The 10 Standard Firefighting Orders and the 18 Watch Out Situations, as referenced in the Incident Response Pocket Guide (IRPG), PMS 461, provide wildland firefighters with a set of consistent best practices and a series of scenarios to be mindful of when responding to a wildland fire.
The 10 Standard Firefighting Orders are organized in a deliberate and sequential way to be implemented systematically and applied to all fire situations.
The 18 Watch Out Situations are more specific and cautionary, describing situations that expand the 10 Standard Firefighting Orders with the intent that if firefighters follow the Standard Firefighting Orders and are alerted to the 18 Watch Out Situations, much of the risk of firefighting can be reduced.
These photos and posters made available by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group could be useful. It’s unfortunate, though, that the text on the poster that contains all 10 and 18 is so small.
Downloads from NWCG:
- Download the zip file (14 MB) with all 10 Standard Firefighting Orders individual images and the poster.
- Download the zip file (14 MB) with all 10 Standard Firefighting Orders individual images and the poster (Spanish).
- Download the zip file (16 MB) with all 18 Watch Out Situations individual images and the poster.
- Download the zip file (15 MB) with all 18 Watch Out Situations individual images and the poster (Spanish).
(Note: the image at the top of the screen is low resolution. Download the zip files above for high resolution versions suitable for printing)
