 In this module, we will look at the role we play as firefighters in the complex world of the Wildland Urban Interface. In today's fire environment, we can routinely expect to be working alongside inter-agency cooperators with structures threatened. This environment has gotten nothing but larger and more complex. Tom Boatner recently retired as the Chief of Fire Operations for the BLM. Here's what he had to say in an interview we had with him just before he retired. And I don't think I ever would have imagined how dramatically homes and climate would change the nature of this business. You know, when I started being on a fire where you're protecting homes was rare, and now being on a fire where you're not protecting homes is rare. It's a remarkable change in one 30-year span. We can identify, and your question about values at risk, the way we do it right now, and we can debate it, but this is the way it is. Human property is number one after protection of life, and after that comes natural resource value. Now, we could have lots of arguments about that, but right now the higher impact, potential impact to human communities and property, the higher value at risk. And that means the resources are going to flow to where the most homes are threatened. And if we have fire behavior and fuels conditions that don't allow us to safely fight those fires, then we're going to stand aside and wait till the Santa Ana's quit, or the humidity rises, or whatever the case may be, and then go back in and try to catch those fires. I think keys to success in future fire operations. Number one is recognizing that our world has changed dramatically and will continue to change. And we need to figure out how to change our standard way of doing business to adapt to that. Everybody likes to say Albert Einstein's quote, the definition of insanity is doing things the same way over and over again and expecting different results. Well, that's kind of where we're at in fire. We have traditionally been really good at what we do, which is going out and catching fires. And we want to keep doing it the way we did it in the 70s and the 80s and the 90s, and it's not working as well anymore. So recognizing that our environment, our work environment is changing, and we have to change our strategies and our tactics to be successful. That's key to the world we're working in right now. But another thing that we need to change to be successful in the future is the idea that a long checklist or a list of criteria in a book is what you should be looking at in the time of danger. One of my favorite leadership quotes comes from a French field marshal from World War I, and it's something like, regulations are all very well for a time of drill, but when you're in danger, you need to know how to think. So some basic criteria that tell us what's important and what's dangerous, like the 10 standard fire orders, they're important. And we all need to know them. But when you're in a dangerous situation, you need to know how to think. You need to be able to use your judgment. And if you have to go look in a book to look at a checklist, you're in trouble. This module is designed to help you make that judgment in the Wildland Urban Interface. One area of the country that has been dealing with this issue for a long time is California. To help us understand the magnitude of the problems they face, we talked to J.P. Harris. After a distinguished career, J.P. retired as a battalion chief from the L.A. County Fire Department. Although retired, he continues to teach firefighters how to operate in this complex environment. Probably the interface term come out of Southern California, Los Angeles City area, Los Angeles County area. The City Fire Department, Los Angeles City was founded in the 1800s. And from that time on, they were doing interface firefighting. L.A. County, Los Angeles County Fire Department, second largest fire department in the country, municipal fire department, we started in 1924. And we've been doing urban interface firefighting ever since. And it doesn't matter whether we use the term eye zone interface or urban intermix. We've been doing it. You know, Southern California, people might have a perception that this is a flat country with flat beaches, but we have some of the most rugged terrain in Los Angeles County, Orange County, Ventura County that you'll see anywhere. Extremely steep rugged terrain. And wherever we don't have a, usually a federal agency such as federal or state agency like a national park or a forest or state park, folks tend to get as close to those wilderness areas and build structures. So they build them in the worst terrain, steep terrain. They will build them in bottom of drainages or draws. They'll build them in the bottom of narrow canyons. And they build them what we call mid slope on the side of a slope. They'll go in there and build a roadway and they'll hang a house out there. They'll even have some hanging on stilts. So all of these things, the terrain, the heavy fuel, and then the type of construction plays against us. What happened in Southern California, if we go way back into the 20s and 30s, people would buy property out in the wilderness and get a road to it. No rules, no regs, so it would have very narrow roads. So we have those to deal with. Now it's time progressed and we started burning down a lot of homes and we created new ordinances. And so the homes that are built, new homes now that are built, are built pretty safe in the interface. They require green belts, safe construction, and so forth. But we have to keep dealing with these ones that were built prior to 1960. I believe the Bell Air Fire in Los Angeles City, that's when the real ordinances were they burned 450 homes down in eight hours. They have zero what we call non-native or ornamental vegetation when they first build it. But then they plant all these different burnable plants around their structure. And then they don't trim them. So these ornamental vegetations, they start growing up all over and they get bigger and bigger. They don't trim them. And that ornamental vegetation is what's causing us to burn down these structures. Dr. Cohen at the research center, Jack Cohen, he's made a study of that. And it's not direct flame impingement that's burning most of them down. It's flying burning embers and the fires are starting this big. And then they get in that ornamental vegetation or the stuff we have around our homes. And by stuff I'm really talking junk. And fire amber gets in there and takes off and that's what's burning most of these homes down. As JP will tell you, the wildland urban interface problem is no longer isolated to Southern California. In 2007, over 5,300 structures were destroyed by wildland fires alone. Nearly 3,000 of those were primary residences. Like the rest of the fire statistics, these numbers seem to be increasing over time in all parts of the country. Florida, for example, is one of the fastest growing states and people continue to build in or adjacent to wildland fuels. Minnesota, Montana and New Jersey have all had homes destroyed in recent years. Many areas of the country are just now starting down the same road California went down 40 to 50 years ago. Yes, I've been doing training programs in Colorado, a lot of them in Montana, Idaho, throughout California. And it's gone crazy in all of these states. And the things that we went through in the 50s and the 60s and the 70s, that's what other states are doing. And a lot of these states are, they don't like to write new regulations, new ordinances. And so there's very little controls put on them. So you'll go to, just as a for instance, Montana. They have very few regulations there. So people are putting these homes out there in heavy timber where there's no way you can defend some of these structures. So, and again, it increases, the problem increases every year because even when out in the wilderness, they come in and they plant non-native plants around their houses and that contributes to the ornamental vegetation. And that's what's lighting these homes up. So, oh yeah, it's growing. I'm very familiar with the Western United States, but I think it's probably happening all over the country. Let's just take where I'm very familiar with, Montana. They'll have housing developments coming in there and they require to have woodchink roofs. Now, I mean, you know, speaking bluntly, that's just stupid. So that would be the first thing. Let's make these homes to where they at least have a chance. Then they got to get the defensible space. And how much is defensible space around the structure? The forest national agencies, the federal agencies require, if you have leased land in within the forest, they require 30 foot of clearance. As you and I both know, 30 foot of clearance is nothing. CDF, Cal Fire, used to require 60 feet of clearance. They now are up to 100 feet. LA City in Los Angeles County, because we've been stung so many times, we go minimum of 100 and on North aspect, 200 feet, or wherever the inspector thinks they need 200 feet. But many of the Western United States, they have no brush ordinances to require the homeowner to do it. JP has been presenting training classes since 1970. And in doing so, he has narrowed down what he thinks are the most important aspects of staying safe when protecting structures. His first concern is safety zones. Okay, so we have this problem now that's basically all across the country. Firefighters, you know, they can get into this. On our siege here in Southern California, we had fire engines here from Maine, from all over the United States. So it doesn't matter where you are, you can get involved in an interface fire. So what can we teach them? Well, here's the change we've made in Southern California since 1996. When we had to burn over on the Calabasas incident where we burned three firefighters, one critically, Bill Jensen from the city of Glendale, we started to make a change on when we would commit to a structure. And here's what it is. We will not commit to a structure to protect it unless we have a safety zone for our apparatus and our people. And to define safety zone for our apparatus, we're not going to change the color of the rig. We're not going to bring a rig back with drooping clearance lights, turn signals, a cracked windshield. In other words, we're not going to damage that rig. So we need adequate space to protect that apparatus, and then we have to have two safety zones for our firefighters. If the rig, the engine, has a safety zone out in the street or the driveway, then consequently firefighters would be safe there also. Then we want a second one. And generally speaking, behind the structure, away from the approaching fire will be a second safety zone. Now, I want to clarify what I just said. I did not say inside of the structure is to be considered a safety zone. Inside of the structure can be a survival zone. The big thing, if you don't have a safety zone for your apparatus and your people, we're not going to commit. JP taught us that when you are assigned to do structure triage, you need to classify each structure in one of four classes. This classification will depend on your assessment of LCES and your estimated fire behavior. You may want to reference the material in your student workbook. We've come up with our own classification because many of the books have different classifications of how we class homes, whether they're workable or not workable. And to be honest with you, I can't find a universal language. So I created my own and this is my four, I have four classes of homes. The first two will have LCES available. And we all know Paul Gleason started LCES. We're using LCES as our basis, whether we're going to commit to a structure to protect it or not. And the safety zone for the apparatus and people are going to be number one. Once we've done that, we're going to make a fire behavior prediction. Now, once we've done that and we figure we have a safety zone for apparatus and our people, we made a fire behavior prediction to quantify that, OK, yeah, we are safe here to verify. Now we're going to come into these four classifications of structures. The first one is what I call LCES is available, but it's a standalone structure. And by standalone, I mean this. Either the homeowner is there to protect it or patrol status. We do not have to have a fire apparatus there, but homeowner or we go by and occasionally check this. Now in the newer homes out in the interface, you will find what I call standalone structures quite a few of them. OK, the next one is LCES is available. In other words, the house is defendable, but fire resource has to be there to protect that house. But it has to have the safety zone for the apparatus and the people. The third class, LCES is not available. It doesn't have a safety zone for the apparatus or the people, but we can prep it and go. Now when I say prep, I don't mean come in and do a lot of brush cutting. We're not going to, if the homeowner hadn't done the, completed his brush clearance, we're not going to go in and start cutting, brush cutting, limping up trees, et cetera. I'm talking about they've left their lawn furniture out on the patio, which is a great host for fire. We're going to do that kind of thing. Or if we have a capability to put some sort of foam down, we will do that. Now in some of the western United States, they're using portable sprinklers. I'm personally not a fan of portable sprinklers. I'm not a fan of wrapping these homes with aluminum. That's just my view. If I had a historical structure, I might do that. So prep and go. The key on that is the go. You've got to have time to prep it. And then when the fire is coming, you go to a safety zone. Okay. So that's the third type. No LCES available, prep and go. The fourth, there is no LCES. There is no safety zone for our apparatus or our people. And some people, some agencies are using the term loser. I don't like loser, but that's in reality what it is. I call it a drive-by. We're just going to drive by it. There's no safety zone for us. We do not have to risk our life if we don't have that safety zone to protect that structure. But firefighters across the country, I want you to remember, there are many elderly people in some of these interface areas. Some of them can't hear. There are non-ambulatory people in some of these, can't get out. And in today's market, all across the country, we have what we call latch-key children. Both mom and dad are working. Kids come home three o'clock in the afternoon. Mom and dad don't get home until five or six. Those kids have been instructed not to open that door for anybody. Firefighters, we're anybody. So if you're doing a drive-by, it doesn't look like anybody's home on an interface how. But are there kids there? You've got to go beat on the door and find out if anybody's home. Now, that's all based on a rescue driver. I'm calling that a rescue drive-by because first we've got to make sure that there's nobody there. That's all based on you've got enough time to do it. If it's just in time service and the fire is licking and you don't have a time to do that, then you've got to drive by. In your student workbook, you will also find the LCES flowchart that JP developed. Please follow along as JP talks about the various elements. Compare his flowchart to how you currently handle structure protection assignments. We've developed a one-page flowchart to do structure protection slash triage. And I believe you have a copy of that in front of you. The first thing you'll notice across the top half is structure protection. I would like to change our terminology, firefighters, if you get an assignment to do structure protection. What's your boss, whether it's a fire chief or a fire management office or a state fire chief or the volunteer fire chief? And he gives you an assignment to go up and do structure protection. What his intent, commander's intent is that you will go up and triage that structure and make sure that you can commit to it providing you have LCES available to you combined with a fire behavior prediction. So I like the term triage because that's telling you you're going to go do that if it's safe to do it. If it's not safe to do it, we're going to drive by it and find a structure that we can safely protect. So triage. Okay, now we're going to, the next item on there is your LCES items. And the safety zone for the apparatus and the people is your first priority. Okay, so now we have a safety zone for our apparatus. Now we're going to find an additional safety zone. Like I said earlier, generally speaking, behind the structure is an area of safety zone. Okay, now we're going to post a lookout. I like to train the apparatus engineer. He is the official lookout for your group on structure protection. But train everybody that they're a lookout. And everybody's, I like to say that most captains in this country wear a red helmet. And I'd like you to think of that red helmet as a beacon that you will see at the airport. And that needs to be on a swivel looking around constantly for spot fires, things happen in changing conditions. Have that head on a swivel. And that's, you know, a few years ago they come out the great program. Look up, look down and look around. And folks, that's what it's talking about. So we establish a lookout. Then we're going to do some mitigation if we got time. And again, I already discussed that, how much we're going to do. Now here comes the fire. I want you to take cover. Now when I say take cover, I don't mean getting a shelter. I don't mean go behind the house. Get out the apparatus where it's, you've already determined there's a safety zone. Or duck behind the corner of the house. Let that fire come through and do its thing. Then come out and knock that fire down. Take cover. Let the fire hit. The big heat wave is going to go over you in two minutes. Come out. Check for those spots because it's not, Jack Cohen says it's not direct flame impingement. It's burning most of these structures down. It's these embers that are coming in this big to this big. Getting into the ornamental vegetation or our stuff and burning these structures down. And so that's what we call the LCES flow chart. And I think most firefighters, you know, most firefighters doing structure protection across the country are not the guys that, guys and gals, for instance, the Forest Service or BLM or National Parks who dedicate their life strictly to wildland. Most of the folks that are doing this structure protection are the volunteers and the municipal fire departments. Those are the ones that have the big resources to come in and do this. And so I'd like you to really take a look at this flow chart. It's just one page for a reason so that you can do your whole deal there and a reminder to get that safety zone for the apparatus. Bottom line, if you don't have a safety zone for your apparatus and your people, don't commit to that structure. You either prep it and go or you do a rescue drive-by. As we all know, the effectiveness of a safety zone is totally dependent on the accuracy of your predicted fire behavior. Because this is so important, we ask JP to go through what he thinks are the key elements that need to be considered in Southern California. However, the key components of fire behavior vary, of course, across the country, where JP will focus a lot on terrain. Our fellow firefighters in the southeast will be more interested in winds or recent rainfall. As we go through this, think about how you would adjust this to fit your local area. But when we're looking at safety zones, it has to go hand-in-hand with a fire behavior prediction. Part of the handout that you're going to be given is what I call a layman's, a lay firefighter's fire behavior prediction. We have classes, we have computers that can figure out pretty accurately how these fires are going to go. But again, most of the firefighters coming out to protect these structures are people, firefighters who don't normally do this type of work. So we've developed, my son and I, we've developed this fire behavior, what I call for layman firefighters. And you'll see you've got the inputs that we would put in a computer on one side. Then we've got our different times. And then you'll see that some of the times have got a box on it because our peak burning period for instance for the south-south-west aspect is oh, 12 o'clock to 1,300, 1,200 to 1,300 in the afternoon. Peak heat for the west aspect doesn't get peak heat till about 16 to 1,700 hours. So it's a way of putting this in, then predicting what's the fire doing now. It says fire history here at the bottom. And then you take that fire history and say, okay, it's 9 o'clock in the morning, we got two-foot flame lengths. What's it going to be between 1,100 hours and 13? Is it going to get worse? Or is it going to get better for us? And obviously, generally speaking, it's going to get worse. But I put those boxes in three different spots to identify the peak heat when this is burning. Just recently in the last year, I've heard two very notable people Mark Lanane, retired Forest Service hot shop superintendent from the Las Padres National Forest. And Jim Cook, he's now retired. He's still working up in Boise. And Ted Putnam, all say that generally speaking, we firefighters underestimate the potential fire behavior. We underestimate fire behavior. Look at the injuries that you know of that's happened out in the fire community. Whether it's our Glenn Allen or whether it's South Canyon, you just pick it. You pick anyone. And how did we do on our fire behavior prediction? Generally speaking, the fire come out of wherever it was, harder than what the people there thought it was going to be. So we underestimate fire behavior prediction. So I want you, when you make that fire behavior prediction, I want you to put a margin of safety in there. Add a little bit more to it, the things that you haven't considered. For instance, is the fire going to spot past the house I'm at and will it come back at me? Will my engine choke out because that smoke is so heavy that it quits running? Okay, what I feel the three main indicators to make your fire behavior prediction, and they're key. The first one is the terrain between your location and the fire. That's it. Is it a draw? Is it a chimney? Is the terrain, is the fire downhill from your location? If it is, you may not be in a good spot. We know that our Southwest aspect is going to, it receives the most heat every day. It's going to be the hottest aspect, and therefore the fire is going to burn with greater intensity. And it's going to stay hotter, longer, all day long. So aspect is extremely important. And then the other components such as wind, upslope, up-canyon breezes are going to be there during the daytime, generally speaking, and then down-canyon during the nighttime. So these are the three main ones you've got to take. But I cannot overestimate. I think terrain by far, that terrain between you and that approaching fire and the fuel load that's on it is by far your most important consideration in making your fire behavior prediction. There are just all kinds of things when you start moving out on one of these wildland fires, you're in a safety zone, and now you start running. Folks, that's where we're hurting people. We have hurt people that way. Don't move once you're in that safety zone. Now let's take what JP has taught us and apply it out in the field. We know that looking at pictures and videos will never replace actually being on site. But we're going to ride along with JP as he takes a class to some homes in Southern California which were on the outskirts of the witchfire this last season. Consider yourself in the midst of their peak fire season with San Ana wind conditions likely and very low fuel moistures. JP will also ask students to triage some existing homes. We encourage you to look at this exercise as an example of what you can and should do on your local unit as part of your annual pre-planning. All right, you've just arrived here on this street and the Structure Protection Group supervisor assigned two engines of which you are the captain of one. And he wants you to take this street from that stop sign back there all the way to the end of the cul-de-sac. And he wants you to come down here and triage. He didn't have time to check it, but he wanted you to triage. He was very concerned about the end two structures on both sides of the street here to see if you could do your LCEs to see if you had a safety zone for your apparatus and your people. I've been here and if so, where are you? Now, hold up, guys. We have a fire with northeast winds of just 10 miles an hour coming out of the northeast. It's coming down that main canyon and we're expecting it to turn and come up this canyon. Okay? Northeast winds 10 miles an hour. And where does it run from? It runs from a bigger draw back there. So this is kind of a finger. And how far does it go this way? You think it keeps going. Okay. Next group, what do we have? Another terrain feature. Let me just point out, because it comes up with we've got a saddle off to the side of the drive. Got a saddle over here, okay? What's another terrain feature? You guys got anything different? Terrain-wise? Look all the way around. 360. We got mid-slow. Mid-slow, houses are all mid-slow, correct? Little bowl. Little bowl. It's actually a pretty good size bowl, isn't it? You notice that ridge came all the way around us, ties in over here, goes around here. We're actually in a well-defined bowl, okay? Now, what aspect is that aspect right there? Southwest. Southwest. The sun appears to be setting over there. Peak heat, does it look like it's peak-heating? Bearing right in there on that one. So what aspect is this one? What? Okay, a little bit different. What's up? What aspect is this fellow over here below the greenhouse? Northeast, maybe? From the power poles over, probably a true northeast, correct? Yeah. How's the fire load on that northeast aspect? Heavy. Remember we were talking about that? North aspect having the super-heavy fuel. How heavy is that fuel? Well, it's about 10 to 12 feet, isn't it? It's real heavy stuff. If we had a fire coming down that northeast canyon there, what could we expect it to do when it hits this aspect below the greenhouse up there? How are fires driven? Three ways? Wind, rain, fuel. Wind, rain, and fuel, huh? How would the fire be driven on that aspect right there? Would it be fuel driven? Yes. Would it be wind driven? Yes. Would it be terrain driven? Yeah. So it's going to be getting the full force. So with that 12-foot-high fuel, heading up to that gentleman's house, what kind of fuel or flame lengths could we expect to happen there? 60-foot. 60-foot is very reasonable. It could get even higher, couldn't it? We could have 50 to 100-feet time that gets up to here. So his wood fence is going to be going. Can you see that it's a wood-sided house? It actually got shingles on part of it. So he's in big trouble. He's a loser. It's a drive-by. It's a rescue drive-by. Where did you folks decide? How did you class our four homes down here? Did you say it was a stand-alone? Homeowner or patrol status? Did you say it was L-C-E-S was in place? And you had a safety zone for your apparatus and people? And people? Or did you say it was a prep and go? Or did you say it was a drive-by, non-defendable, no L-C-E-S available? We are right in the center of north end of the city of San Diego. And in the last few months, I brought all of their battalion chiefs, all 220 captains here to this exact location and asked them what they thought. Predominantly, what they were going to do was hook up to the hydrant, either hook directly to the hydrant, or some of them want to delay 50 feet away, hose away and hook up there. They have the ability of having a deck gun or a monitor. So for municipalities or volunteer fire departments, you have that deck gun. You would probably want to have that all ready to go in case this did come out of here a little bit harder. You could knock it down a little bit with the deck gun. But they're going to put it right here. They felt they had a safety zone right here. They had adequate clearance. No way they're going to get hurt here. So they're going to hook up here and they would pull one inch and a half or two inch and a half. Generally speaking, I'm not in favor of two inch and a half. So I'm in favor of one. Because again, these spots are going to be small. You're not going to have direct flame impingement. Now, right here, we very well could have direct flame impingement, especially this house over here, the very end house on your right. So inch and a half or even inch and three quarter in here. Now, here again, I don't want you when the fire is coming. I don't want you down there by the gray car or the white car. I want you back here. Let's let this fire come through and hit. Then we'll go to work on it. Because we say fire behavior prediction. I like to say fire behavior estimate because prediction means it's going to come true. So I want you to stay back here at the safety zone. Stay by your engine. And if it comes harder, all you would have comes harder than what you figured. Take this house here at 15605, this house right here. You've got a fine entryway right there. You've got a wall on three sides of it. You step back in there. You're not going to feel any heat. You're not going to be in any danger at all. Again, this primary heat wave is going to go over you in two minutes. And then you come out and put out any fires. But I feel 100% sure that you'll be totally safe right here. If you agreed that we did have a LCES in place, we had a safety zone for our apparatus and our people. And we met the other criteria of LCES. And you put your rig in this vicinity. Wrapping up the reason you did that. We took the look number one at the terrain. Where were we terrain-wise? We are mid-slope. We are in a draw, but we've got adequate room in here. We looked at the fuel bed. We got medium to heavy fuel. And the wind component is coming out of the northeast. So we're a little bit out of alignment. This one peak back here is going to break up the wind. So we're going to be sheltered from that. On the other hand, though, we have the saddle over here, which is going to have some wind coming through there. So wind, terrain, aspect. Now, over on this side is going to be our west aspect and our east and northeast aspect over here on your left. So wind, terrain, aspect, and fuel. The main components of making our fire behavior prediction. It is our hope that you will take that example and use it on your own unit to help pre-plan and train for wildland-urban interface fires in your area. When building this module, we looked at operating in the wildland-urban interface from a firefighters point of view that has been given an assignment to protect structures. But as you know, this problem has many layers. The subjects of evacuations, shelter-in-place communities, and the pros and cons of encouraging homeowners to stay and defend their homes are important issues when dealing with this environment. These subjects, however, are outside the scope of this module. If you want to learn more about these issues, we suggest you go to the Lessons Learned website and read the article written by Robert Much called FACES, The Story of the Victims of Southern California's 2003 Fire Siege. To conclude this module, we'll go back to Tom Boatner for some final thoughts before you prepare for this fire season. A huge part of dealing with our future, I believe, is for fire professionals all over the country at every opportunity to relay a blunt message. When elected officials have done nothing to establish and enforce a will-we-building code and when homeowners have taken no personal responsibility to create an environment where we can defend their home, we are not going to kill firefighters to do it for you. I think we have to be very strong about saying we will do everything safely possible to defend your home. We won't feel as obligated if you haven't done squat and we won't feel as obligated if the elected officials in your jurisdiction haven't had the courage to do what they need to do, but we'll do our best, but we will retreat when the risk becomes unacceptable. And for most firefighters, the thing that will change their mindset on this is a firefighter dying and them being personally connected to that. One of the watershed moments for me in my career was being an ops chief on a fire where 350 homes burned down, but for about two or three days while those homes were burning down, it was the most dangerous firefighting I'd ever seen and I thought that we would be lucky to get through it without firefighters dying. And luckily we had some really good fire line leadership and we made it through without any serious injuries and no fatalities, but 350 homes had burned down. And I remember how relieved I was that there were no firefighters killed and the homes did not match up to the firefighters' lives and they never will. And if you talk to any firefighter who's been involved with the loss of a colleague protecting a home, you won't hear anything about the value of that home equaling the value of a human life.