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08-16 Staging.Qxd If we’re going to stand a chance against megafires, we must make changes By Tom Boatner was a green 19-year-old when I started 2000, and shift locations from remote Alaska unprecedented fire season. More than a million fighting fire on a helitack crew in 1976 in fire camps to the Aerial Fire Depot in acres were burning in Montana and north Ithe Fortymile country of Alaska’s eastern Missoula, Mont. I was no longer the greenest Idaho. Four area commands (ACs) were Interior. Sitting around campfires in the kid firefighter in Alaska; I was the Bureau of deployed along with more than 20 Type I and II Alaska bush when our work was done, the Land Management’s (BLM) State Fire incident management teams; more than 20,000 older guys from my crew and other crews we Management Officer for Montana and the firefighters and 200 aircraft were at work in the worked with used to talk about the biggest, Dakotas, as well as the BLM representative to Northern Rockies alone. Thousands of people baddest fire any of them had ever worked on the Northern Rockies Multi-Agency Coordi- had evacuated their homes, and numerous or heard about. It was called the Sundance nating Group (NRMAC). communities were imminently threatened. Fire, and it burned the Idaho Panhandle dur- At that time, the NRMAC had assembled in Other geographic areas in the West were ing the summer of 1967. Missoula to set priorities and make decisions also experiencing big fire seasons, making Flash forward 25 fire seasons to that of about resource allocations for a huge and competition for firefighting resources intense. 14 WILDLAND FIREFIGHTER MAY 2008 it to what we were dealing with during the sum- soon replaced by the next multi-hundred- mer of 2000, and thinking, “Man, we wouldn’t thousand-acre, multi-million-dollar gobbler. I even break a sweat for the ‘Fire Emergency of visited an AC in central Idaho last summer, 1967’ if it occurred today.” And yet a mere 33 and on the daily conference call, the ICs talked years earlier, it had been considered a major fire about their three fires—all of which had bust, and the Sundance Fire had been consid- burned more than 200,000 acres and threat- ered the monster fire of the decade. ened homes and communities—like it was just I don’t mean to make light of the another day at the office. Sundance Fire or the firefighters of that era. Routinely in recent fire seasons, demand The Sundance Fire was a serious, hot fire. It for resources has far outstripped availability burned 50,000 of its total acres in one amaz- and overall fire suppression costs measure in ing 9-hour run that killed two firefighters. The the billions. So in the short span of just a few fireline leaders and firefighters of that time decades, the length of one fire career, the were physically fit, tough, skilled woodsmen world we as firefighters operate in has who worked with little or no air support and changed dramatically. completely without the high-quality commu- nications, meteorology and predictive services The Three Horsemen support we enjoy today. What I do mean to What’s driving this remarkable, large-scale say, and discuss throughout this article, is that change and what do we need to do about it? I our world has changed. As a result of this think the major factors have been widely dis- change, wildfire is no longer an occurrence cussed and are, for the most part, widely that takes place for a relatively short amount agreed upon by wildland fire professionals. I of time out in the woods; it has mutated into call them the three horsemen: climate change, a major event that lasts at times for weeks on fuels build-up and homes. Note: In my view, a end, taking lives and property, thoroughly fire manager’s perspective, it’s not important to exhausting all resources and leaving large get into a huge debate about what’s causing or swaths of burned acres and homes in its wake. driving climate change, and whether it’s a tem- porary aberration or a long-term change. Mega Stats Some facts are beyond debate: Our fire seasons Thirty years ago, if anyone had accurately pre- are longer, hotter and dryer, and there’s no dicted the fire seasons of today, they would’ve apparent end in sight, so we better be pre- been laughed out of fire camp. We’ve all heard pared to deal with them. the statistics—after a while they become over- Successful fire exclusion has led to grad- whelming. The National Interagency Fire ual, widespread fuels build-up on public Center (NIFC) in Boise maintains a wealth of lands, which, along with climate change, statistics on acres burned per fire season dating drives the intense, large-scale fire seasons we back to 1960. Of the 10 largest fire seasons see today and their consistent stream of since 1960, using total acres burned as a rela- megafires. The continued explosion of home tive measure of fire season scale, nine have building in fire-prone environments and the occurred since 1999. The four busiest seasons, consequent demand to protect those homes using total acres burned as the measure, are the add a complexity and expense that was essen- The NRMAC held some of its daily conference last four, the two busiest being the last two. tially unknown in the not-too-distant past. calls with ACs and incident commanders Many states have registered historic fire (ICs) in a small library in the NR Training seasons in the last decade, as well as the What We’re Doing Right Center, which contained a lot of interesting largest fire or fires in a century or more of post- The interagency wildland fire programs across historical documents. Imagine my surprise settlement history—the so-called “megafires.” the country have become highly integrated and when one day I discovered a map labeled “The The record-breaking states range from Georgia professional in recent years, as we’ve built one Northern Region Fire Emergency of 1967,” and Florida to Alaska and include California, national fire response program, rather than which identified the locations and sizes of the Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, innumerable independent federal, state and fires that comprised this famous fire bust, and Oregon, Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, local fire organizations. This has led to consis- heading the list was the monster fire of my Washington and Utah. tently high initial-attack success rates in every youth—the Sundance Fire. I was even more The string of fires that make Sundance part of the country, despite the thundering of shocked to see that it was only a 55,910-acre look puny include the Hayman, Missionary the three horsemen across the fire landscape. fire and that the other fires that comprised this Ridge, Rodeo-Chediski, Cedar, Biscuit, With the development, widespread accept- “fire emergency” ranged in size from 124 to Boundary, Murphy, Zaca, Day, Valley, (insert ance and evolution of the incident command 16,600 acres. Total acreage burned by all the the name of your favorite megafire here). None system, an agreed-upon set of national training fires in the bust: a meager 98,837. of these megafires’ public notoriety lasts very and qualification standards, and a national I remember looking at that map, comparing long, like Sundance’s did, because they are coordination and mobilization system, we’ve MAY 2008 WILDLAND FIREFIGHTER 15 The Changing Face of Fire become adept at acquiring and moving mas- The huge integrated national fire program sive numbers of fire resources to any location we’ve built is predicated on our willingness to in the country to deal with fire activity that help our neighbor firefighters in their time of grows beyond a local area’s capability. need, believing that they will return the favor Outside of the military, no other organiza- in our time of need. tion or agency in America can organize and It’s a beautiful system to watch in opera- move the numbers and types of people and tion; however, it’s based on the assumption gear that fire agencies move on a regular basis. that the overall supply of fire resources will With rapidly expanding prescribed fire and exceed the overall demand for those resources fuels treatment programs, we’re also attempt- most of the time. This is no longer true. ing to reduce fuels build-up, put fire back These days, demand routinely exceeds sup- where it belongs and improve protection of ply for long periods of time because of three threatened communities and homes. major factors: • The scale/duration of today’s fire seasons; What Needs to Change • The stress on fire budgets at all levels, Despite the major strides we’ve taken in recent which leads to reduced numbers of fire- years to fight larger fires, there are problems fighters and key equipment; and and weaknesses we must continuously address. • The demands to continue expanding fuels reduction and prescribed fire work and to The System respond to other types of non-fire incidents. Because our current system of integrated This leads to scarce, high-quality AP PHOTO/MATT YORK national fire resource availability and move- resources working on lower-priority fires in Members of the Sierra Hotshot Crew of Oakhurst, Calif., maintain the fireline ment has been highly successful, and because one place rather than rapidly moving those during a backburn near Cibucue, Ariz., on we’ve long been successful at making aggres- resources to critical fires in other places.
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