The National Wildfire Coordinating Group’s Operations and Training Committee wants you to take an online survey about the Wildland Fire Incident Management Field Guide, PMS 210, that replaced the Fireline Handbook in 2013.
A memo released by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) suggests that the new 148-page document “can be printed locally in a standard 8½” x 11”, three-ring binder format.”
When it was first introduced, the Fireline Handbook, PMS 410-1, was appropriately named, fitting easily in your hand and pocket. Over several decades it became bloated as committees kept adding everything they could think of to it until it was over an inch thick and weighed almost a pound (15 ounces). It grew to 430 pages without the optional Fire Behavior Appendix and barely fit into a pants pocket. It was last updated in 2004.
The Fireline Handbook has become less valuable as other reference guides have been introduced, including the The Incident Response Pocket Guide (IRPG) and theInteragency Standards for Fire and Fire Aviation Operations, better known as the Red Book. The newer guides had some of the same information as the Fireline Handbook.
The Wildland Fire Incident Management Field Guide still has some information that is duplicated in the Incident Response Pocket Guide (IRPG) and FEMA’s National Incident Management System Emergency Responder Field Operating Guide (ERFOG), but according to the NWCG, which published the new guide, the documents have different purposes and user groups.
Wildfire Today first wrote about the possible demise of the Fireline Handbook in March, 2011.
In 1976 four firefighters were entrapped on the Battlement Creek Fire, killing three near what is now Parachute, Colorado. Following the tragedy, Carl C. Wilson, who at one time was the Chief of Forest Fire Research at the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, published a paper titled Fatal and Near-Fatal Forest Fires: The Common Denominators.
In developing his paper, Mr. Wilson studied 67 fires that occurred during the 61-year period from 1926 to 1976 on which a total of 222 firefighters were killed from “fire-induced injuries”. He also evaluated 31 other “near-fatal” fires, searching for common themes or causes of the deaths in all of the fires. His results were considered ground-breaking. Since then his lists of Common Denominators have been republished, quoted in fatality reports, and included in many standard publications that are very familiar to firefighters.
When we listed his Common Denominators in the January 29 article we used the four that are seen in all of the recent and semi-recent publications that we looked at, including the last paper version of the Fireline Handbook (2004), the 2014 Incident Response Pocket Guide, and the report authored by Dick Mangan, Wildland Firefighter Fatalities in the United States: 1990-2006. The only revision of the Fireline Handbook since 2004 was completed in 2013 and was renamed Wildland Fire Incident Management Field Guide (PMS 210). It does not include the Common Denominators. The 2004 and 2006 editions of the Incident Response Pocket Guide also include the four-item list.
After a great deal of searching we found that there is another list of Common Denominators attributed to Mr. Wilson that has similar but different wording, and has five instead of four. The five-item list was in a 2011 paper by by Martin E. Alexander and Miguel G. Cruz and also in the 1998 version of the Fireline Handbook.
The first, the five-item list, is printed on the first page just below the heading “Common Denominators of Fatal Fires”. Here is the text just below that heading:
“Based on personal knowledge and information obtained from reports and reviewers, the following generalizations can be made about the fatal fires in Tables 1 and 2 [tables 1 &b 2 are fatal fires]:
Most of the incidents occurred on relatively small fires or isolated sectors of larger fires.
Most of the fires were innocent in appearance prior to the “flare-ups” or “blow-ups”. In some cases, the fatalities occurred in the mop-up stage.
Flare-ups occurred in deceptively light fuels.
Fires ran uphill in chimneys, gullies, or on steep slopes.
Suppression tools, such as helicopters or air tankers, can adversely modify fire behavior. (Helicopter and air tanker vortices have been known to cause flare-ups.)”
A key to that list is that it only applies to the 67 fatal fires he studied, and not the 31 that were near-fatal.
Toward the end of the paper in the “Conclusions” section, Mr. Wilson wrote:
“There are four major common denominators of fire behavior on fatal and near-fatal fires. Such fires often occur:
On relatively small fires or deceptively quiet sectors of large fires.
In relatively light fuels, such as grass, herbs, and light brush.
When there is an unexpected shift in wind direction or in wind speed.
When fire responds to topographic conditions and runs uphill.”
We’re not sure why Mr. Wilson broke down the common denominators into fatal and near-fatal fires. I don’t know that it adds value, but can, and has, produced a little confusion when two different versions of the lists are floating around.
The reincarnation of the Fireline Handbook, now saddled with the name Wildland Fire Incident Management Field Guide, is now available as an eBook for your Apple and Android devices. The January, 2014 revision is described on the Google Play store as “scanned pages”, and is designed for tablets or the “web”.
I downloaded the Android version and viewing it in a web browser on a 20-inch monitor was not a satisfying experience. It looked like a low-resolution scanned document. However on a 7-inch Nexus tablet the text was small when viewing an entire page, but it was very sharp and quite readable. Flipping from page to page was easy as pie. It would probably be even better on a larger tablet but don’t even think about trying to read it on a smart phone.
The Fireline Handbook, last revised in 2004, was officially retired in 2013 and replaced with an electronic version, a .pdf, of the Wildland Fire Incident Management Field Guide (PMS 210). The National Wildfire Coordinating Group explained last year why they created the new publication:
The document was renamed because, over time, the original purpose of the Fireline Handbook had been replaced by the Incident Response Pocket Guide. As a result, this document now serves as a guide for wildland fire managers and subsequent staff.
A memo released by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) suggests that the new 148-page document “can be printed locally in a standard 8½” x 11”, three-ring binder format.”
When it was first introduced, the Fireline Handbook, PMS 410-1, was appropriately named, fitting easily in your hand and pocket. Over several decades it became bloated as committees kept adding everything they could think of to it until it was over an inch thick and weighed almost a pound (15 ounces). It grew to 430 pages without the optional Fire Behavior Appendix and barely fit into a pants pocket. It was last updated in 2004.
The Fireline Handbook has become less valuable as other reference guides have been introduced, including the The Incident Response Pocket Guide (IRPG) and theInteragency Standards for Fire and Fire Aviation Operations, better known as the Red Book. The newer guides had some of the same information as the Fireline Handbook.
The Wildland Fire Incident Management Field Guide still has some information that is duplicated in the Incident Response Pocket Guide (IRPG) and FEMA’s National Incident Management System Emergency Responder Field Operating Guide (ERFOG), but according to the NWCG, which published the new guide, the documents have different purposes and user groups.
Wildfire Today first wrote about the possible demise of the Fireline Handbook in March, 2011.
On April 20 Wildfire Today covered the jury verdict following a trial that awarded $730,000 to the owners of a Montana ranch, part of which burned in the Ryan Gulch wildfire in 2000 during a period that saw numerous fires burning across the state. The heart of Fred and Joan Weaver’s case was their contention that firefighters used poor judgement in selecting and implementing an indirect strategy of backfiring, rather than constructing direct fireline on the edge of the fire. In the process, they argued, more land burned than was necessary, including 900 acres of their ranch. The jury decided that of the monetary award, $150,000 was for the loss of timber, $200,000 was for the rehabilitation of pasture land, and $350,000 was to compensate them for the mental suffering and anguish of seeing their ranch threatened by the fire.
In the 18 hours since we posted the article, seven comments have been left by our readers, including two from the Weaver’s attorney, Quentin Rhoades. Mr. Rhoades is not your typical barrister. He worked as a wildland firefighter for eight seasons between 1987 and 1994, serving on the Helena Hotshot crew and later as a smokejumper at West Yellowstone and Missoula. He told Wildfire Today that he was in the first planeload of jumpers on the South Canyon fire in Colorado in 1994, the fatal fire on which 14 wildland firefighters were entrapped and killed.
The Ryan Gulch fire was managed by a Type 1 Interagency Incident Management Team from the southeast, the “Red Team”, with Mike Melton as Incident Commander working under a delegation of authority from the state of Montana.
The list of witnesses for the State of Montana included:
George Custer, the Type 1 Operations Section Chief on the fire, who recently retired as the Incident Commander of a National Incident Management Organization (NIMO) Team. (As this is written on April 21, 2012, Mr. Custer is still listed on the NIMO web site as the IC of the Atlanta NIMO team.
Three firefighters who work for the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation — two initial attack firefighters, Mark Nenke and Todd Klemann, and Jonathan Hansen, who according to Mr. Rhoades “was in charge of the Red Team for the State”.
Stephen Weaver (no relation to the Plaintiffs), the Planning Operations Section Chief for the Red Team on the fire. Mr. Weaver has been working for the U.S. Forest Service for 38 years.
Ron Smith, who was a Division Supervisor for the Red Team, presently working as a USFS District Ranger in Mississippi.
Shelly Crook, retired from the USFS, served as the State’s expert witness as a Fire Behavior Analyst
Chuck Stanich, retired from the USFS, was the State’s Type 1 Incident Commander expert. He is a former Fire Management Officer for the Lolo National Forest and Type 1 Incident Commander.
Red Team members who worked on the fire but did not testify included the Incident Commander Mike Melton, retired from the USFS; Tony Wilder, the Night Operations Section Chief; and Keith Wooster, the Fire Behavior Analysist, now retired from the USFS.
The Plaintiffs called one expert witness, Dick Mangan, who retired from the U.S. Forest Service Technology & Development Center in Missoula, Montana in 2000 with more than 30 years of wildfire experience. He is a past president of the International Association of Wildland Fire and currently works as a consultant in wildland fire, instructs fire courses, and raises black angus cattle in Montana.
Mr. Rhoades told us that local firefighting resources from the area staffed some divisions on the fire, and they employed direct tactics, not burning out or backfiring, and never used a drip torch or a fusee for igniting vegetation. He said they offered their local expertise to the Red Team but it was refused. Instead, the Red Team “planned and used all kinds of firing operations from day one”.
According to Mr. Rhoades, the firing operations were approved by the Incident Commander and were planned by the Day and Night Operations Section Chiefs, and the Planning Operations Section Chief, who consulted the fire behavior forecasts prepared by the Fire Behavior Analyst. However, no records could be found in the incident files that any backfires were ever lit or that there were any written planning or oversight documents related to backfires. While 272 pages of Unit Logs were found in the incident records, none of them were completed by Division Supervisors. George Custer, one of the Operations Section Chiefs on the fire, testified that Unit Logs were not necessary for Division Supervisors, but the 1998 Fireline Handbook uses the word “must” when talking about Division Supervisors completing Unit Logs. Members of the Red Team said the Fireline Handbook was “not authoritative”.
Mr. Rhoades got Chuck Stanich, a witness from the State, to admit under cross-examination that from studying the documentation, it was clear that no backfires were ever lit. Mr. Stanich and Mr. Mangan both held the opinion that if backfires were ever lit, they were done without adequate planning, documentation, and oversight. But locals, as well as George Custer, the Operations Section Chief who planned the backfires, testified that backfires were used on the fire. Apparently, the jury was convinced that backfires were used on the fire, but since there were no written records of planning or approval of them in the incident files, then they must have been conducted without adequate planning and oversight.
The jury also heard testimony about two near misses on the fire which were not documented or investigated. One involved two volunteer firefighters, and the other involved a Division Supervisor and two dozer operators. Regarding the second incident, Mr. Rhoades wrote in a comment on Wildfire Today April 20:
I stood on the spot, on the ridgetop, with one of those who nearly died. We could see right down to the Clark Fork from where they were about to be burned over. They would have all three died if a Type 1 helicopter had not been already operating within a mile of the blow-up. It dropped load after 2000-gallon load from the river right on top on them or they’d be dead, as they hurried their dozers down 40 and 50% slopes. Not to mention the 9,000 extra acres of land that burned.
These incidents may have helped to create in the minds of the locals serving on the jury that the Incident Management Team from the southeastern United States, where fires burn differently than in the west, was out of their element in Montana.
It may also be difficult to convince a jury pulled in off the street that setting fire to more vegetation can be a successful strategy of wildfire suppression, especially if local volunteer firefighters say they did not use that technique. There could also be an us-versus-them attitude, with rural Montana residents failing to see the benefit of the Federal Government’s fancy-dancy team from the other side of the country coming into their area and doing their own thing without adequately respecting ranchers and the expertise of local firefighters.
What can firefighters and Incident Management Teams learn from this?
First, do all the damn paperwork that’s required, especially Unit Logs. It’s not the most fun part of the job, but grow up. You can’t ignore this. Some teams attach a blank Unit Log form to every Incident Action Plan.
Document all major decisions, especially those that could be controversial.
*Conduct outreach with locals, have town meetings, personally interface with landowners that are directly affected by the fire, use web sites and social media, including but not limited to InciWeb and Twitter, updating them many times a day. Provide updated maps once or twice a day.
Talk with local firefighters. Become informed about local weather and fuel conditions, as well as local firefighting tactics that have been successful in the past.
Ensure that the final incident paperwork package is complete.
Follow-up on near misses. Document and investigate as necessary and required.
If the Fireline Handbook, Red Book, or other manual says something must be done, don’t interpret that as a tip, hint, or suggestion.
*Over the last few years, especially in 2011 in the Southwest, I observed that some Type 1 IMTeams really suck at stakeholder outreach and keeping the public informed. During the fatal Lower North Fork fire near Denver in March the Jefferson County Sheriff’s office did a wonderful job before the Type 1 IMTeam assumed command of the fire. They updated their web site numerous times a day, briefed the media on a regular schedule, held briefings for local residents after the media briefings, and used Twitter, providing a great deal of information to their community of very concerned citizens. They did not use InciWeb, but plenty of information was available on their own web site. Organized IMTeams could learn a lot about public information from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s office.
UPDATE April 23, 2012:
The Ryan Gulch fire was 30 miles west of Missoula and 8 miles east of Drummond, Montana. The trial was held in Philipsburg, MT (map), a town with a population of 930 in 2009.
The National Wildfire Coordinating Group is considering doing away with the Fireline Handbook (FH), or at least that is one of the options mentioned in an email sent out by the NWCG’s Operations and Workforce Development Committee. Here is an excerpt:
The Operations & Workforce Development Committee (OWDC) is in the process of revising the Fireline Handbook, and is seeking your input.
Over time, the purpose of the Fireline Handbook has changed a great deal. Since the advent of the Incident Response Pocket Guide (IRPG), the Fireline Handbook’s use has changed dramatically. It is no longer the fireline reference for firefighters and has become more of a standards guide for incident overhead.
As a result, the OWDC is seeking wide input on the future of the Fireline Handbook. We are considering whether or not it needs to continue, what its future purpose should be, and a change in the name of the document.
The FH is not the easiest thing to carry around, weighing in at almost a pound (15 ounces) and it barely fits into a pants pocket. It has 430 pages, without the optional Fire Behavior Appendix. The number of pages could be reduced by 20-40% if it were reformatted with smaller margins, and without all the “white space” and blank lines between listed items. Most of the publication is devoted to checklists and how-to guides for overhead personnel and is not very useful for ground-pounders or most Operations section personnel.
The Incident Response Pocket Guide (IRPG) (download a .pdf of the 2010 version) has become far more valuable to Operations personnel on the fireline than the FH. It has most if not all of the safety and operations check lists, plus many items that are not included in the FH. And it is updated annually. The IRPG is more useful for Operations personnel out on the ground or the fireline. It is designed for a shirt pocket, has 110 pages, and only weighs 2.5 ounces.
Both publications are useful, but my suggestion would be to keep the IRPG the way it is, but modify the FH to remove the duplication which is also in the IRPG. And reformat it as described above, with both changes reducing the number of pages by about half.
The name should be changed to remove the association with the fireline, since it is primarily, and will be even more so, for overhead personnel, most of whom would not be out in the field but would be in an Incident Command Post or other administrative facility. One of the suggestions in the online survey for a new name is “Incident Management Guide”, which would make it more of an all-hazard publication.
What do you think? Keep the Fireline Handbook the way it is, modify it, or get rid of it?
The Fireline Handbook has been retired and replaced with an electronic file, a .pdf, called Wildland Fire Incident Management Field Guide (PMS 210).
