Wildland fire management is consistently characterized as increasing in temporal and spatial extent, intensity, and complexity. Attributes of the fire environment such as fuel and vegetation complexes, fuel moisture contents, burning seasons, weather conditions, and values to be protected are undergoing increases and shifts presenting greater challenges. Understanding these escalating challenges, discussing what the future holds, and realizing that change is a constant all provide a clear picture that fire management is transitioning into a program with complexity and risk at higher levels than ever before.
As the 21st century unfolds, emerging trends, both good and bad, influence management capability, opportunities, and direction. Wildland fires are exhibiting higher levels of intensity, impacting larger areas, persisting for longer durations of time, and occurring more frequently in areas of high societal values, such as the wildland urban interface (WUI). Active fire occurrence and behavior are occurring in all areas across the world with little respite as seasons change from north to south. Without question, the global fire season is now a yearlong event.
Climate change has taken a preeminent position in discussions behind increasing fire complexity. It is clear that frost-free periods are lengthening, fire seasons are extending, snow melt is occurring earlier, dead fuel moisture contents at the start of fire season are now mirroring what those levels were at ends of fire season only several decades ago, and temperatures are increasing, exacerbating long-term droughts. In fact, a recent article from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, UNSW, reported that the recent autumn in Australia was the hottest on record. It also noted that temperature extremes are not exclusive to Australia. They are being reported around the world with India recently recording its hottest temperature on record (51 degrees C) and Alaska recording its warmest April on record. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports that 2015 was the warmest year in its 136-year period of record and the 16 warmest years on record include every year since 2001. So increasing temperatures appear to be very real and a trend not going away anytime soon.
To date in 2016, wildland fire activity has been extreme in both hemispheres. Early in the year, bushfires stormed across Australia triggering numerous evacuations, forcing hundreds of people into evacuation centers, and causing considerable damage to structures and infrastructure. One remote Australian town, Yarloop with a population 600, was completely destroyed by fire. Wildfires ignited as early as February in Alaska and the large Fort McMurray Fire in Alberta and Saskatchewan, ignited in May and was responsible for the largest evacuation in Alberta’s history, forcing tens of thousands of people from their homes and destroying dozens of structures. As seasonal fire activity escalates in the United States, the Southwest and parts of California are experiencing multiple wildland fires. Some of these fires are posing threats but many of the southwestern area fires are being managed to restore fire as a natural process and realize positive ecological effects.
From all projections, wildland fire activity in the northern latitudes will continue at elevated levels throughout the summer. Approximately one-third of the way through the fire season in Canada, fire numbers to date are at 89% of the ten-year average and weekly area burned graphs show that during the first few weeks of the fire season, area burned has far exceeded the ten-year averages, even for the historic weeks of peak fire activity. In the US, the number of fires to date is at 70% of the ten-year average and climbing; the area burned is at 110% of the ten-year average.
The global nature of wildland fire is obvious; it is not unique to any continent, hemisphere, or geographic area. All wildland fire organizations are striving to respond in the safest and most effective way to accomplish protection and ecological objectives, as appropriate. However, increasing complexity is compounding efforts and presenting constant complications. Budgets and resources are finite and increasing fire numbers and area burned can quickly tax capabilities. As a result, cooperation and collaboration has become a staple component of fire response. As this year has unfolded, firefighting resources from around the world have provided assistance to others where possible. Firefighters from South Africa and Mexico have traveled to Canada, equipment has moved from Cyprus to Turkey, and Russia, Australia, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Taiwan, and the United States have offered international assistance to Canada in support of wildfire suppression.
With such a rapidly changing fire environment, increasing societal needs, expanding wildland-urban interface, and increasing fire activity, wildland fire responses must be well thought out, planned for, and safely implemented. Being an integral element of land and natural resource management with needs to respond to all stated objectives can make the fire management mission a daunting, and sometimes conflicted task. Prerequisite to successful wildland fire management in today’s environment are agreement and strategic alignment by all involved parties in regard to goals, principles, and courses of action; sharing of information, resources, and communications; decision-making through collaborative engagement; and understanding and programmatic alignment where all parties support and recognize individual agency or organization objectives.
The US National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy was developed to provide a sound, long-term, strategic plan to guide wildland fire, advance collaboration, and support better preparation and management on all lands. It sets forth three national goals that have relevance around the world. These goals include:
- Restore and Maintain Landscapes – making all landscapes resilient to fire-related disturbances.
- Fire-adapted communities – making human populations and infrastructure able to withstand a wildfire without loss of life and property.
- Wildfire response – making reducing risk to firefighters and the public the first priority and ensuring all parties participate in making safe, effective, and efficient risk-based wildfire management decisions and implementing sophisticated fire responses that include the full spectrum of tactical implementation: safe, efficient initial attack, management of fires, collaborative fire planning, rigorous fire prevention programs, understanding differing agency objectives, and recognizing differing agency statutory requirements, where necessary.
This Strategy recognizes that we cannot overcome risk and threats with resources; ordering more firefighters and equipment is not the answer to every situation. The Strategy does provide a framework for understanding that simply put, we must safely and effectively suppress all unwanted wildfires that threaten communities, critical infrastructure, and sensitive natural and cultural resources, we must use and manage fires that do not pose such threats and can support resource objectives, we and we must build resilience in communities and ecosystems and educate all involved parties.
So, as 2016 unfolds, it is apparent that the changing wildland fire environment and effects on increased fire potential and activity are trends that will have significant influence this year. A common tenet in strategic planning, policy, and forward-viewing documents is that professional wildland fire activities, part of land and resource management, must utilize strategies and tactics that place safety as the highest priority in all phases of fire responses. Strategies and tactics that direct operational activities where and when they can be successful must be used and under conditions where values at risk are protected with the least exposure to responders. Safety is critically important and must be emphasized and practiced at all times.
In order to do this, we must make an introspective assessment of the state of the program. As fire environment and social situations change, are we changing the way we do business? Do we need to change the way we do business? With rapidly changing conditions, shifting complexity, and greater demands and requirements, we cannot really expect to keep pace by relying on current and past capabilities, lessons, experiences, and successes alone. A passive approach characterized by over-reliance on past experiences, failure to incorporate new science and technology, continued increases in and support for failed strategies, rigid program requirements, and dated training and education will not meet challenges of the future. We must actively grow our body of knowledge and experience; aggressively pursue pre-planning and mitigation actions; and implement a full range of management responses to wildfire.
Wildland fire management has always been, is, and will continue to be an honorable profession. But, this profession cannot lose sight of its guiding objectives, even as they expand and become more comprehensive covering a broader range. We are not purely engaged in a war on fire; we continue to manage wildland fire for firefighter and public safety, effective natural resource management, and critical property and infrastructure protection. Risk management and risk-based decision-making dramatically support safe, effective actions. Losing sight of guiding objectives and operational principles can lead to a focus on more active and aggressive actions, less dependency on risk management, and default priorities of protecting structures and wildland-urban interface zones. Firefighter safety concerns have stimulated a recent essay that asks the question of whether we are now in the business of intentionally risking lives to achieve wildland fire objectives. This essay states that by default, and for many reasons, risking lives to achieve objectives is exactly what is happening. Leadership will vigorously reject this stance but, regardless of whether this is perception or fact, it cannot and must not ever be a reality in wildland fire management!
We must realize that it is not the spectacular force or stunningly visual display of how we do things, but understanding why we do them, what exactly has to be done, what the priorities are, and how safely and smartly we can do them that makes this program vital and successful! We must remain attentive to doing what should be done within safe limits, not just what could be done with little or no regard for personal safety. The US Forest Service has implemented a “Life First” program of engagement discussions for all individuals involved in fire activities to review practices, examples, and to discuss personal situations. Life First discussions seek to improve safety awareness with a long-term resolve to elevate the wildland fire system to one that more reliably protects responders and the public, sustains communities, and conserves the land. This engagement system is a forward-thinking and acting step, helps visualize the changing world we live and work in, and reinforces thinking and talking before acting.
This issue of Wildfire magazine presents a focus on the importance of wildland fire safety. We hope you will find this issue enlightening and motivational with useful information that will serve you during fire activities, regardless of what part of the world you are in. We hope that you are prepared for wildfire activity still to occur in 2016 and that every individual will analyze risks and tradeoffs and make safe actions that put life first as the highest priority each and every time in every situation.
