 In this module, we are going to address safety zones more specifically. On two occasions this last year, we had firefighters feel the need to deploy shelters while they were in their safety zones. By definition, this action turned what was a safety zone into a deployment site, and the two are very different. A safety zone is an area where your simple presence in that location is enough to keep you out of harm's way. It's an area where a firefighter should not need to deploy a fire shelter. This is not to say that a firefighter should hesitate to deploy their shelter if needed. It just means that if a shelter deployment is necessary, then you weren't in a true safety zone. When choosing a safety zone, we suggest that you refer to the safety zone guidelines in the Incident Response Pocket Guide. But to help us get a better idea on how to measure the effectiveness of a potential safety zone before it's actually used, we turned to Dr. Brett Butler. Dr. Butler is a research engineer with the Fire Behavior Project. It's important, I think, that we all realize that maybe the right term is that safety zones are dynamic. That as the fire conditions change, just like fires are dynamic, your expectations of an effective safety zone should change also. One of the questions we should ask is, what are the specific characteristics of a safety zone? What does it look like? Is it round? Is it square? Does it look like a donut? Does it look like a hot dog? What kind of fuels can be in that safety zone? If it's grass, well, does it have to be green mode? Or can it be tall? Can it be sagebrush? Can it be black? Does it have to be black? Then you get into the aspects of what's black and what's dirty black or partially black. In my mind, all of that relates back to what are the expected fire conditions? What are the expected fire behavior based on your fuels and environmental conditions? Or either the next few hours or whatever period you want that safety zone to apply to? In other words, if you're thinking for the next few hours for the morning period, it'll be different probably than what you're going to expect in the afternoon. I think every firefighter or crew needs to evaluate that based on their experience. In many cases, low intensity burning periods, you'd be fine with sagebrush or maybe just some black. In many cases, the black would be the most effective safety zone. If it truly is black, if there's no fuels that are going to burn easily there. In some cases, you could have open ponderosa pine that have under burned, and so you've got the fine fuels on the forest floor that are gone, and that will be an effective safety zone. In extreme conditions, like 2000, when they had the big Haman fire in Colorado, that may not have been a good safety zone. They were getting crowned fire in nice, clean, open ponderosa pine forest. Again, it relates back to what the fire behavior is going to be for the expected conditions. It's incumbent on all of us who are working in wildland fire to continue to try to educate ourselves on what is the expected fire behavior going to be. All of us to become fire behavior experts, really, because that's where we're going to be more effective in our jobs and be safer. The lesson to be learned here is that the effectiveness of a safety zone is dependent upon the difference between your expected fire behavior when you're choosing the safety zone and the actual fire behavior you experience when you're using the safety zone. Many of our past fire shelter deployments have been the result of underestimating potential fire behavior. Let's listen to some thoughts from Dr. Patrick Withen on choosing an effective safety zone and then some final thoughts from Dr. Butler. Many times when you're on a fire, I think people can become complacent because they've had a certain level of fire behavior and they may have had that for three or four days and they've even been sharing that in the briefings. But it's important to note that your current fire behavior may not be the fire behavior that you get that day. And so we have to think about the fire behavior that we're experiencing, the fire behavior that we expect, and we should also look at the worst-case scenario, the worst-case fire behavior, the most extreme fire behavior. And we have to do all that when we're planning and seeking our safety zone and escape routes. I always try and look at worst-case scenarios, and I think most people do, but the thing we have to remember is that there are some very unique kinds of fire behavior out there that we should also consider. For instance, at 30 mile, we know that just the heat blast from the fire was a major factor and I don't think most firefighters ever encounter such thing. I never have and hopefully never do. But this was a situation that we all learned from that just heat from a fire can funnel up a chute or up a broad hillside, whether it be wind-driven or just more train-driven, and really be a factor in and of itself without any flame contact. I know of another unique situation that I heard about, a collapsing column. Again, these are very rare events, but this didn't entrap some firefighters in one situation, it did make them have to leave one safety zone and go back down the escape route and leave the fire area because the fire was nearly a mile away. The column collapsed and just blew a fire storm out, wind and embers in all directions in a way that they were not expecting at all. We need to consider any unique events that could occur in that locale. You know, one of the things that I do, because I've worked on trying to define what a safety zone is, is when every time, I can't help it, every time I'm around a fire, I start thinking, why is the fire doing what it's doing and how does that relate to me and to safety zones? In other words, how far away do I need to be to be safe? That's the first question. How hot is it and how close can I get and start feeling some heat? It doesn't take much at all to cause burn injury. Why is it doing what it's doing and what is it going to do? What factors are going to influence the fire and make it change? Of course, I'm always wondering, is that rule of thumb good or not? I think that's when I go into fire, that's what I'm asking, is the four times flame height, does that make any sense at all under these situations? And then the next question is, if I'm standing in an open grass meadow, is this where I want to be? What if the fire burned through here and then burned through this grass meadow? There have been people hurt and killed in grass. Or do I need to be on that big rock scree slope? And if I am, where is the best place to be? So when I go out there, I'm thinking, okay, what's the size of the safety zone? What's the fire doing? Where do I need to be? Is this a good place? Would it be better to be up there? Would it be better to go back a mile? And then do I want to have to know what about the escape route and the time it takes to get there? I don't know. I can't see why all of us can't be doing that kind of off and on while we're working on the fire. Your assessment of expected fire behavior is critical in assuring an adequate safety zone. And of course, you need to reevaluate your potential fire behavior and your safety zone assessment continuously throughout each operational shift.