The IAWF is delighted to be supporting and attending the Aerial Firefighting Conference which is taking place at the Royal Olympic Hotel in Athens, Greece on the 21-22nd October 2008.

This is the first conference to focus its attention on the aerial fire fighting fixed and rotary-winged technologies and operations and is a truly international event with representatives from more than 30 countries attending. Operators from Australia, South Africa, Russia, Italy, France, Korea, Spain, Greece, Croatia, and, of course, Canada and the USA will be talking about their operational experiences. Ministries of Interior, Agriculture and Forestry as well as ground fire brigades will be joining the meeting. A major fixed and rotary-winged aerial fire fighting demonstration will be laid on at Elefsis Air Force Base, just outside Athens, by the Hellenic Air Force and other international operators for the benefit of the visitors to the show.

A major Panel Session will be taking place on a European initiative to develop a Cross-Border Rapid Reaction Aerial Firefighting Squadron to assist with Pan-European wildfires. Mr Christopher Allen from the European Union’s Environment General Directorate Civil Protection Unit will host this international debate. There will also be another Panel Session covering Air Pollution from Wildfires hosted by Professor Milt Statheropolous, Council of Europe - European Center for Forest Fires (ECFF).

We hope that you will be able to join us in Athens and ask those interested parties to register here.

HERE is a downloadable flyer about the conference (274k pdf)

The International Association of Wildland Fire is pleased to announce that it has awarded its’ scholarships for 2008 to two students in Canada and The Netherlands. These scholarships, each worth $2,500 USD, are designated for Master of Science or PhD. students studying wildland fire or wildland fire-related topics.

Kara Yedinak, a PhD. Student at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, received one of the scholarships. Kara has worked for the last four years on laboratory experiments and model development which look at answering some of the fundamental questions in fire behavior science. Her PhD. research will involve evaluation and application of a coupled atmosphere-fire model to better understand the role of fire with regards to air quality.

Cathelijne R. Stoof, a PhD. student at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, received the other scholarship. Cathelijne has been working on soils and hydrology combining field, lab and modeling approaches in the Netherlands and abroad. In her PhD research she uses a multiscale approach to explain post-fire erosion and flooding events by studying the effects of fire on soil water movement.

More information is available on our scholarships page on our web site, including photos, previous scholarship winners, and information about the 2009 program.

We have a new email address at the IAWF. It is:

ExecDir

**(a_t)**

iawfonline dot org.

Of course, remove the “*( )*” around the “at”. And it is not case-sensitive.

We had to make the change because of massive amounts of spam we have been receiving at the original address. Please update your address books.

A Google search for the old address shows 1,140 places where the address is in plain view for robots that are searching for email addresses to add to spammers lists.  We ask that you please do not place this new email address on web pages, unless it is modified as we did above.

Plans for “The ‘88 Fires: Yellowstone and Beyond” conference are coming together.

The program committee has been very busy in the last two weeks evaluating the presentation abstracts that were submitted. They were very pleased with the quality of the abstracts and we are even more certain that the conference is going to be excellent!

The final details of the program are still being put together, but we just added some new events:

1. A Monday evening session organized by Joe Stutler, “We Were There: Stories from the Fires of ‘88″. Come hear from the Incident Commanders and Area Commanders who managed The ‘88 fires in the Greater Yellowstone Area. There are lessons to be learned from the stories of those who were there and played central roles in the management of the fires.
2. An evening session on firefighter and fire management liability that will draw on the ThirtyMile incident.
3. Special sessions on fire education, fire and the media, and fire in the mind and on the land (the latter organized by a group of environmentalists who have worked closely with fire managers).

More information about the conference, including registration, is HERE. An outline of the program is HERE.

The May/June issue of Wildfire magazine focuses on Community Awareness. It will be full of valuable information for Fire Chiefs, Fire Management Staff, Duty Officers, and Line Personnel. The main article tells the story of a community that took action to mitigate their risk of catastrophic loss in the event of a wildland fire. The story is told primarily by community sparkplugs, Roger and Kathy Mitchell from Bow, Washington. Their situation is not unique. The Blue Ribbon Panel on Wildland Urban Interface Fire reports over 51,000 communities in the US alone (countless when the international picture is considered) are faced with the annual burden of wildfire season.

Look forward to this issue where a community’s on-going success story unfolds. This dedicated group of property owners has created an energy that is literally spreading like wildfire. Their success has been tremendous and the word has gotten out. Now many of the surrounding communities are seeking information and advice on how they too can reduce their risk. Since a collaborative model was used, not one Agency or Fire District has taken an unreasonable workload; the community has done the lion’s share and continues to be the leaders in their geographic area.

Anyone interested in the growing Wildland Urban Interface problem will be relieved to read that success is possible. Communities can and will take action, especially if they are supported with information, techniques and tools. Other articles support the theme of Community Awareness and provide key and timely information on Firewise Communities/USA, Teamwork and Collaboration, and the new Community Guide to Preparing and Implementing a Community Wildfire Protection Plan.

Keep an eye on your mailboxes, as this issue will be arriving in mid-June. Not receiving Wildfire Magazine? Become a member of IAWF! Find out how at www.iawfonline.org/membership

The IAWF has been closely following the developments of the federal charges against Ellreese Daniels, the crew boss and Incident Commander at the Thirtymile fire near Winthrop, Washington in 2001. Four firefighters on the fire became entrapped, were overrun by the fire, and died. The U.S. Attorney in Spokane, Washington charged Daniels with four felony charges for manslaughter and seven charges of making a false statement to investigators. We conducted a survey of firefighters to get a sense of the impact the charges would have on firefighters.

Here is an excerpt from Wildfire Today summing up developments in a court proceeding today:

At the federal district court today in Spokane, Washington, Ellreese Daniels plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges of making false statements to investigators. The federal prosecutors dropped the four federal felony charges of involuntary manslaughter related to the deaths of the four firefighters on the Thirtymile fire near Winthrop, Washington in 2001.

In addition to the four involuntary manslaughter charges, Daniels had been charged with seven counts of making false statements to investigators, a federal misdemeanor.

Daniels could have faced as much as six years in prison for each of the four manslaughter charges. Now he faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine for each of the two remaining misdemeanors, although the standard range is much less.

Sentencing was set for July 23. Yesterday in an email, Daniels’ attorney, Tina Hunt, said she expected there to be a “contested sentencing hearing”.
[...]
The International Association of Wildland Fire documented with their survey the fact that many firefighters were very concerned about the harmful effects these charges would have on the fire community. In the survey, 36% said they would make themselves less available for fire assignments because of the charges that were filed against Daniels.

One of our members hopes to put together a fire prevention commercial, a video advertisement, on the subject of wildland fire prevention. She is looking for photographs:

“…of tourism type locations on fire with the dirty faces of firefighters resting, working, etc. Pictures that tell a story when you look at them – pictures that capture emotion. Such as fires in the Redwood forests of California, wheat fields, East Coast of the US, Everglades, Canada, Greece, Portugal, Australia, Germany, etc.”

If you have photos such as those, click on “contact” on the top of this page. Send us an email and we will put you in touch with the person seeking the photographs.

The International Association of Wildland Fire is accepting nominations for its Wildland Fire Safety Award to be presented at IAWF’s “The Fires of ’88: Yellowstone and Beyond” conference in Jackson, Wyoming, September 22-27, 2008.

The IAWF Wildland Fire Safety Award is given to someone in the international wildland firefighting community who has made a significant contribution to wildland firefighter safety, either directly on the fireline; or indirectly through management, cultural changes, or through wildland fire research. Their contribution is frequently beyond their normal everyday job expectations - sometimes at the potential risk to their own career, and their example can encourage others to act in a similar manner.

To nominate an individual, please send an essay (no more than 800 words) on why the nominated person should receive the award, a list of three or more individuals (with contact information) who may be contacted to affirm the importance of the nominated individual’s contributions.

Please email nominations to Chuck Bushey at the address below by August 1, 2008.

The Award was inaugurated in 1997 at the IAWF’s first Wildland Fire Safety Summit held in Rossland, British Columbia. Since that time it has been awarded to seven individuals.

Chuck Bushey, President

International Association of Wildland Fire

president@iawfonline.org

By popular demand, the deadline for the submission of papers and posters has been extended to the end of the day on April 22. Click here for more information about to submit abstracts. The submissions may include any subject as it relates to wildland fire challenges, and should not be limited to the 1988 fires.

The IAWF sends our condolences to the families and co-workers of the three firefighters who died on two separate fires yesterday in Colorado.

Fire Chief Terry DeVore and firefighter John Schwartz, Jr. of the Olney Springs Volunteer Fire Department were killed on a fire near Ordway, CO. They were in their engine in heavy smoke and crossed a bridge which collapsed.

Gert Marais, of Fort Benton, Montana, was killed when his Single Engine Air Tanker crashed while fighting a wildland fire near Fort Carson, CO.

We have reformatted our news items into a format which should be more convenient for our visitors. Now we can display excerpts from each news item on our home page, rather than just a headline. Leave a comment on one of the posts and let us know what you think of the new format. We still have some cosmetic tweaks to make…it is a work in progress.

April 22 is the deadline for: (1) oral paper abstract submission (2) poster abstract submission and (3) special sessions for “The ‘88 Fires: Yellowstone and Beyond” conference. The Program Committee will review all abstracts and determine which will be accepted as well as the schedule of presentations. Authors of accepted papers and/or posters will be notified by e-mail no later than May 30, 2008. The ‘88 Fires: Yellowstone and Beyond is being held in Jackson, Wyoming on September 22-27, 2008. This momentous conference commemorates the 20th anniversary of the 1988 fires in Yellowstone and the northern Rocky Mountain area.

The event is presented by the International Association of Wildland Fire in association with the National Park Service 9th Biennial Scientific Conference on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem with the support of a consortium of partners. The conference will offer a host of opportunities to celebrate and learn lessons from past and present fire management practices and scientific research which serve as a foundation for the future of fire management. Discussions, presentations, and special sessions will focus on the following themes:

• Fire behavior, weather and fuels, including crown fire modeling, long range fire behavior, weather forecasting, fuels, and fuels management.
• Fire ecology, including wildlife, water, aquatic systems, landscape ecology and fire history.
• Fire management and policy, including fire suppression, operations, safety, and planning.
• Global trends: carbon, invasive species, climate change.
• Cultural and social perceptions of fire and the human interaction.

The content of submissions may include any subject as it relates to wildland fire challenges, and should not be limited to the 1988 fires.

More information, including the call for papers and a draft of the program can be found on the conference web site. The website has recently been updated and registration for the conference is now OPEN! Be sure to join us in Jackson, Wyoming September 22-27, 2008.

(originally posted April 8, 2008)

Today we introduced a more efficient and user friendly Wildland Fire Event Calendar. The calendar has always been one of the most visited pages on our web site, so we take it seriously and keep it updated.

The new version loads pages much more quickly and has a more logical layout. It looks a little different, but we expect our visitors will appreciate its advantages. It is a Google-based calendar, but we add all of the events. If you already have your own Google calendar, you can easily add an event to your calendar from ours. Click on the Contact button if you want to request that one of your events be added to our calendar

The IAWF is one of the partners in the Aerial Firefighting Conference which will be held October 21-22, 2008 in Athens, Greece. Numerous vendors and users of wildland fire aircraft are already committed to participating.

This is the first aerial firefighting conference in many years and should be very worthwhile for those involved in managing or using wildland fire aircraft. It will address both the global issues and aerial technologies and techniques necessary to attack both low-populated forest and agricultural wildfires and the highly-populated urban and high-rise environments. This conference will bring together the worlds experts and focus on aerial firefighting technologies and operations, including the cooperation and collaboration experiences and lessons learned in ground-to-air firefighting management.