One of the busiest times for the wildland throughout the United States is also among the most frequent times for wildfires.
Labor Day weekend is a time when human-caused wildfires usually spike, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Numerous Forest Service offices have put out statements sharing tips on how to prevent wildfires during the holiday weekend.
The center’s predictive services have issued fuels and fire danger advisories for parts of the West, underscoring how quickly new ignitions could spread. The majority of the nation’s western coast, along with portions of Tennessee and Kentucky, has very dry fuels heading into the holiday weekend, and much of northern California, northern Montana, and northern North Dakota have moderate fire risk for the next week.
The U.S. has recorded an estimated 46,122 fires since the beginning of the year, the highest year-to-date fire total since 2022 and much higher than the 40,513 fire total average year-to-date. But, the nation’s 4.1 million acres of burned land is under the nation’s 10-year burned acreage average of 5.3 million. Over 18,000 wildland firefighters are deployed nationwide.
“Whether you’re camping, towing a boat, or grilling in the backyard, please remember that most wildfires are human-caused and preventable,” NIFC said. “Make sure campfires are dead out, secure trailer chains so they don’t spark, and never leave barbeques or burn piles unattended. Simple choices like these protect the landscapes we love and help firefighters focus on naturally ignited fires.”
The nation’s worst Labor Day wildfire tragedy occurred in Oregon in 2020, the deadliest wildfire event in state history. Hurricane-force winds triggered warnings from officials of heightened fire danger. An estimated 16 fires claimed 11 lives, destroyed more than 4,000 homes, and burned over 919,000 acres throughout the state.
“The effects of the Labor Day wildfires will be felt for years to come, but – like the forests that burned in those fires – Oregon’s forest sector is resilient,” a report on the fires commissioned by the state said. “Foresters, loggers, tree planters, scientists and other forest professionals have been working ever since the smoke cleared to restore the forests that they pride themselves in stewarding, as well as to better understand how our forests respond to and recover from wildfire.”
By Matt Plucinski, Nick McCarthy, Owen Price, and Deb Sparkes
There is little quantitative knowledge of, or data describing, how aircraft are used on Australian fires or how effective they are.
Most of the existing operational understanding of suppression effectiveness is anecdotal, highly personal and difficult to compile. Most published data are limited to counts of hours flown, drops made and contracting costs. Inquiries after the devastating 2019-20 Black Summer fire season have made recommendations that research and evaluation into aerial firefighting be undertaken to address this lack of knowledge. The federal government has expressed support for this research and for evidence-based understanding of the capability required for an operationally effective fleet to meet current and future needs.
Matt Plucinski CSIRO, presenting findings from aerial firefighting research at the AFAC25 conference in Perth, Australia, August 2025.
Firefighting aircraft have become more common in Australia over the last few decades.
Current fleets, managed by states, territories and the federal government, comprise of a mix of light and heavy, fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft with a range of capabilities and capacities.
This fleet has evolved over decades through experience, with different aircraft models selected for different environments based on the accessibility of filling points, terrain and obstacles associated with built environments. Firefighting aircraft are more readily deployed to incidents than in the past and are often relocated across state borders in response to fires and anticipation of elevated fire danger conditions and related spikes in fire activity.
Wildfires are managed by state and territory governments in Australia; multiple agencies share responsibility within each state depending on land tenure and location.
Bomber 132, a C130H Hercules, lays a retardant line on the Bullengarook fire in Victoria, Australia, on Dec. 21, 2024. All photos by Wayne Rigg, AFSM, Country Fire Authority.
Most aircraft are contracted from local companies, with larger aircraft bought in from overseas for the high fire danger period. Some agencies have recently begun to purchase aircraft, citing the need for availability during the whole year and a desire for multiple-purpose aircraft.
The unique geographies and arrangements within Australia’s eight state and territory jurisdictions mean firefighting resources are used in a variety of conditions and applications. While aircraft are mostly used to drop suppressants and retardants, they also perform other important roles, such as intelligence gathering, supervision, transport and ignition.
Knowing how aircraft are used during bushfire suppression operations is critical to understanding their effectiveness and will help provide a basis for promoting their effective use. This knowledge would also allow the comparison of usage patterns with intended use. Being able to identify situations in which aircraft are beneficial to suppression operations and those in which they are less so will enable the prioritisation of effective use and improve overall impact and cost efficiency. Restricting the use of aircraft in situations in which they are less likely be effective will also help to alleviate their scarcity and reduce aircrew exposure.
Effective suppression actions lead to desired outcomes for a fire. Successful outcomes can be more readily assessed when compared to explicit pre-defined objectives, which may include containment goals that relate restricting fire extent and impacts within specified time and spatial bounds. Assessing the effectiveness of high-cost resources, such as aircraft, should also consider their benefit in relation to lower-cost alternatives.
The availability of, and difficulty collecting impartial, representative and reliable operational data is a major limitation for bushfire suppression effectiveness research. There are also many diverse and interlinked variables that influence suppression effectiveness that must be considered when evaluating suppression effectiveness, such as those related to fire behaviour, environmental conditions and the application of suppression.
Many projects have investigated aerial suppression in Australia, most notably Project Aquarius, undertaken by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in the 1980s. Project Aquarius established some intensity thresholds for effective drops in some eucalypt forest types; the thresholds were used in an economic model that recommended fire agencies invest in more, smaller, geographically dispersed aircraft than fewer large aircraft that may be slower to respond to distant fires.
Another major project, funded by the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre in the 2000s, confirmed the significant benefit that aircraft provide during initial attack, particularly for fires that take ground crews longer to access, and fires that occur during conditions conducive to rapid fire growth; the quick travel times for firefighting aircraft can help to minimise the size of fires for incoming ground crews so they have less fire to fight and a greater chance of early containment. The project made some field observations at wildfires and planned experimental fires but noted the significant challenges to the collection of sufficient quantities of data required to support detailed analysis.
In 2023, the Country Fire Authority launched a study to assess aerial firefighting tank systems and suppressants such as water foam and retardant. To date, 57 controlled tests have been undertaken, generating a structured dataset of aircraft and tank system drop patterns to define drop effectiveness in grassland and forest environments.
Some other smaller projects have reaffirmed benefits of the use of aircraft during initial attack while others have provided some case studies of aircraft use.
The findings of aircraft being particularly beneficial during some initial attack situations have been put to good use. Some Australian jurisdictions have developed pre-determined dispatch protocols that automatically send aircraft to first reports of fires above threshold fire danger triggers (before ground-based firefighting appliances request them).
Helitak 367 dropping water on a large spot fire at the Creswick fire, which burned during extreme fire danger conditions in Victoria, Australia, on Dec. 16, 2024. Photo Wayne Rigg, CFA.
From a theoretical economic perspective, the return on investment of aircraft is the greatest when such policy settings are optimised and fires are stopped early. However, the lack of data at a scientific standard to compare pre and post implementation of such policy means policy efficacy is very challenging to study.
Because incipient fires behave differently than steady state fires, and often the best intelligence on fire behaviour comes from aircraft, there is a paradox involved with not ever knowing if such fires needed the support that they received or not. To address this, fire agencies in Victoria are investing in fire reconstructions to collect the standard of data required to answer these questions. The focus for this work is on fires where a) the fire was a close call, meaning the fire was almost or just contained thanks to surge resourcing, and b) where there is sufficient data on fire behaviour to answer the questions.
While the benefits of aircraft during initial attack are well understood and documented, their use and effectiveness during extended attack and on larger fires are not. During initial attack, the objective for most suppression is simply to contain a new fire start as soon as possible, however, objectives can be much more varied for fires that have escaped initial attack efforts. This makes understanding the goals and effectiveness of aircraft use during large fires much more complex and is also likely why the subject has received very little research attention. This is concerning because large fires tend to have significant aircraft deployments that can persist for multiple days.
Aircraft tracking and event records are emerging as an important new data source for analyses of operational responses to fires. Aircraft that are contracted through Australia’s National Aerial Firefighting Centre (NAFC) have been required to provide accurate and timely location and event reporting for a few seasons. This change requires the aircraft to be fitted with position reporting, event-reporting, and messaging equipment and to transmit this data within minutes of collection.
The data collection and transmission operate in the background without influencing operations, thereby providing a true representation of events.
The utility of this data for supporting research on aircraft use and effectiveness has only been explored in a single scoping study that examined data collected during a single season in one state. This study demonstrated that aircraft tracking and event data has great potential for supporting research; it also revealed some issues with completeness, in terms of numbers of aircraft being recorded, and the reliability of some fields, particularly those related to drop volumes and contents.
A further consideration for research using aircraft tracking and event data is that it can only provide some of the information required for studies of firefighting aircraft. Other data sources such as agency records (including fire progression isochrones, situation reports and intelligence logs), interviews with key personnel, and imagery and videography captured during operations, are required to provide critical information on suppression objectives, fire behaviour, environmental conditions and supporting suppression responses.
A new research project funded by Natural Hazards Research Australia and supported by NAFC and state and territory fire agencies will use event reporting data to investigate the application and effectiveness of aerial firefighting. The project, titled Why fly? How do we know that aerial firefighting operations are effective and efficient?, aims to describe the current aircraft use profile and evaluate the effectiveness of aerial fire fighting across Australia using case studies compiled from a range of conditions and locations.
While the Why fly? project is a great step forward to enhance Australia’s understanding of the use and effectiveness of aerial suppression, as a 1.5-year project, it will not be able to address many unresolved fire aviation effectiveness issues facing Australia and intends to make recommendations for further research and analysis.
Important issues, such as line productivity and holding, non-bombing aircraft benefits, cost effectiveness, and the effectiveness of retardants and suppressants are not being investigated in this project or any other current or planned research. For these reasons, continued improvements in data capture, completeness and availability are needed to increase the understanding of how aircraft, and other suppression resources, are applied and what they can and cannot be expected to achieve. These changes, along with further research into the many unresolved fire aviation issues previously listed, will help Australia work toward a safer, more effective and cost-efficient application of aircraft on the country’s fires.
Matt Plucinski is a senior research scientist at CSIRO in Canberra and has more than 20 years bushfire research and firefighting experience. Plucinski has conducted many field and laboratory experiments on topics associated with bushfire behaviour and suppression effectiveness, including evaluations of the effectiveness of large airtankers and assessments of wildfire suppressants and retardants. Plucinski’s research has been used to inform risk management planning, response strategies during bushfires and for fire danger assessment.
Nick McCarthy is a senior research and development officer with Country Fire Authority’s Research and Development team in Victoria, Australia, focusing on suppression effectiveness, future firefighting trends, and field data collection on fire behaviour. McCarthy previously worked as a postdoc with the U.S. Forest Service in Missoula, Montana, and completed a PhD at the University of Queensland in fire-atmosphere interactions.
Owen Price is director of the Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfire at the University of Wollongong and for 18 years has been researching the evidence of impacts of bushfires on biodiversity and buildings and the effectiveness of strategies to reduce bushfire risk; this includes research on prescribed burning, construction standards and suppression with techniques involving spatial, statistical modelling and simulation. Price was born in the United Kingdom and graduated as a biologist before moving to the Northern Territory in 1992, where he worked for 13 years in wildlife research for the National Parks and Wildlife Service. He has authored 140 papers and 50 reports and in 2020 he was joint winner of the Eureka Prize for applied environmental science for analysis supporting the NSW inquiry into the 2019-2020 Black Summer inquiry.
Deb Sparkes is the aviation research and evaluation manager at the National Aerial Firefighting Centre (NAFC), a business unit of AFAC. With extensive experience leading national bushfire management initiatives, Sparkes has played a pivotal role in projects such as the development of the new Australian Fire Danger Ratings System, prescribed burning guidelines, and Spark, Australia’s newest bushfire simulation tool. Driven by a passion for knowledge exchange, Sparkes is committed to fostering collaboration and creating networks that spark innovation and drive progress.
More than 4100 people are attending Australasia’s largest fire and emergency management conference and exhibition in Perth, Western Australia, this week.
The AFAC25 Conference Powered by Intershutz annual conference is hosted by Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council (AFAC) in collaboration with Deutsche Messe. The four-day event includes a main conference program with parallel streams from the Institution of Fire Engineers (Australia), Women and Firefighting Australasia (WAFA), and the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience (AIDR).
Wildfire Today is a Media Partner of the AFAC25 Conference.
The annual conference rotates around the major capital cities with Perth being one of the smaller venues. However, registrations were only a few hundred behind the large Sydney conference of 2024 and the trade show with 228 exhibitors is 40 percent larger than what it was in Perth six years ago.
AFAC25 conference, Perth, Western Australia.
The AFAC Industry award winners were announced with the major individual award going to Anni Fordham, of Western Australia’s Department of Emergency Services, whose work was recently featured in Wildfire Today.
The award winners were:
Laurie Lavelle Award – Anni Fordham, Department of Fire and Emergency Services
Knowledge Innovation Award – Australian Fire Danger Rating System Peoject Team, NSW Rural Fire Service
Safer Communities Award – Public Information Team, Department of Fire and Emergency Services
Workforce Capability and Wellbeing Award – SES Fit for Role Implementation Group, State and Territory Emergency Services throughout Australia
Poster display at AFAC25 conference, Perth, Western Australia.Exhibitors at AFAC25 conference, Perth, Western Australia.Exhibitors at AFAC25 conference, Perth, Western Australia.AFAC25 conference, Perth, Western Australia.
Australia is set for a “normal” fire season across the southern states this upcoming summer, with only parts of western Victoria and eastern South Australia threatening anything more serious.
Almost two years of extremely low rainfall in those parts have created deeply dried vegetation and soils that will quickly become more volatile once the weather heats up.
The Australian Seasonal Bushfire Outlook for spring was released today at the AFAC25 conference in Perth, Western Australia. The Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council (AFAC), the Bureau of Meteorology and the nation’s Fire Commissioners and Chiefs prepare the quarterly outlook to prepare resources and community messages tailored for each state. The spring outlook is the most important for the populous eastern and southern states as it leads into the main summer bushfire season.
Launch of the Australian Spring 2025 Seasonal Bushfire Outlook.
The Bureau of Meteorology is predicting likely good rainfall this spring in these parts but the quantity and extent of coverage is less certain. If rain eventuates, it will increase the green vegetation and could result in a subdued fire season. If the rains do not come the heat will surely dry the abundant fuels that will burn with the help of the underlaying dryness.
Despite large parts of the country more likely to receive wetter than normal conditions, parts of the east and west still have a heightened risk of fire.
The Outlook for spring 2025 identifies a heightened risk of fire for the Dampier Peninsula, Derby Coast and the Central Kimberley, Little Sandy Desert, and south-eastern Pilbara in Western Australia, the south-eastern agricultural areas of the Murraylands in South Australia. and the south, southwest, central, and southwest Gippsland regions in Victoria.
The higher risk of fire in Western Australia follows increased fuel growth following seasonal rains, coupled with the predicted warmer than normal temperatures and higher likelihood of below average rainfall through spring.
Towards the southeast of Australia, surface moisture is hiding deeper drying that has resulted from long term rainfall deficiencies built over the last 12-18 months. Some places have reported their lowest ever rainfall during this period. If spring rainfall doesn’t eventuate, the conditions will rapidly switch to an increased risk of fire.
A strong Wet season across much of northern Australia has saturated the land, reducing the risk of early season fires, particularly in the forested areas of Queensland. The grasslands are expected to be the only source of trouble for fire authorities as they quickly dry out, particularly in the sparse Kimberley and Pilbara regions.
AFAC CEO Rob Webb stressed that even in a “normal” season, fast moving and dangerous fires will likely still occur and communities needed to prepare now. “No matter where you live or travel this season, everyone can play an important role in bushfire safety this spring by being prepared and staying alert to warnings and advice. Having a plan doesn’t take long and might just make the difference. Local fire authorities will be monitoring bushfire risk this season so you can stay up to date and ready to act if there is an emergency.”
Wildfire Today is a Media Partner of the AFAC25 Conference Powered by Intershutz.
There has been a small but growing body of research within the United States on the use and effectiveness of aviation over the past 15 years; much of this focused on large airtankers.
Studies have focused on understanding where and when aviation drops occur, how fire managers prioritize the use of aviation, optimal fleet design, and how risk management concepts can inform where and when to most effectively apply aviation.
The most expansive research effort to date was the Aerial Firefighting Use and Effectiveness (AFUE) study initiated in 2012 to “systematically document the operational utilization and tactical contribution of aerial firefighting resources that have the ability to deliver water and wildland fire chemicals in support of incident objectives.”
As part of the AFUE study, the research team coordinated with incident commanders to collect data on aviation use on 272 wildfires from 2015 to 2018, including more than 5,000 airtanker retardant drops. The research team recorded the primary suppression objective for each retardant drop based on radio communication, operational briefings, and/or post-hoc conversations with incident management. Drops were then categorized into a variety of different outcomes, including no fire interaction, burned through, halted fire spread, and others. The research team then created performance metrics to measure the likelihood of aviation drops interacting with wildfire and their probability of success.
The AFUE study included observations for a variety of aviation platforms dropping water and retardant.
Halting fire spread and delaying fire spread were the two most common objectives for retardant drops, each representing more than 40 per cent of drop objectives with point protection coming in a distant third at 10 per cent. About one-quarter of all large airtanker (LAT) drops did not interact with the final fire perimeter, demonstrating the use of airtankers for indirect suppression tactics and contingency line development. Not surprisingly, for those drops that interacted with wildfire, the probability of successful drops intended to halt fire spread was lower (55 per cent) than the objective of slowing fire spread (75 per cent) and point protection (87 per cent). Although the AFUE study provided a level of detail regarding drop objectives and relative measures of success, there was an important question unanswered: do these mission objectives truly alter wildfire outcomes during extended attack?
Researchers at Colorado State University are engaged in a study to provide formal calculations on the effectiveness of large airtanker retardant drops at altering wildfire growth. The researchers use data provided by units mounted inside LATs that record the exact locations and times of retardant drops, along with information on the daily growth of wildfires from 2017 to 2019, to evaluate fire characteristics before and after the wildfire passes over the retardant line. The researchers evaluate the change in wildfire characteristics as the fire moves through a swath of land that is split by the retardant line. However, a critical piece of information to understand the effectiveness of LAT suppression at the drop level is a comparison with areas unaffected by retardant.
To ensure accurate comparisons, the researchers measure wildfire outcomes in adjacent areas with similar vegetation and topography. The key difference? These areas lack retardant lines, serving as a control, thus creating what is known as a natural experiment. The difference in the change in wildfire outcomes as the fire moves through these two swaths of land provides statistics for the effectiveness of LAT retardant drops.
Aviation drops relative to daily fire progression and populated areas on the Alexander Mountain Fire in Colorado in 2024. Heavy retardant use during the first several days of the event were unsuccessful in stopping the fire, requiring operations to fall back to more favorable locations near populated areas. Graphic by Jim Riddering.An overlay of airtanker drop locations with the Potential Control Locations. Fires have a high likelihood of stopping in areas with cool colors (blue and green) and low likelihood in hotter colors (red and orange). The image shows drops on the Alexander Mountain Fire in the Pike San Isabel National Forest in Colorado in 2024. Graphic by Jim Riddering.
The researchers evaluated the effectiveness of LATs at halting wildfire progression, reducing the intensity, and delaying the spread of wildfire; they found that LATs are effective at altering wildfire outcomes in all three ways.
Wildfire is 8.4 per cent less likely to spread into land that is protected with an LAT drop compared to land that is not buffered by retardant.
Similarly, the intensity of fire (measured by the gridded Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity layer) is 7.5 per cent lower for land protected by a retardant line.
Land protected by retardant takes four to five hours longer to burn than unprotected areas, giving crews crucial time to respond.
These findings reveal the tangible impact of LAT drops on wildfire behavior, offering key insights for suppression strategies.
These statistics aggregate the effectiveness of retardant drops across a variety of landscape and weather conditions. However, the Colorado State researchers have found that LATs are more effective across all three dimensions when dropping on land covered with shrub vegetation, compared to areas dominated by grass or trees. They have also found that air tankers can delay the spread of wildfire by more than 30 hours when used in conjunction with other types of suppression, and that tankers classified as very large airtankers, or VLATs, based on larger tanks for holding retardant, can reduce the likelihood of fire spreading by roughly 12 per cent relative to land not protected by any retardant drops. This research also provides assessment of the influence of topography and general weather conditions on drop line effectiveness.
Understanding the effectiveness of large airtanker drops is a crucial step in refining wildfire suppression strategies, but translating research results into actionable feedback for incident management teams remains a challenge.
Developing processes to review past actions and provide near real-time information to the field is essential for improving future wildfire responses and maximizing the effectiveness of airtanker use.
As such, researchers and fire managers have been using additional telemetry units (ATUs) to track various metrics associated with air tanker drops. ATUs are mounted on all federally contracted airtankers (and some single engine airtankers – SEATs). ATUs are GPS-enabled devices that track parameters such as aircraft location, time, heading, altitude, and most importantly, tanker door open and close events.
ATU data have been used since 2017 to calculate air tanker drop locations and associate various analytics with those drops. These original aviation use summaries (AUS) were manually produced and provided to fire managers through the US Forest Service’s Risk Management Assistance (RMA) dashboard to help inform how fire chemical and water were being applied to the landscape.
Additionally, the AUS process can be used as a powerful after-action review of the effectiveness of aviation drops in supporting suppression actions. Original metrics associated with the AUS reports focused on analyzing time of day, fuel types, and slope classes where the drops were occurring. Subsequent AUS development used the rise of integrated metrics such as suppression difficulty index (SDI) and potential control locations (PCL) within the RMA dashboard to provide additional context for managers to evaluate the use of air tanker drops on incident strategy and tactics.
More recently, US Forest Service personnel have worked to automate the processing of ATU data to expedite the production and distribution of airtanker drop information and associated analytics. Daily processing starts by creating lines from ATU GPS point data for door open and door close events. These derived drop lines are then extended to account for forward momentum of the fire chemical or water. Next, drop lines are buffered and values for SDI, PCL, slope, elevation (of the line), and majority fuel model are extracted for the buffer, and appended back to each drop line feature class (Figure 1). A significant amount of processing time is devoted to quality assurance to remove redundant or bad data points and ensure the creation of logical drop lines. Problematic lines are flagged as possible false positives but retained in the database. Other attributes added include split drop information (where a tanker will split the load and do multiple drops in one flight), the calculation of various time parameters, and incident name association. The final step updates an ArcGIS Online (AGOL) Feature Service. The feature service feeds an AGOL dashboard that is available to credentialed managers and users. Work continues to improve estimation of gallons dropped and tracking costs associated with flights.
Through the automated processing and near-real time distribution, users such as incident management team members, aviation officers, and coordination center managers are better able to monitor drop locations (including areas of misapplication), assess the use of air tanker resources on their incident, and build knowledge using derived analytics to help them evaluate the effectiveness of air tanker resources.
This work highlights the importance of integrating research findings with managerial experience to determine effective resource use. Dan Dallas, an incident commander with the US Forest Service in Colorado and early adopter of the AUS system explained the value.
“The AUS provides us the ability to examine recent drops in near real time on fires we manage giving us the information necessary to identify where and when aviation could best support suppression actions. Using the AUS to examine our management of past events allowed us the opportunity to think more clearly about how aviation can best support our incident strategy. This has allowed us to clearly articulate our strategy in aviation use to the hosting unit and our field-going personnel. We firmly believe the use of AUS has significantly improved the effectiveness and efficiency of our suppression actions and overall fire strategy.”
Aerial drops are probably the most iconic and visible activities in wildfire suppression and often a critical component to initial attack and large fire suppression strategies. The effectiveness and efficiency of wildfire suppression actions writ large is poorly understood, and we largely rely on the experiences of incident management team members and field-going firefighters to determine what resources are needed and where they should engage.
Aviation is but one component of wildfire suppression and the coordination of the broad array of ground and aerial resources is a highly complex process.
The AFUE study provides an indication of the type of objectives and conditions of effectiveness but did not uncover how objectives contribute to overall fire suppression outcomes.
Given the costs of wildfire suppression, exposure of ground and aviation personnel, and the impacts to natural and developed resources, improving the effectiveness and efficiency of wildfire management is essential and understanding aviation’s role will be critical to that effort. Progress will be contingent on the ability for researchers and managers to work together to foster more safe, effective, and efficient solutions.
Dave Calkin is a supervisory research forester with the US Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station in Missoula, Montanna. Calkin’s work is designed to improve risk-informed decision making through innovative science development, application, and delivery incorporating economics with risk and decision sciences. Calkin’s research interests include risk assessment, collaborative wildfire mitigation and response planning, suppression effectiveness, and risk informed decision making. Calkin developed and leads the Wildfire Risk Management Science (WRMS) team within the US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station.
Cal Bryan is a post-doctoral researcher in the Agricultural & Natural Resource Economics department at Colorado State University, interested in researching methods to optimize operational resources for fighting large-scale wildfires. Bryan holds a bachelor’s degree in bioenvironmental sciences from Texas A&M University, a master’s degree in economics from San Diego State University, and a PhD from Colorado State in agricultural and natural resource economics. Bryan’s PhD dissertation, titled Evaluating the Efficiency, Equity, and Effectiveness of Wildfire Suppression Strategy Using the Microeconomic Toolkit, focuses on determining patterns in large airtanker use across wildfires in the United States and their effectiveness at altering wildfire outcomes. Before starting graduate school, Bryan spent several years working seasonally for the U.S. Forest Service in various roles, including trail crew supervisor, interpretive ranger, and type-II wildland firefighter.
Jim Riddering is an aviation analyst with the Strategic Analytics Branch of the U.S. Forest Service Office of Fire and Aviation Management. Riddering’s responsibilities include managing the Additional Telemetry Unit (ATU) program, developing data processing streams, and providing analysis of aircraft use. Riddering holds a PhD in forestry from the University of Montana and has more than 20 years of wildland fire experience, including time on hotshot and engine crews. Riddering is a qualified Aerial Observer (AOBS), holds a private pilot’s license (SEL), and is working on completing his Long-term Analyst (LTAN)
Most of the debris from the deadly 2023 wildfire in Lahaina, Maui, now resides in a permanent landfill, County of Maui officials announced on Saturday.
Officials have successfully transferred 64% of the total 400,000 tons of wildfire debris from a temporary debris storage site in Olowalu to a permanent disposal site at the Central Maui Landfill, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The site was chosen due to its far distance from any residential areas, schools, and drinking water sources.
The transfer operation started on June 16 and was estimated to take five months to complete.
“Our debris mission is going very smoothly, we appreciate all your support over the last two months,” Lt. Col. Adrian Biggerstaff recently said at a community meeting. “If you know someone hauling the debris, please thank them, give them a big mahalo because they’re doing amazing work for us and the community.”
The milestone was announced as County of Maui officials continue to encourage all survivors of the wildfire to connect with disaster case managers through state and/or local services.
Both the State of Hawaiʻi Disaster Case Management Program and the Hoʻōla iā Mauiakama Disaster Case Management Program recently expanded services for residents affected by the fire and reportedly work closely with each other to avoid service duplication, according to County of Maui Office of Recovery Administrator John Smith.
“DCMs help survivors develop individualized recovery plans and connect them with housing assistance, mental health services, transportation support, financial aid and more,” Smith said. “Whether through the state or a community-based program, DCMs serve as a consistent guide and advocate for wildfire survivors throughout their long-term recovery journey.”
Wildfires are here, and prisoners will be deployed to the frontlines to help fight these flames. They were on the 2025 L.A. Fires.
Every summer, wildfires explode onto the scene and into the collective imagination. People are mesmerized by the beauty and brutality of this natural phenomenon. At the intersection of prisoners and wildfires, you confront issues about the stewardship of this planet and its people.
A vital question must be answered: Why are inmates fighting fires in the first place?
The twin seeds were an inmate work program created in 1915, when California established road camps where prisoners built roads throughout the state. In 1933, President Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to pull unemployed men from the pits of the Great Depression and into conservation efforts, saying its greatest benefit was “the moral and spiritual value of such work.”
World War II ushered in the demise of the CCC. The nation’s money was needed for the war effort. But wildfires wouldn’t stop because of a global war.
Manpower was scarce, so California’s Division of Forestry turned to its prisoner road camps as a temporary solution for cheap fire suppression.
A 1944 article from the California Institution for Men overflows with pride about the vital work the inmates were doing, “On the ground fighting the smoke, flames, heat and fire bugs, will be found the fire crews of CIM…Millions of acres of valuable timber and grass and hundreds of homes have been saved through the efforts of our crews.”
It finishes with a conclusion that is still true today, “Our men…are veritable gold to Uncle Sam, due to the manpower shortage.”
California wanted to capitalize on this newfound asset, and set up the Rainbow Conservation Camp in 1946, a groundbreaking camp that trained prisoners to battle the state’s blazes.
Firefighting wasn’t a means of punishing prisoners for their crimes. It tapped into an American tradition of public-service labor enshrined by the CCC and solidified in World War II. The ideological underpinnings of prisons were about rehabilitation, not retribution. The California Institution of Men was opened to “…replace hard stone walls with open space, dorm settings and opportunities for those serving prison sentences to turn their lives around.”
1965 prisoners on the fire line
The crucible of flames was the pinnacle of this mission. The project was packaged as progressive: Good for firefighting, the inmates, and California’s forests (and budget).
The program expanded, and with it came concern from Californians. A 1950 letter sent to Governor Earl Warren expresses fear from residents of Meadow Vista about the new prison camp set to be built near them. The fearful citizen speaks of declining property value and how, “In this age of sex degenerates, we will be afraid to let our children out of sight, whereas now they range freely about a friendly neighborhood.”
The camp near Meadow Vista was axed. But California is a big state. There were plenty of other locations for future sites.
Governor Pat Brown said in his 1959 inaugural address that new forestry camps and industrial training programs would give every inmate a skill and work habits for release. Under him, the program grew to 42 camps with 2,880 inmates.
1950s prisoners set backfire
The fear about these inmates being in open spaces rather than closed cells came from projection more than reality. Folks said good things about inmate firefighters when their homes were saved.
In 1961, an elderly woman wrote to Governor Brown, “I don’t care who they are. They helped save my house.”
Former inmate firefighter Wayne Hunnicutt said, “No one treated us like prisoners. It was like being a civilian. You were treated better, more as a human being.”
In 1956, the Inaja Fire killed Andy Williams and the crew he led, including two fellow Forest Service employees, a prison correctional officer, and seven incarcerated firefighters.
Lives had been sacrificed. Houses had been saved. And yet, people still could only see the label of prisoners. In 1961, a state fire dispatcher said, “We even had to go to the State prisons for help. We really scraped the bottom of the barrel.”
San Quentin’s Inmate Council didn’t take this statement kindly. They responded, “The men who fight fires and are serving their sentences in prisons, are paying fully for their wrongs. When they try to function in a manner that will benefit society, and get kicked in the pants for their efforts, it is, to say the least, demoralizing.”
Despite some public grumbling, the program was a success. Other states prone to forest fires followed California’s model.
In the 1980s, Arizona rolled out its inmate fire crew program. Many states followed. As of 2025, 15 states have active inmate fire crews.
California again blazed the trail by opening an all-female inmate conservation camp in 1983.
By this time, the ethos of imprisonment had shifted from the rehabilitative purpose of prison to the “Law and Order” mindset, which emphasized a punitive framework for crime. The purpose of inmate fire crews was no longer about the moral and spiritual value of such work, but about saving money.
A 1990 pamphlet prepared by the Department of Corrections said, “As they repay their debt to society, camp inmates also provide a real economic benefit to local communities. In 1989 alone, camp inmates worked 5.5 million hours–a $43 million value.”
The author’s prison crew that he led in Montana
In the 90s, mass incarceration peaked. Prisons were packed. In the 2000s, inmate fire programs expanded, but public interest was little, as was the pay for prisoners.
Then the 2010s struck, igniting a decade of extreme wildfires. The Camp Fire made international news, as did the prisoners facing this firestorm. Thousands of prisoners nationwide were on the fireline, and valid criticisms grew.
2020 changed everything, especially in California. COVID drained inmate fire crews as the governor released thousands of low-level offenders, and many remaining prisoners were too sick to serve. This was a massive blow. Prisoners made up about 30% of California’s wildland firefighters.
The state has passed laws like AB 2147, allowing inmate firefighters to petition the court for expungement after serving in a conservation camp. They can also earn goodconduct credit to reduce their sentence.
Many states have taken similar actions. Washington has created ARC 20, and Colorado passed SB 21-012 to create post-release opportunities for inmate firefighters.
The federal government is considering the FIRE Act to grant incarcerated wildland firefighters fair wages, workplace safety protections, reentry support, and record-expungement opportunities.
Right now, increasing inmate firefighter standards falls on the states. Prisoner wages are still far below those of normal firefighters, even with recent pay increases.
One must remember that these firefighters volunteer; they are not forced. Nor is their work limited to the fireline; they can perform mop-up operations, provide support in fire camp, and do mitigation work in the offseason.
Which inmates can serve varies by state. In California, candidates must be at least 18, classified for minimum custody, and within eight years of release. They need a clean recent disciplinary record and must be medically cleared for the physical and mental demands of the job. Certain crimes are automatic disqualifiers: arson, sexual offenses, murder, rape, kidnapping, escape attempts, or active gang affiliation. Those with felony holds, life sentences, or “public interest” cases are also excluded.
Inmate fire crews are fully trained to the standards of other firefighters. They must pass NWCG training modules and the pack test and do hands-on drills like digging line. Like other resources, inmate fire crews are fully embedded in the Incident Command System.
The programs are run through cooperation between a state’s corrections and forestry departments. Each agency plays a different role: Corrections will supervise security, while forestry departments provide equipment. Every inmate gets basic PPE: gloves, hand tools, Nomex, etc.
Other countries use inmate fire crews. A prison in New South Wales, Australia, has a fully trained bushfire fighting team. British Columbia, Canada, has used them in support positions. These are non-frontline roles.
America’s inmate fire crew programs are a whole different beast. They put prisoners smack-dab in the middle of the action: This isn’t just a work development program. It’s a vital part of wildfire suppression for many states.
Is inmate firefighting a financial convenience or an avenue of redemption? Perhaps both. The truth resists simplicity – it would take a book to figure out.
Gone are the days when moral redemption was the purpose of an inmate facing the flames. Now it’s all about cost-benefit analysis. They are a cheap way to fight fires. But is there any deeper value to these programs?
Maybe if we still spoke with Roosevelt’s rhetoric about the moral development of public service—but we’re a long way from that era, now in a society that cares about the dollars it can save rather than the development of its people.
Wildfires don’t just destroy, they reveal. And what one sees in these inmate firefighters, unshackled from the penitentiary walls, are heroes working to protect America from the threat of fire.
The flames demand the best from them, allowing them to learn new skills, taste some adventure, overcome the wrong they’ve done, and use their strength of mind and body for something productive.
Out there on the line, inmates are no longer just serving time; they’re serving a purpose. That was once the point of prison – for the sake of America’s inmate firefighters, it should be again.
Author Canyon Hohenstein
Canyon Hohenstein spent seven seasons as a wildland firefighter in Montana.
The apex of his career was leading a 20-man prison crew on the fireline. He then turned to writing, exploring themes like the stewardship of our planet and its people.
His debut novel, rooted in his time fighting fires alongside incarcerated men, tells a story of flawed characters seeking redemption in the heart of a wildfire.
The nation, on average, only sees around 15,000 burnt acres (6,000 hectares) by Aug. 19, according to the European Union’s Earth observation arm. So far in 2025, the nation has experienced 437,000 burnt acres (177,000 hectares).
Spain’s totals have skewed wildfire data throughout the EU. Officials on Tuesday said wildfires have burned 2,389,573 acres (967,026 hectares) since the beginning of the year. That is much more than the average of 602,964 acres (244,011 hectares) recorded at this time of year over the past 19 years.
Spain and surrounding nations may soon see some relief from fire weather, while others in northern Europe see an increase in risk, according to the EU’s Joint Research Centre.
“Conditions are expected to ease across most of southern Europe and FWI anomalies may drop in the Iberian Peninsula, France, Italy, the Balkans, and Greece,” the Centre said. “In contrast, very high to very extreme anomalies are expected in Ireland, United Kingdom, and Northwest Europe (Belgium, The Netherlands, northern Germany, Poland, Denmark and parts of Sweden and Finland). Large with high to very extreme FWI anomalies are also expected along the Danube basin in Austria, Hungary, and Romania.”
Spain recently made EU history when it made its first request ever for wildfire response reinforcements from the EU’s Civil Protection Mechanism. In response to Spain’s activation, the European Commission has mobilized two rescEU planes stationed in France, with the expectation of deploying to Spain on Aug. 14.
A new resource to understand fire across northern Australia has been launched for students young and old – and anyone else interested in how wildfire is managed year-round in a hot/dry, hot/wet climate.
An introductory video is narrated by Tiwi Indigenous Ranger, Derek Puruntatameri, and produced by Emma Masters. The video is part of a digital interface to a 3D printed, projection-augmented model installed at the STEM outreach (Radicle) centre at the new Charles Darwin University Darwin City Campus.
Using animations of fire spread across northern Australia over the last few years, the interactive installation aims to be a pathway for increasing the pyro-ecological literacy of students and adults alike. Fire is fascinating, complex and an important part of the health of this region. Indigenous stewardship of fire over millennia has been vital to making the country what it is.
Canada has pledged to fund 30 wildfire research projects across the nation, totaling nearly $46 million. While today its National Preparedness Level remains at its highest level with 625 active fires (112 Out of Control), with national and international deployments underway, and near record areas burnt this season, Canada has committed to ensure its wildfire resilience, prevention, mitigation and recovery programs are backed by solid science and innovation.
“Wildfires are becoming more frequent, more intense, and more dangerous — and more and more communities across Canada are feeling the impacts first-hand,” Hogan said. ‘That’s why our government is stepping up to strengthen how we manage and reduce wildfire risks across the country. Through this investment, we’re closing knowledge gaps, improving risk assessments and supporting Indigenous-led projects that restore cultural fire stewardship — all in service of keeping Canadians safe.”
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation broke down where the 30 projects will take place across the nation. The vast majority are being done in British Columbia, while Alberta and Manitoba have only one project each. No projects are scheduled for Saskatchewan.
