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Fire today ManagementVolume 60 • No. 2 • Spring 2000 FIREIRE MANAGEMENT LEADERSHIPEADERSHIP United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service Through the Flames © Paco Young, 1999. Artwork courtesy of the artist and art print publisher Mill Pond Press, Venice, FL. For additional infor mation, please call 1-800-237-2233. Fire Management Today is published by the Forest Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC. The Secretary of Agriculture has determined that the publication of this periodical is necessary in the transaction of the public business required by law of this Department. Subscriptions ($13.00 per year domestic, $16.25 per year foreign) may be obtained from New Orders, Superintendent of Documents, P.O. Box 371954, Pittsburgh, PA 15250-7954. A subscription order form is available on the back cover. Fire Management Today is available on the World Wide Web at <http://www.fs.fed.us/fire/planning/firenote.htm>. Dan Glickman, Secretary April J. Baily U.S. Department of Agriculture General Manager Mike Dombeck, Chief Robert H. “Hutch” Brown, Ph.D. Forest Service Editor José Cruz, Director Fire and Aviation Management The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in all its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, or marital or family status. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Persons with disabilities who require alternative means for communication of program information (Braille, large print, audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA’s TARGET Center at (202) 720-2600 (voice and TDD). To file a complaint of discrimination, write USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, Room 326-W, Whitten Building, 1400 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20250-9410 or call (202) 720-5964 (voice and TDD). USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer. Disclaimer: The use of trade, firm, or corporation names in this publication is for the information and convenience of the reader. Such use does not constitute an official endorsement of any product or service by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Individual authors are responsible for the technical accuracy of the material presented in Fire Management Today. Fire notes Management Volume 60 • No. 2 • Spring 2000 On the Cover: CONTENTS The Mann Gulch Fire: They Did Not Die in Vain............ 4 Mike Dombeck A Race That Couldn’t Be Won ................................... 8 Richard C. Rothermel and Hutch Brown Where Are We Taking Wildland Fire Management? ... 10 Interview With José Cruz Paco Young’s painting Through Fire Management Leadership in the 21st Century ..... 17 the Flames (detail—the full Tom L. Thompson painting is reproduced on the opposite page) commemorates Florida’s “Firestorm ’98.” From Twenty Myths About Wildland Fire History ............... 23 June 1 to July 22, 1998, 2,282 fires Stephen W. Barrett burned 499,487 acres (202,142 ha) in Florida, destroying or damag How To Build a Fire Exclusion Map .......................... 26 ing 337 homes, 33 businesses, and Stephen W. Barrett and John C. Ingebretson more than 86 vehicles. In an example of fire management leadership, the Florida Division of Winema Hotshots Train on Oregon’s Coast .............. 31 Forestry joined the USDA Forest Dave Beck Service, supported by the Florida Division of Emergency Manage ment and the Federal Emergency From the Classroom to the Courtroom: Management Agency, in a unified Investigator Trainees Get a Taste of Reality .............. 33 area command to battle the Rod Nichols blazes. More than 10,000 fire fighters were mobilized and Twelve Smokey Awards Presented for 1998 ............ 36 130,000 people were evacuated from their homes, preventing any Doris Nance loss of life. Wildland Fire Terminology Update ........................... 41 The FIRE 21 symbol (shown below and on the Hutch Brown cover) stands for the safe and effective use of wildland fire, now and in the 21st century. Its shape represents the fire triangle (oxygen, heat, and fuel). The three outer red triangles represent the basic functions of wildland fire organi SHORT FEATURES zations (planning, operations, and aviation management), and the three critical aspects of wildland fire management (prevention, The Ten Standard Firefighting Orders ........................ 7 suppression, and prescription). The black interior represents land affected by fire; the emerging green points symbolize the growth, New Software for Fire Cache Tracking ..................... 39 restoration, and sustainability associated with Tom French fire-adapted ecosystems. The flame represents fire itself as an ever-present force in nature. For more information on FIRE 21 and the science, research, and innovative thinking behind it, Forest Service Video Highlights the Need contact Mike Apicello, National Interagency Fire for Prescribed Fire ................................................ 40 Center, 208-387-5460. Karl Perry Websites on Fire................................................... 40 Guidelines for Contributors..................................... 47 Firefighter and public safety is our first priority. THE MANN GULCH FIRE: * THEY DID NOT DIE IN VAIN Mike Dombeck he Mann Gulch Fire on August 5, 1949, left a profound mark The lessons they taught us at Mann Gulch T on the history of our Nation will be with us for as long as people fight fires. and on the community of wildland firefighting. Commemorating this historic and tragic event gives us Since its inception in 1905, the jumpers who parachuted onto time to reflect on firefighting— Forest Service has aggressively remote fires, containing the fires and to recognize how the Mann fought fire. However, early efforts until ground reinforcements Gulch Fire dramatically changed were limited by rudimentary arrived. Even today, as we seek to the firefighting profession. technology, inaccessible terrain, reintroduce fire into many areas and lack of trained personnel. By based on our deeper understanding A Proud Tradition 1940, the agency had a profes of the role of fire in promoting The USDA Forest Service and other sional firefighting organization ecosystem health, the lessons of natural resource agencies are and an elite corps of smoke- Mann Gulch loom large. proud to employ some of the brightest and most experienced firefighting professionals as our leaders in the fire organization. Mike Dombeck, These leaders have worked their Chief of the USDA Forest Service, way up the firefighting ladder addressing an through years of experience. They audience in Helena, have dug line, jumped from MT, during the 50th-anniversary airplanes into remote areas to commemoration of handle initial attack, and planned the Mann Gulch and conducted prescribed burns to Fire. Photo: USDA accomplish important natural Forest Service, Helena National resource objectives. Every year, Forest, Helena, MT, thousands of men and women 1999. commit their energy and time to fighting wildland fires on firelines across the Nation. The equipment, safety measures, and understand ing of wildland fire behavior that buffers these firefighters from potential disasters can be traced back to lessons learned from tragedies such as the Mann Gulch Fire. Mike Dombeck is the Chief of the USDA Forest Service. * This article is based on remarks made by USDA Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck in Helena, MT, on August 5, 1999, the 50th anniversary of the Mann Gulch Fire. 4 Fire Management Today We must honor those who perished A Stunning Tragedy in Mann Gulch by continuing to stress The Mann Gulch Fire severely the importance of safety, communication, shook the confidence of the firefighting profession. Thirteen and strict adherence to the firefighters died in Mann Gulch Ten Standard Firefighting Orders. (on what is today the Gates of the Mountains Wilderness, Helena National Forest, MT) when they were overtaken by a wildland fire during a blowup on a dry, grassy mountain slope. Twelve were * MANN GULCH FIRE COMMEMORATED smokejumpers. Never before had the Forest Service’s elite smoke- On August 5, 1949, 13 wildland Montana Governor Marc jumper force incurred such a loss firefighters died in Mann Gulch Racicot and USDA Forest of life. It’s true that some 85 people on the Helena National Forest, Service Chief Mike Dombeck. died in 1910, when huge fires MT, when a fast-moving fire The ceremony ended with the swept across the northern Rockies; swept over them. On the 50th unveiling of a commemorative but that was before the advent of a anniversary of the Mann Gulch bronze statue. seasoned wildland firefighting Fire, relatives and friends of • Artistic and educational trib organization and smokejumpers. those who perished, along with utes. After the commemorative Later fires, along with airplane many others, gathered to honor ceremony, the Wilbur Rehmann crashes and other accidents, would the fallen firefighters. Com Jazz Quartet performed the incrementally take their toll in memorative events included: musical debut of the Mann firefighter lives. But it was the Gulch Suite,** followed by Mann Gulch Fire that sounded a • A wreath-laying ceremony. exhibits and a demonstration by warning bell within the Forest On August 4, several dozen the National Smokejumper Service, teaching us that even an people hiked into Mann Gulch Association and special show effective firefighting force such as to lay wreaths at the markers ings of Firefight: Stories From the smokejumpers was no match where each of the 13