 And now we're going to shift gears a little bit and talk about operational briefings. There are two types of people at every briefing, the briefing givers and the briefing receivers. Both parties have one common goal, that is to share pertinent information about the situation before the start of a mission. If you've been fighting fire for more than 10 minutes, chances are pretty good that you've received some sort of operational briefing. And if you've been around a while, you know that briefings can range between excellent and awful. Everyone seems to have their own style and format. But to get some advice on giving briefings, we talked to John Gould. John was a smoke jumper for many years and has a private pilot's license. He's currently the wildland fire and aviation safety specialist for the BIA and is a member of the national fire and aviation safety team. Let's hear what he had to say. Well, in the aviation world, you can see that whenever a briefing has to be given, they do, but they go by a checklist front to back. And I think that it's because it's so important that nothing be missed. In the fire aviation world, you see it in helicopter briefings. Before you take a helicopter ride, anytime you have a briefing. And it all comes from a checklist. Aviation, they're great users of briefings and checklists. When you watch your pilot take off, next time you take a flight. And look, and he'll be using a checklist that he goes through when he takes off, when he puts it in cruise, when he starts down on the descent to landing, and before landing. You know, there's checklists for everything. Because it's so important that nothing be missed. And I think that in firefighter briefings right now, if we could take a cue from the aviation world and use a checklist. And here in the Incident Response Pocket Guide, they're coming out with a new briefing checklist that I think is an excellent checklist that will help you develop your briefings and put them out to your audience in such a way that they'll be able to get what they need out of the briefing. And since it's in the Incident Response Pocket Guide, I think that the receivers of the briefing will be able to follow along and make sure that they get everything they need to know out of the briefing as well. We traveled around this summer and heard a number of different operational briefings. Some were good, and some were very bad. How often have you heard, watch for snags, watch for snakes, or it's going to be hot and dry today? Without details, these comments may not really help new firefighters. Many times, the briefing giver fails to tell the receiver what they should do if they encounter any of these hazards. And what does hot and dry mean anyway in terms of temperature and relative humidity? We want to share with you a clip from a good briefing that we heard in Idaho. Pay attention to the use of a checklist and particular attention to the detail in which the provider gives in terms of hazard mitigation. OK, my name is Mike Ellsworth. I was the initial attack IC on this fire, which is called the Rough Diamond Fire. And for the records, it's fire number 266. Currently right now, it is about 7,000 to 8,000 acres and grown rapidly. The fuel type is grass, brush, juniper, and it's getting pretty close to the tree line. So start burning in some dug fur and the forest fuel types in there. It started Sunday night at about 21.30. Four BLM engines attacked it. And then about yesterday afternoon, about 2 o'clock, we made the big run. And obviously, you see what we got now. The weather for today will be 83 to 89 degrees. RH is 7 to 13. Yesterday, about 9% RH is when the big run made it. So anytime in our district, we get below 11% is when we start experiencing the extreme fire behavior. The winds are going to be similar to what we have seen, 5 to 15 miles per hour with gusts of 20 out of the North Northwest. Unfortunately, it's 9.45 right now. And the winds have already picked up. I think last reading I got was about 11 miles per hour. So be aware of the winds. That's going to be your main problems for the day. Some objectives for the day. We have a town south of the fire right now, about three miles called Silver City. Not only is there resonance there, but it is a major historical town in Idaho and the area. We have an urban interface structure team established there with dozers to do prep work for the town. We also want to keep the fire west of the Silver City Road, which is this road which takes off on this side, on the east. And also maintain any line that we have put in. We also are having a pretty aggressive air show, three helicopters, two seats, three retardant planes, and lead planes and air attack is all up there. So you'll hear quite an air show going on today. As far as resources, we have seven BLM engines. One of those is a light, eight hand crews, five dozers, and six tenders. And refer to your IAP of what resources are delegated to your division. I believe we have four more hand crews on order, a couple more dozers, and some more engines. As you can see, one engine just showed up. Also refer to your plan for your communications. Basically, Boise Direct will be our command. Attack one is Division A. Attack two is Division B. And the Idaho SOA is our air to ground. Like I said before, the Urban Interface Group has been established, and you, as a hand crew, may be called upon to help them out. So refer to your Urban Interface Watch Out checklist. The fuel moisture in the area are extremely low. For this year, we had very little snowpack, which in turn made the fuels extremely dry for the summer. Like I said before, 11% RH is when we get extreme fire behavior. Topography is steep, and there are some canyons. This is where the fire is making its biggest runs are in the canyons. At nighttime, we are experiencing a lot of runs downhill due to about 10 mile per hour downslope winds. As far as safety is concerned, first of all, driving out to the fire line, this road is pretty gravelly. So let's keep our speed down to about 15 to 20 miles per hour and our lights on, and make sure communication is with other people. If there's a car coming on, let everyone know. Due to the rocky terrain, the footing is going to be a problem. Watch above and below other crew members for any rocks that's coming and make sure you call out rock. And they can hear so no one gets a big old rock in the noggin. Snakes are in the area. Rattle snakes is the main species. Avoid the snakes. Do not attempt to handle the snakes. And inform other crew members that you found one. Yeah, they're fun to look at, but leave them alone. They do bite, obviously. If you do get bit by a snake, we'll initiate the medical plan, which is to contact your crew boss, Division Soup, which will contact Hella Base, where we have a couple EMTs on board there. LCS, utilize human repeaters. If your communications down in Canyon is sort of tough, have a guy on top of the hill so that he can be a human repeater for everyone. Because of the steep terrain as well, you probably want to establish two escape routes to your safety zone. Right now, we've been successful of using the black as our safety zone. Hydration. Make sure that everyone has two gallons of water per person. It is going to get hot, and it is going to be dry, and it is going to be some nasty climate for you guys. So if you need more water, let your crew boss and the Division Soup know. And we can ferry some out on the helicopter. Watch out for unburned fuel between you and the fire line. You may be going indirect if the fire activity picks up again today. You may be caught in the bottom of a draw, working, mopping up, and you can't see the main fire. Make sure you're establishing your lookouts to take care of that. It is going to get hotter and drier today. The winds are increasing, like I said, 11 miles per hour. In the canyons, there's going to be some erratic winds. So if you've got fire out there, just be aware of that. Also, if any wind changes or temperature changes you know, don't keep that information to yourself. Pass that on to your crew boss and your Division Soup so that Division Soup can let other resources know about the wind change and the weather changes. Also, if a burnout is necessary, we did quite a number of burnouts. As you can see, we're doing one right now, which has actually been very successful. Do not ignite any burnout until Division Soups and Operations Chief know about this. That way everyone can be planned and on the same page. Go over the 10 and 18 today before you head out to the fire line, check your, especially the urban interface checklist, because that may be a factor today or tomorrow. And utilize risk assessment at all possibilities. Is there any questions from the crew? Have a good, safe day. A good briefing is vital to safe fire line operations, yet we spend very little time training people on how to properly deliver a good briefing. To help standardize the basic operational briefing, a new briefing checklist has been added to the yellow book. This checklist can and should be used by both the briefing giver and the receiver. Remember, the briefing receiver has the responsibility to ask questions regarding information that the giver may have overlooked. To help you get acquainted with this new checklist, we'll have you get back into your groups and complete a simple exercise. Well, after that exercise, I'm assuming you'll be rather critical of briefings this coming summer. And I hope that if you have to give a briefing, this checklist will help you organize your thoughts.