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Tag: 13/18 Situations

The 10 Orders & 18 Watch Outs, illustrated

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , 7 Comments on The 10 Orders & 18 Watch Outs, illustrated

10 orders 18 situations

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:

(Note: the image at the top of the screen is low resolution. Download the zip files above for high resolution versions suitable for printing)

Video of the original 13 Situations That Shout “Watch Out”

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , ,

RamblingsOfAChiefOfficer.com took our images of the original 13 Situations that Shout “Watch Out” and embedded them into a one-minute video. It’s very cool, and something I would never have thought of doing.

Here is more information about the development of these images.

The El Cariso Hot Shots (Cleveland National Forest in southern California), from about 1972-1973, developed the first curriculum for basic wildland firefighter training. It was then referred to informally as the “basic 32-hour course”, and eventually evolved into S-130/190. Originally it was a slide-tape program with an integrated instructor’s guide, tests, and a student workbook, and was later converted to VHS video tape. The course included sections on the 13 Situations That Shout “Watch Out” and the 10 Standard Firefighting Orders. I was on the crew from 1970-1972.

A black and white version of the 13 Situations graphics, each on an 8.5″ x 11″ sheet of paper, was available to us before we developed the training package. They were sent to us through USFS channels–I don’t know who the artist was. We had an artist on the crew who developed from scratch a lot of the graphics in the basic 32-hour slide-tape program, but all he and we did regarding the 13 Situations graphics was to enhance them a bit and colorize them. Then Tom Sadowski photographed them and the other graphics for the program and made slides. Tom and I and others also took the rest of the photographs that were in the basic 32-hour course.

I have copies of some of the slides from that slide-tape program, and a year ago I had about 700 old slides and prints digitized, and among them were the 13 Situation images.

The original and the enhanced images were developed by the U. S. Forest Service. They are in the public domain, therefore they may be used for training purposes. If you do use them, we would appreciate your letting us know, as Ramblings did.

Here are some photos of the basic 32-hour program being devleoped.

Rick Bondar and Tom Sadowski working on the basic 32-hour wildland firefighter training package, 1972
Rick Bondar and Tom Sadowski working on the basic 32-hour wildland firefighter training package, 1972

Making professional-quality graphics in 1972 was much more time-consuming than it is today. Sometimes we used peel-and-stick letters and hand-drawn art. It is very difficult to photograph graphics, getting everything square and perpendicular to the lens to prevent distortion. Once it was photographed, that was it. There was no photo editing, or straightening, cropping, or changing the lighting or correcting the spelling.

Tom Sadowski working on the basic 32-hour wildland firefighter training package, 1972
Tom Sadowski working on the basic 32-hour wildland firefighter training package, 1972

Watch Out Situation #18

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags

On February 26 Wildfire Today posted some of the history of the “18 Watch Out Situations”. As we explained then, they began with the “13 Situations that Shout Watch Out” in the 1960s, and evolved in 1987 into the “18 Watch Out Situations”.

Each day between March 19 through March 30 (and on Feb. 26) we posted images depicting each of the original 13 Situations that were in the “Basic 32” wildland firefighter training program that was developed by the El Cariso Hot Shots 1972-1973.

The image above is the 13th and final one we have posted. It is similar to Situation #18 on the present day list of 18.

To see all of the “13 Watch Out Situation” images that have been posted to date, click on the “13/18 Situations” tag below.

To Use the Images

The 13 images we have posted here are rather low resolution, but feel free to use them. The black and white images were originally produced by the U.S. Government, and were colorized in 1972 by a member of the El Cariso Hot Shots.

They should work well in PowerPoint presentations or on web sites, but if you want to print them larger than 5″ x 7″, you will need higher resolution images, which I have. The higher resolution copies are 300 dots per inch (DPI) and each file is about 1.2 Mb. But if you need them go to our Documents page and download the zipped file with all 13 images; the file is about 14 Mb.

Watch Out Situation #17

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags

On February 26 Wildfire Today posted some of the history of the “18 Watch Out Situations”. As we explained then, they began with the “13 Situations that Shout Watch Out” in the 1960s, and evolved in 1987 into the “18 Watch Out Situations”.

Each day from March 19 through March 30 we will be posting images depicting each of the original 13 Situations that were in the “Basic 32” wildland firefighter training program that was developed by the El Cariso Hot Shots 1972-1973.

The image above is the 12th one we have posted. It is similar to Situation #17 on the present day list of 18.

To see all of the “13 Watch Out Situation” images that have been posted to date, click on the “13/18 Situations” tag below.

Watch Out Situation #16

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags

 

On February 26 Wildfire Today posted some of the history of the “18 Watch Out Situations”. As we explained then, they began with the “13 Situations that Shout Watch Out” in the 1960s, and evolved in 1987 into the “18 Watch Out Situations”.

Each day from March 19 through March 30 we will be posting images depicting each of the original 13 Situations that were in the “Basic 32” wildland firefighter training program that was developed by the El Cariso Hot Shots 1972-1973.

The image above is the 11th one we have posted. It is similar to Situation #16 on the present day list of 18.

To see all of the “13 Watch Out Situation” images that have been posted to date, click on the “13/18 Situations” tag below.

 

Watch Out Situation #15

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags

 

On February 26 Wildfire Today posted some of the history of the “18 Watch Out Situations”. As we explained then, they began with the “13 Situations that Shout Watch Out” in the 1960s, and evolved in 1987 into the “18 Watch Out Situations”.

Each day from March 19 through March 30 we will be posting images depicting each of the original 13 Situations that were in the “Basic 32” wildland firefighter training program that was developed by the El Cariso Hot Shots 1972-1973.

The image above is the 10th one we have posted. It is similar to Situation #15 on the present day list of 18.

To see all of the “13 Watch Out Situation” images that have been posted to date, click on the “13/18 Situations” tag below.