 Hello and welcome, my name is John Getter and we really appreciate you joining us for this special program today about a very difficult and important topic facing all of America. Wildland Urban Interface Fires. It's a mouthful, but more than that it could be a major threat to your community if you don't prepare properly and that's what we're about today. What are wildland urban interface fires? What do they like? What happens when these fires hit communities? How does it affect the firefighters, the homeowners? We're going to be addressing all of that today and we're going to start out by asking that small question. What are they of Bill Mills from Colorado Springs Fire Department, Bill? Wildland Urban Interface Fires is unique in that we're talking about disciplines in the agency or community or in the value programming of firefighters from natural fuels to man-made fuels or vice versa and the primary carriers in most cases in wildfire would be your natural fuels as carried to the constructed fuels or the structures that the urban firefighters are interested in. So it's a really, it's an interesting collision of not only physics in that the natural fuels and their relationship with the structure is a physical property, but it's a behavioral piece also, behavioral in that wildfire types that come through the agency's value program early in their careers in a specific way and a way of thinking, believing and behaving and the structure fire types come up through a different world and so as we work together now we're not only changing some physical properties as it relates to wildfire and structures, natural fuels, but we're changing some behavioral properties as well. And Bill it's interesting to know too you use these two phrases together that a lot of people probably over time have not considered together both urban and wildland because they really do affect each other even though they're very different and they are affecting more and more people as I understand it. The way you rule of thumb is that anywhere natural fuel comes adjacent to constructed fuel or structures, you might have a notion of wildland urban interface. Many definitions, classic urban interface or classic interface might be something that's viewed as having a very typical frontier, in other words you can turn and point to the forest and see it. Intermix may be something as simple as structures and urban density as it relates to forest. Occluded interface might be development that simply surrounds our notion of what forest might be. So rule of thumb is that just about any place that you could come up with natural fuel as it relates to constructed fuel could be considered this notion of interface or intermix. It's a big topic and we have some big help today. Joining us along with Bill is Mike Dardy the U.S. Fire Administration. Also Dan Bailey from the U.S. Forest Service. And over here on the far end of the table is Chief Will May from the Alachua County Fire and Rescue. People who don't know where Alachua County is, it's essentially Gainesville. Gainesville and North Florida. North Florida. Thanks all of you for joining us today. We heard what Bill was talking about there, kind of setting the table for what we're going to be discussing here, these fires. But Mike, let me ask you this. You've been somebody who has started your career jumping out of airplanes to help fight fires out in the woods, out in the forests. And more and more of these forests in the cities are becoming almost one, aren't they? Yes they are. I think what's important to realize is that the wildland firefighter now is having to, on a daily basis, deal with homes and construction in the wildland setting. And our urban firefighter is now having to deal with the wildland and they're coming together. And I think it's very important that they learn how to work together and meet together and plan together for these events because they're going to happen in each other's backyards. And working together I think is going to be the key to success. Dan, how do you put that into practice? Well I think that all over the United States we're seeing more and more wildland urban interface fires occurring. So it's forcing this interaction between structural fire departments and wildland people to work together. And when I say forcing it, there's a lot of training, a lot of things happening in advance of these, but it's really kind of bridging the gap of what it's been a decade ago with these two wildland structural people working together in an effective way to deal with these types of fires. And Will, have you found big changes in the last several years because of the development in your area where these two areas are coming together and you're fighting different fires than you may have a few years ago because of this confluence of people and the wildlands? Yes we are, with the rapidly increasing population of Florida and most of that population growth are folks that are not familiar with the Florida situation. They're typically retired from remote parts of the nation. What we're finding is that since about the mid 90s in Florida the structural fire service and the wildland fire service, which is primarily a state level service, have begun to work more and more together. We're cross-raining, the wildland firefighters are receiving an FBA firefighter one level of structural fire protection training and the the structural firefighters are going and getting the training at least to the firefighter two level and wildland standards. We're also picking up the incident command system that has been used for many years by the wildland services and we're integrating that into our process. Dan I would think a lot of folks watching this might have the initial impression that I wouldn't expect to hear about this in Florida. I always thought these were in the big forest that people like you help us take care of out in the West in the mountains and so on and they certainly are there but they've been happening all around the country right? That's right I think one of the things that people don't understand and I think the perception is that it's always been a problem in the West but you look around over the last two decades and it's wildland urban interface fires are occurring in New Jersey, New York, Minnesota and Texas. I mean it's pretty much across the board in every state are seeing these types of fires and these kinds of situations occurring. Mike that's got to make it a big challenge changing quickly especially in light of 9-11 and the new emphasis on anti-terrorism in the country. I think so. I think that the folks working together and needing to work together is it's kind of a it's a it's a different culture and bringing the two cultures together is very important. I think that as Dan was saying the interface problem as it has spread across the country partially it's linked to issues reliant the climate. I think we're a little bit hotter a little bit warmer we're finding that the fire seasons as we call them are are lasting longer and they're more severe. The acres burned every year is increasing it's getting to be it's getting larger and larger and with more and more communities being built on that in the intermix it's creating another dimension of a problem for the firefighter they have to dealing with public safety and evacuations and they can't and they have to deal with those before they can concentrate on on extinguishment of the incident itself. Bill Mills these fires seem very different they behave in ways that can be very different from simple wildfires and simple building fires I understand. It's very very opportunistic I know that for years and years in the fire service we could model fire behavior as it relates just to structures inside the cube inside the shape or the house the environment is fairly static in other words the consideration for fire load and the contents it's pretty predictable with mother nature involved if the winds up all bets are off fuel weather and topography all play dynamic parts in a wildfire and in dynamic meaning that just ever-changing so notions of modeling as it relates to wildfire behavior are simply snapshots in time the industry is moving toward more real-time looks at being able to model wildfire but it's it's it's truly a dynamic event. So they're very different they're very dynamic they can be a big challenge for the firefighters but many of you may not have actually seen one of these wildland urban interface fires other than little snippets in the news so before we get too much farther into our program today let's get a little more on these fires and how they behave. Each year thousands of wildland fire ignitions occur throughout the United States each of these fire starts must be managed to meet identified resource management objectives in order to select the proper fire management option we must have a thorough knowledge of wildland fire behavior. When an ignition occurs it has the potential to grow into a major wildland fire depending on the existing environmental conditions it may have dramatic effects on resource values appearance and public opinion. What unleashes this powerful force of change? Well it begins simply enough perhaps a carelessly thrown match an unattended campfire or a thunderstorm then before long a rapidly growing wildland fire which requires extensive management. Yet every wildland fire that starts like this doesn't become a big fire because firefighters like you may intervene and stop it. Firefighters who know how a wildland fire behaves. In order to manage fire you must learn the characteristics of fire and the factors that influence fire spread. The more you know about wildland fire behavior the more likely you are to select the appropriate fire management strategy which provides for safety while meeting resource management objectives. Fire begins with ignition. The match is the most common ignition device. Friction creates sufficient heat to ignite the phosphorus. Combustion occurs the match flames. The three most important ingredients required for combustion are heat, oxygen and fuel. Heat, oxygen and fuel complete the fire triangle and are necessary components to create fire. If any of these are missing there can be no fire. In this demonstration we have all of the ingredients necessary for combustion heat from the match, oxygen from the air and fuel in the candle. But remove one of these ingredients in this case oxygen and the fire goes out. The same principle is used in managing wildland fires. We control such fires by removing heat, by removing oxygen, by removing fuel. In wildland fires heat sufficient to cause combustion is transferred to new sources of fuel in three different ways by conduction, by convection and by radiation. Conduction is the transfer of heat within the material itself. Most metals are good heat conductors but wood on the other hand is a poor conductor and transmits heat slowly. Conduction is not an important factor in the spread of wildland fire. Convection is the transfer of heat by flow of liquids or gases. In the case of wildland fires convection is well illustrated by the air and burned gases which rise above the fire. If the heated mixture is confined to a column the convection current can be strong, perhaps strong enough to reach 20,000 feet or higher into the atmosphere. Convection may cause dry snags to burn rapidly. Another method of transferring heat is by radiation. The earth for instance is heated from the sun by radiation through space. In wildland fires radiation will dry fuel ahead of the fire and increase its ability to ignite. How fire behaves when only one type of fuel is involved is simple in comparison with the complex nature of a wildland fire when a variety of fuels combine with weather and topography. With careful observation of fuel, weather and topography we can see the influence of each of these environmental elements and reasonably predict expected wildland fire behavior. The first element we must observe is fuel. Wildland fire behavior is affected by the amount of moisture in the fuel. Dry fuel burns faster than wet fuel. Size and shape of fuel is also a contributing factor. Light fuel is quickly heated and ignited as it is surrounded by plenty of oxygen. Fire and light fuel spreads rapidly but burns out quickly. Heavy fuel warms slowly and the interior becomes exposed to oxygen only after the outside has burned off. Fuel loading on an area is an obvious factor. The more fuel available the more total heat output. Ordinarily the greater the fuel loading readily available for burning the more intense the fire will be. There is low fuel loading here. There is high fuel loading here. However, fuel loading may be arranged in different ways. Thus continuity and arrangement may be more important than fuel loading itself. The fuel may be spread uniformly over the ground or it may be patchy. There may be little fuel standing in the air above the ground or there may be a lot of fuel above the ground in the form of snags, trees and tall shrubs. All of these will affect the behavior of a wildland fire. Along with fuel another important element affecting wildland fire behavior is weather. Temperature of the air influences fire. Temperature of the fuel determines how fast it will ignite and burn. There may be 50 degrees difference between fuel temperature in the sun and in the shade. Certainly one of the most important least understood and least predictable influences affecting wildland fire behavior is wind. Wind makes fire burn faster by increasing the supply of oxygen and by driving convection heat into new fuel. Wind can encourage combustion and the spread of fire in one direction or it can cause rapid change in spread direction. Wind carries sparks and firebrands ahead of the main fire starting spot fires. Wind increases evaporation from damp surfaces by carrying away moist air and replacing it with drier air. This directly affects fuel moisture. Fuel moisture influences wildland fire behavior because it affects the rate of combustion. When fuel is moist combustion is slow because more heat is required to evaporate the moisture. As fuel becomes drier more heat is available to heat the fuel itself. To demonstrate this point the same type of fuel with different fuel moistures was burned in a special test chamber. The fuel in the upper chamber has a fuel moisture content of 7%. The fuel in the lower chamber has a fuel moisture content of 25%. All other conditions are equal. Note the higher combustion rate of the drier fuel in the upper chamber. Relative humidity is a factor of weather that indirectly affects wildland fire behavior. Dead fuel and the air are always exchanging moisture. Dry air, air characterized as having low relative humidity, takes moisture from the fuel. Fuel in turn takes moisture from the air when the relative humidity is high. Fuel moisture content changes in response to changes in the relative humidity of the surrounding air. The size of fuel will influence how quickly the fuel takes on or gives off moisture in response to a change in relative humidity. A light fuel such as pine needles readily shows the difference due to humidity. As fuel size increases fuel moisture will respond slower to a change in relative humidity. All of these factors of weather on their own or in combination can change rapidly and will affect the behavior of a wildland fire. Topography is another environmental element to observe in order to understand wildland fire behavior. Aspect or direction in which a slope faces determines how much heating it gets from the sun. Different aspects receive sunlight at different times of day. Therefore, fuel temperature on a different aspect will change at different times throughout the day. Slope is another important influence of topography. The steeper a slope the faster a fire burns. On a steep slope the fuel uphill from the fire is preheated by radiation and convection and ignites easily. The position of the fire whether near the bottom of a slope with unburned fuel above or near the top of a ridge with a change in fuel or slope ahead of the fire is another topographic factor. The basic shape of the country in the vicinity of a fire is an important influence when a wildland fire is burning in broken topography. For example, if a canyon is narrow, heat transfer by radiation can dry adjacent fuel on the opposite slope. This can allow fire to cross the canyon. Steep canyons can have the same effect on fire as the chimney on a stove. They create a forced convection. Another effect of topography is the influence of elevation. This is shown by the earlier drying out of vegetation and fuel at lower elevations in early spring. Looking back, we have seen that the fire triangle of heat, oxygen and fuel is necessary for combustion to occur. Once a fire starts, it spreads by transferring heat energy through conduction, convection and radiation. The behavior of a wildland fire after it is established depends on the following environmental elements fuel, weather and topography all acting together. When all three are favorable for the spread of fire, almost anything can happen. That is anything can happen unless you as a firefighter intervene. One way to keep fire manageable is for you to determine fire management strategy based on your knowledge of how a wildland fire will behave in its changing environment. Is this a log or is it a fuel to sustain a fire? Is this slope merely a hard climb or is it a made to order path for fire? And is this a breathtaking view or a stoked and ready furnace waiting for ignition? Think in terms of fire behavior and firefighter safety when dealing with a wildland fire. Remember, it is the sum of many factors that makes a wildland fire burn as it does. Each area of course is unique has its own concerns, its own ways of looking at issues. Most of the video that we showed you there, of course, was in mountainous areas. But will we need to mention again, you don't have a lot of mountains at Gainesville, but you do have more than your share of fire sometimes. Well, that's true. And most of the southeastern United States and the East Coast is the same way. But what we tend to have a lot more dense vegetation, there's more fuel per acre. And much of that fuel has as easily ignited and tends to burn with great intensity. So the problem remains the same, even though the environment may look a little different. The real problem is the fire that comes up in these two areas that come together, the urban and the wildland. That's correct. And typically, it's us, it's people growing into the rural area. You bet. And Bill Mills, you always seem to be preaching the beauty of reducing risks of mitigating. What do you think is the most important thing for people to know? Mitigation is the biggest bank for the buck. Mitigation is simply reducing your risk. We're never in a condition in this industry to prevent much. But we can make the risk smaller. And given that you would follow typical mitigation process, we can say you would have a 50-50 chance with everything that you own. And we think those are pretty good odds. So engage and share the responsibility of mitigating this hazard. And Dan, there's a term that is used that people may hear, fire-wise, in fire-wise communities. Key to that is mitigating, as we say. Being ready, being prepared. Very much so. I think mitigation, I agree, is the most effective tool that we have in the toolbox today. And what we have to remember is the public has a responsibility to do things in living in the wildland-urban interface. They've made the decision to live there, and they have some responsibilities that they need to understand to help mitigate this problem with wildland-urban interface fires. And working with wildland and structural people, it's a partnership that really can prove to be very effective if all the players are sitting at the table and working on it. Mike, we can't emphasize that enough, can we, that it is not a problem to hand off to our firefighters. It's not a problem to hand off to some government planner somewhere. It's a problem for all of us, homeowners, citizens, firefighters, whatever. It is a collective problem, and I think that there are tools, as Dan has stated, the homeowners need to take the responsibility, as well as community leaders, in the form of building codes and zoning ordinances, to assist the fire organizations to be better prepared to mitigate these problems that we see, along with the partnership and the compliance by the homeowners to these different kind of rules and regulations to assist them in keeping their homes safe. Well, is it getting any easier, is awareness of this problem being raised enough that people respond as they should? Are you getting the public support that you need as a firefighter to be able to stay in the firehouse and not be out there putting out fires? It's slow to catch on. There are isolated areas in our part of the state that now are very aware of the fire-wise concepts, but for the most part, people think that when the fire threatens that the fire department and the Forestry Service are going to be there to protect them, and in reality, there's so many houses and so many people in the interface that we don't have the resources to protect every house and every person. Dan, is there a single point you'd like to make before we close out this segment? Well, I think, again, I agree. I think that we have watched America change over the last two decades with increased numbers of homes lost and more and more fires and more people living in the interface areas, and it's everybody's responsibility. It's not just the fire service. Great. Well, thanks very much. This section of our program today has been an introduction. It's not the final answer. It's not designed to do anything more than just get you aware and get you involved because your involvement, your awareness is, in fact, clearly our best defense have been against this growing problem across America. We've not tried to offer you all the answers. Just raise some of the questions and hope that you'll continue to raise the questions in your communities because these are the questions that you and your community should be asking yourselves. Let's turn our attention now to items of special interest to our firefighters. Firefighters, the first line of defense against fighting fires, saving lives, saving property, and of course in the wake of 9-11 they are now on the front lines of homeland security. We'll hear about value programming. That's just a phrase to describe what you've learned to think in your training as a firefighter, how you look at and think about a fire. There are differences between the outlooks of building and wildland firefighters. Bill Mills out in Colorado Springs. How have you seen these differences? My observation is that structure firefighters, wildland firefighters, there's a subtle difference between tempo and scale of the event. And again I'm talking about intuitively at a very gut level perception that the scale of the wildfire event tends to be more campaign oriented. The scale of the urban event tends to be more skirmish oriented. The tempo of those events, if we could use the comparison in the urban may be more like a sprinter with the skirmish. And I'm saying the skirmish may last up to one burn period, up to 12 hours or even more. But this, this collision that occurs is we have a different perception of the scale of the event just intuitively at the gut level from very start. The tempo of the event is different in that the campaign wildland firefighters in large events know going in that they're going to have to live days and days in an assignment. So that's my observation as far as differences, intuitive differences with wildland firefighters and the urban or structure firefighter that just doesn't simply identify that we dress different or use different equipment or show up in different boots. But right at the gut level I think it's important to understand we just came from different places. Came from different places but now you wind up the same fire. An interesting experience the first time that a building firefighter finds himself in the place of dealing with a wildland fire. Which was your experience, I know. Well, it's something that can be frightening because your total experience before as a structural firefighter through the actual experience of response and fighting fire and all the training that you have been through is that you're responding to an object that has sides are easily seen. The fuels are confined. You may go inside that confined structure to actually extinguish the fire but the fire doesn't have the potential for going everywhere. Once you take a look at a wildfire even in the interface you'll know that fuel is everywhere and that conditions are going to take that fire wherever it's going to go. So it's a totally different experience and one which everyone needs to begin to take notice of and for firefighter safety as well as for citizen safety. Mike, now where Will started his firefighting career focusing primarily on building fires and so on and has had to learn about the others you were just the opposite so talk about that a little bit too if you would. Well I think it was and from the wildland firefighter perspective is that we were taught perimeter control we're looking to remove the fuel from the fire and to work in the environment as we talked about in the woods and sleeping in the dirt and those kinds of things but what's happened to us particularly with the wildland urban interface is that we brought the two of us together I believe and the structure firefighter and the wildland firefighter having to deal with many of the same items the structure can become part of the fuel component. There can be hazmat issues you don't know what the homeowner is storing in that outbuilding that's in the wildland environment so you have this new dimension you have a evacuation dimension that you never had before in the wildland fire community so it's a whole new program for both of them I believe. So wildland and urban and they are different but there are some stark commonalities between these two are they not Bill? I think the common ground is very simply that if you don't have your thinking cap on you can get dead in either arena right away and so common grounds are that we need to understand each other and train two standards if you will that we both understand and to work harder on common language and common strategy and tactic than uncommon and to stop draw lines on who's who and learn from each other. Dan he's being starkly direct there I guess isn't he I mean he's not overstating there is serious risk here to both types and major lessons to be learned for each side. Oh absolutely you look back in history and we've had some really serious incidents that involve death, wildland firefighters and structural firefighters as well so it is serious business and it's a really good point. Again though I think we need to stress that he made a point about working together and erasing the lines I think that's very important people have to train together work together and as we have wildland fire incidents to integrate into the organization the structural fire component so everyone has a piece of the puzzle that understands that piece and can move forward in dealing with it. Any firefighter's safety as well as success in fighting the fire though is that first arrival you first get there and assess what you've got and you have to literally perform triage. That's correct typically I mean you'll always perform a triage when you responded to a structure fire but like I say it was that isolated object there that you knew it wasn't going anywhere you had to find a way to get inside and deal with it. Nowadays you have to deal with many more things that can be found out safely to that particular structure or that area. What are the maybe other objects that are immediately adjacent that could create problems for you you have to take a look at all of these considerations number one is it something that can be saved maybe it's not maybe you can save it if you stay there but is it safe to stay there and do it or you might be lucky and find a number of structures that really don't need any protection you can move on down to another area and conduct that same triage again but the triage is very important especially for firefighter safety it's got to be especially difficult when you have that situation where there's a build and you've been trained as Bill was talking about how to think about this that there's a building there there's a fire approaching it I need to fight that fire or do I need to put the fire out out in the valley to save the other 50 homes it's got to be very difficult and a key skill as he said for any firefighter a key skill is triage deciding what to do first what can be saved, what's beyond hope and how to live to tell the tale let's look at some video now about how firefighters might approach this very critical task in the process of triage you quickly decide into which category a threatened structure falls needs little or no attention for now needs protection but is saveable is hopeless your decision is based not just on looking at the structure alone but on five factors the structure itself the surrounding fuels the fire behavior available resources and firefighter safety let's break these factors down one at a time and see just what to look for starting with the structure itself is it susceptible or not take a look at the roof is it made of combustible material such as untreated wood shakes or tar paper or is it made of tile, metal or fiberglass which won't burn finally are the gutters full of hazardous debris next check the siding to see if it is made of combustible wood or non combustible metal, brick or adobe also look for heat traps like open gables and unscreened vents and decks and what about windows large windows can be an entry way for heat and when blown debris curtains or drapes inside can create even more of a hazard and the outside however can be used to shield the windows the size and shape of the house should also be considered gables, vents and eaves can trap both heat and flaming debris as well as create dangerous wind patterns around the house the next category to check is surrounding fuels note the loading, what these fuels are their size and arrangement also notice whether they're old and dry versus young and green the structure are they fire resistant or flammable it's good to be aware of fire tolerant or fire resistant species both native and exotic before you approach the fire also check for hay or straw stacked outside or in adjacent buildings other things to look for in the way of fuel include it's flame or heat duration is it long burning are wooden railroad ties or fences placed around the structure are they have defensible space and access to the structure is the yard clear or cluttered with junk are any explosive above ground fuel tanks visible the next category is fire behavior which again goes back to your first observations on the fire scene first check the speed and direction of the fire noting any topographic influences like steep slopes what's the weather doing now how long are the flames the longer they are the more intense the fire are there spot fires or fire brands how much time until the fire reaches the structure now let's go over your resources what you have available and when what is actually on site now what kind and type of resources do you have available how many where are they and if they're off site where will the fire be by the time they arrive look at the resource capabilities and limitations in terms of mobility especially water foam or retardant throughout this process always consider firefighter safety starting with routes of ingress and egress are roads to the structure one way or two way is there a heavy canopy of fuels over the road or power lines what is the grade and surface of the road are their loops or cul-de-sacs too narrow for turning emergency equipment is smoke beginning to obstruct visibility what hazardous materials if any are nearby how do you quickly decide that a situation is hopeless if any of the following factors apply think very hard about attempting to save the structure the situation may be hopeless when the fire is making significant runs in the standing live fuels and the structure is within one or two flame lengths of those fuels two spot fires are starting around the structure on the roof and beginning to grow faster than you can put them out three, your water supply will not allow you to continue firefighting until the threat subsides four, you cannot safely remain at the structure and your escape route could become blocked five, the roof is more than a quarter involved in windy conditions and six, interior rooms are involved and windows are broken in windy conditions if things change or you begin to lose the battle you're always free to rethink your plan but don't continually question or regret your decisions as precious time will be lost this isn't a situation that allows for perfection but only for your best judgment and a good follow-through best judgment and good follow-through see, it's that simple right? Mike, just that simple it's got to be the toughest thing to do is that you're always having to change your plan and that making changes doesn't mean you've had a failure you've got to go with what's happening we need to assess the situation and assess what's going on around you and adjust accordingly I don't think that's any different from the wildland fire personnel to the structure fire those issues have to be addressed I think the important thing in this environment is that the folks are working together they come together they know each other when they come together I think understanding each other's problems and issues is a very important part of this process and having agreements ahead of time and meeting with your partners is going to be a key for success on the fire ground Dan, what would you say are the most important lessons the firefighters ought to learn about, I guess what you'd say would not have been their primary focus when they first began their firefighting in the wildland about buildings building firefighters about wildlands well, I think that firefighters' safety for the public and for the firefighters themselves is key and that's always stressed but sometimes in the heat of the battle it gets overlooked so I think that issue needs to be right there on top I think the other thing that's important as Mike mentioned is from a planning perspective of making sure if you're a structural department with the wildland incident team that's dealing with the fire in that situation but at the same time knowledgeable about things from a planning perspective that have been accomplished prior to that so know both sides of the coin and be a part of that process is real important Will, what would you tell the guys in the firehouse because you've had some experience in this area what would you tell the guys in the firehouse works to follow through on what Dan's suggesting here I would be proactive I would not wait for someone to bring the training to me or the opportunity to meet with my wildland counterparts take the opportunities that are out there the wildland departments, state and federal offer wildland firefighter training and supervisory training find out about that you can access that information from web pages or contact with a local district forest management office don't wait get out there and learn it the sooner the better and get to know the folks that you'll be responding with know them on a first name basis recognize their face know how to contact them by radio or telephone it's going to be very important in the very early minutes of any breaking interface fire Mike, what about the same question from the other direction what would you say to the firefighters who are in the land fire business for the most part the wildland fire business about making these connections that Dan was talking about well I think that generally these situations will end up with intermingled land you'll have a community and it won't be a clear distinction between the community and the wildland responsibilities and because of that you need to have mutual aid agreements you need to know up front that these other resources are going to come to your aid and you have skills to come to their aid we've already mentioned about the training component they need to train together and drill together at the local level at the engine company level at the same time managers need to get together and know each other and know what their skill levels are so they can integrate them on the fire ground and come together into the same management structures and that becomes especially important in consideration of the post-911 environment I would assume where you just have the communications back and forth amongst the different agencies and the departments in this day and age you would think that communications is straightforward and simple but we still have a lot of problems out there people are working on that but that's critical absolutely critical and I think it comes back into the training and prepping before you get into an emergency situation so you know what all your limitations are and how to deal with them most of the attention and all the excitement is always on the fires themselves they're spectacular they are compelling they are sometimes tragic they're always destructive and they get a lot of our attention but a lot of what we're talking about here today has to do with what you do before the fire and how to keep it from becoming the big fire that it may be slated to be if you don't act properly so Bill Mills I want to talk to you again what you see the role of the firefighter not just as a firefighter but primarily as a fire preventer part of what you're being as a well rounded firefighter is understanding all of those mitigation efforts that are so important prior to the ignition because the reality is that what we fail to mitigate in wildfire you are relegated to responding to and operating on so the more you know about wildfire development review and how how mitigation works with wildfire in the planning division of whether it be a city or a county how your codes apply to any wildfire mitigation piece who are your interagency cooperators is it just the other guys or do we know who they are and what their mission is if you have a fire wise component in your local mitigation piece understand what their mission is what their tagline is and communicate that to the community why you're not fighting the fire if you're lucky enough to have an academic natural resource professional somewhere in your staff support them with wildfire mitigation planning and risk management pieces but overall the advice I would give is treat the events like a risk management piece what is the cost and I don't mean in dollars I mean in human life or energy and what's the benefit I think firefighters need to be done dying for a cause and a benefit there on the other end and we're here to help you try to put a good benefit on the other end because the cause is obviously important but it has to be handled properly and with the right respect and that's what we're counting on you to do and that's what we're hoping to help you with but Bill what about the scope of your efforts a local fire department does have its limits if you live in a small community you can't be the person necessarily I think you have to think about building your response and your mitigation efforts as it relates to the community that you serve because in effect they will define your acceptable risk think about that notion of establishing a dialogue with your community that the more you know about the wildfire event the more you're capable of communicating that to your community and they become your champion and that's a little inverted for our thinking in the fire service but from experience I can tell you that I've passed a Class A roofing ordinance in a city of 400,000 people we have modified 3,000 roofs under that ordinance in the last 12 months I didn't do it we educated the community and told them about spotting and branding identified champions and they took the issue to the policy makers the policy makers caused the change to happen in old notions of communication we would have pointed a finger and said this is what you have to do so notions like systematic development of informed consent they're not on an operational firefighters radar but as a fire service professional they should be so getting a lot on your radar there is a lot out there already is it there well what do you think about that well I would tend to agree it's pretty difficult to get the structural firefighter in many cases to be thinking about wildfire unless it's wildfire season and fortunately it's different times of the year but it's a short period of time in all locations but I would stress that they need to become involved and engaged in the prevention side the mitigation side that is going to be the that's going to be what makes life a lot easier for them as they pursue their careers in the fire service and Mike on the other side of that when they're trying to reach out to the different communities one of the comments that Bill made was that if you're a local fire department you can't be the U.S. Forest Service you can't be a big agency and so on but what can you be how can they work together and how can you help the smaller departments well rural and volunteer fire departments so that's another key reason that the rural fire departments and even the larger ones need to get to know their wildland fire service partners because they do have programs they do have training and they are more than willing to come out and participate and be part of the solution and help with these actions Dan how can you help these departments reach out to their communities and maybe build better understanding well I think and just following up on the other comments it's about the community as well grassroots involvement from the citizens out there get their help, get their participation and at the same time what you want to make sure is that before you begin that process that as Mike said you're sitting down with your counterparts in the structural and wildland agencies and getting your act together before you go out there and deal with the community so you look like you're a cohesive group that's dealing with the issue rather than individually Before we run out of time for this segment talking to our firefighters well I'd like to and I'll ask all of you to do this I'd like you if you could wave your magic wand your magic fire hose whatever the one thing you think that if firefighters knew or could do better or make sure they do regularly or whatever would benefit us across the country who need their help for the greatest benefit would be to begin to bring this well I would say the fire wise communities concept to the local community and to take that to the citizens and begin to make a difference which you have to do through the local growth management policies if we can do that we can get at the very root cause and begin the mitigation and prevention processes and keep these things from happening Mike, same question from your perspective my perspective is that the leadership needs to be part of the equation the political leadership as well as the community leadership from the citizens and if everybody is working on the same page and we're willing to accept the building ordinances and the zoning ordinances to apply fire safe principles we're going to make the operation safer for the citizen and we're going to make it safer for the firefighter. Dan how what do you think is the best way to do that assuming you basically agree what's the best way to do that in this context each state has its own laws each municipality its own regulations its own considerations culture history all of those things what we're talking about is common sense and the question is how do you best implement it community by community do you think well I think the success in the United States over the last three or four years has been with the Firewise program that we mentioned earlier it's a mechanism to bring community members bankers realtors as well as the structural and wildland departments together at the table to sort out local grassroots issues on a community basis which is can be different in Phoenix, Arizona or in upstate New York it takes that community group sitting down and solving the problems for their local area to make it work can the forest service help some of these local departments absolutely I think the departments that need help can contact the local federal state agencies for assistance to put that together and make it happen and well I know the fire chief's organizations a couple of them the state organizations and the national organizations have some materials advice support that you can offer to the folks in the firehouse that's correct and we're primarily a conduit from the Firewise communities program several federal agencies through both the International Association of Fire Chiefs and in my case the Florida Fire Chiefs Association we bring that information and that material to the local fire department and to the local community and should they work through their own chiefs or their own departments what would you suggest at a practical level they should do well it of course need their chiefs not of the head for such programs and hopefully the department head would take a lead role in that but yes they need to go ahead and engage all the resources of the department it would not be just the suppression side but prevention, public education all those other areas the local emergency management even and to that process to get the public involved and then get directly to the elected officials because I think you're really going to see that the future of making this change as a positive change is going to be to modify growth management policy Mike we've only got about a minute and a half left so I'll ask each of you one more question that is what advice would you have or comment would you have for the folks watching this today the firefighters what would you hope they take away from this and remember for the grass roots for the tail board firefighter I would suggest they need to be partners with their wildfire community and the wildfire community needs to be partners with them they need to train together, drill together and know each other's strengths and limitations and build on those so that when they get to the fire ground they have a stronger role and they're just more cohesive when they get there to go to work Will? I will agree with that and I'll go the next step and that is for the managers of those services to also get together to develop the plans so that when something happens that bridges both of these communities that we don't have to sit back and wonder well who should I contact but we know who to contact we already have a plan of action Dan real fast please remember firefighter safety is our number one mission to keep focused on Thanks all of you so we have seen an overview of the challenges we face in fighting the fires we've seen this growing problem and what you can do about it we've tried to have a start at this not a finish, talk about the right approaches to reducing risk of death, injury and loss in your communities from wild land and urban interface fires I want to thank all of you for participating today very helpful, we think very informative thank you for all of your work and thank you for joining us today