when these fires burn, who is responding? State and federal firefighters will, but often it is the local fire department that arrives first on-scene. And as the number and scope of these fires grows, the line between structural and wildland firefighting is becoming blurred.
On a given day, there are over a billion acres of burnable vegetation in the United States, including forests, prairie, marshland, and even mulch beds. Increasingly, much of this acreage can be found in the WUI, the Wildland Urban Interface. Fires in the WUI are causing a once-incomprehensible meeting of structural and wildland firefighters who, despite having the same mission, share little of the same tactics, equipment, crew structure, or even vocabulary.
More and more structural firefighters are working the fireline, without the benefit of the training, PPE, or equipment needed to fight these forces of nature. At the same time, fires in the WUI now require wildland firefighters to have a tactical understanding of a structure fire.
“We are being thrown together in the WUI,” says Chief Tom Harbour, former National Director of Fire and Aviation Management for the U.S. Forest Service and engineer of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation’s wildland approach. “Fifty years ago we were sufficiently geographically separated that we rarely, if ever, ran into one another. We had the capability to work in our respective city, town, park, forest, or rangeland with the luxury of not interacting.” Now, the NFFF and its wildland partners are working together to build bridges, with the goal of a safer future for all firefighters operating in the wildland.
In 2018, the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, with the expertise and experience of leading wildland fire agencies and the support of the Wildland Firefighter Foundation, embarked on a needs assessment to better understand how to address the health and safety of all firefighters who regularly or occasionally fight fire in the wildland or the WUI. This needs assessment determined that adapting the Everyone Goes Home® concepts to the wildland community could help to realize measurable reductions in line-of-duty injuries and deaths.
This spring, the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation will host five Everyone Goes Home® in the Wildland Introduction Sessions. The two-day curriculum introduces Everyone Goes Home® concepts and the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives and is broadly aimed at those who have a responsibility to respond to fires in the wildland, even though it may not be their primary function.
This spring, the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation will host five Everyone Goes Home® in the Wildland Introduction Sessions. The two-day curriculum introduces Everyone Goes Home® concepts and the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives and is broadly aimed at those who have a responsibility to respond to fires in the wildland, even though it may not be their primary function.
The sessions are scheduled for Tallahassee, FL (March 7–8); Oklahoma City, OK (March 10–11); Boise, ID (March 13–14); Manchester, NH (March 28–29); and Arcadia, CA (April 1-2). National Fallen Firefighters Foundation staff, contractors, and Everyone Goes Home® Advocates will provide a detailed overview of training, programs, and resources available to support the health and safety of ALL firefighters who respond to wildland fires.
It turns out that wildland and structural firefighters are not all that different once you look past the yellow and blue shirts. Culture is the most critical piece to the adoption of safer practices across the fire service. The company officer/crew boss is the target audience for these events, as they have the greatest capacity to influence culture.
The second day of each session will provide attendees with the resources they need to bring about change in their organization’s culture. Courage to be Safe® introduces the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives and focuses on advancing cultural change to reduce deaths and injuries. It covers the immediate and root causes of line-of-duty fatalities and the profound effects these deaths have on loved ones, colleagues, and the community. The second component, LACK (Leadership, Accountability, Culture, and Knowledge), discusses the devastating impact of a line-of-duty death, and how they are often the result of tolerance of unsafe behaviors and a breakdown in safety priorities. LACK illustrates how a balanced approach of leadership, accountability, culture, and knowledge can reverse these contributing factors. In each of these four areas, LACK provides practical, specific, and immediate actions that leaders can take to increase the health and safety of firefighters.
As development continues to expand into the more remote parts of our nation and as our climate changes, we are likely to see more and more fires in the WUI – and the differences between structural and wildland firefighters grow smaller. No matter their shirt color, firefighters will be on the front line in these approaching challenges. They must be ready to support their communities in making educated, smart decisions about how wildland and WUI fire risks are managed. To do so, the fire service needs to build an internal culture that welcomes and supports discussion about risk management amongst its own members.
“The work we are trying do is to get everyone to recognize the current situation,” says Chief Harbour. “The WUI is bringing us together at a rate and frequency we’ve never seen before. We must cooperate and interact.”
