Consider an urban structure fire of any size, large or small. In the worst-case scenario, the fire is usually confined to the “area of origin,” which in this case would be the building or city block. In these situations, you usually deal with one owner, although the building may have several tenants. Depending on the size of the incident, mutual-aid companies may also respond, as well as local police and utilities. In most cases, these incidents are quickly controlled.
Now consider a wildland fire. Again, in many cases, even on a rather large wildland fire, you may only deal with one land owner, a mutual-aid partner and law enforcement.
Lastly, consider a wildland/urban interface (WUI) fire–which may border state or federal land, escape initial-attack efforts and/or extend beyond the capabilities of your department and your mutual-aid partner. What do you do in this situation? You call for additional resources through whatever system your locality has in place.
Additional resources can also include county commissions, the Department of State Lands, neighboring jurisdictions, the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), U.S. Fish & Wildlife, politicians, incident management teams, etc. (In Montana, the State Department of Natural Resources and Conservation helps provide resources, such as staffing, engines and air support, as well as tactical and logistical support, and in many cases, financial support to pay for things that could easily overwhelm a local jurisdiction.)
While coordinating with these various resources, you will also need to deal with the media, which will be ever-present at the scene, as well as concerned homeowners who will want information and may need to evacuate.
In short, compared with structural or wildland fires, WUI fires have far more potential to involve many different agencies and levels of government. So to ensure a successful outcome on WUI incidents, you must develop and maintain positive working relationships with all responding agencies–and we all know how easy relationships are to maintain, right?
In this article, I’ll discuss how to develop relationships with the various agencies you may have to cooperate with on WUI incidents and steps you need to take to maintain those relationships.
On-Scene Arguments
Although everyone involved in a WUI incident probably has the same targeted outcome, they may not always agree on how to reach that outcome. Many times, one part of the incident, such as structure protection, is more important than another to a particular stakeholder. This can create tension, but the time to argue about which part of the incident deserves more attention isn’t during the incident.
Occasionally during our incidents, we can get bogged down with bureaucratic “stuff.” For example, federal units in the WUI may have different responsibilities on a WUI fire than state or local units. Residents may see federal units on scene and assume they are protecting their homes, but due to federal limitations and/or restrictions, federal forces may only be allowed to fight in federal wildland areas, thus leaving residential areas vulnerable to fire spread. This is why communication must be seamless between all agencies. If cooperation among agencies isn’t strong, it’s our customer who gets caught in the crossfire–and that’s not a good thing for our relationship with our taxpayers.
Time & Effort Required
When you first meet someone, your encounter can be somewhat awkward. To alleviate that feeling of awkwardness, you have to get to know them: What kinds of jokes make them laugh? What are their likes and dislikes? What is their overall view on life?
But what does this have to do with fire in the WUI? The same awkwardness you feel when you’re first introduced to someone may also be experienced the first time you call for mutual aid during a response. If you’ve never met or worked with your mutual-aid partner before, the experience will more than likely be OK overall, but it may be a bit awkward considering you don’t know each other well. But once you make the effort to really get to know them and train with them, those feelings will disappear. Most importantly, as you get acquainted, you’ll learn each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and how to balance each other out. This level of cooperation is vital when on scene of a major WUI fire.
Is it easy to obtain this information or to build trust in your mutual-aid partners? Speaking from my own experience, none of this occurs automatically. Although our neighboring departments have helped us out for years and vice versa, it wasn’t until we began to take a deeper interest in our neighboring departments that we began to get comfortable with each other and perform efficient operations. In short, it takes time and effort to build and maintain working relationships, just as it does personal relationships.
But as previously mentioned, WUI incidents often involve multiple agencies and individuals, so if you think it’s difficult to establish a positive working relationship with one person or partner, establishing working relationships with all the players on a WUI incident is going to be a major challenge. This is why, in the WUI, it’s imperative that you start to build these relationships long before the smoke rises.
Go On a Date
So how do you start developing relationships with all the agencies and resources that may respond to a WUI incident in your area? First, ask yourself a couple questions to help determine some of the larger agencies that may respond and what your responsibilities may be:
Does your response area border or contain any state or federal lands, and within those areas, do you have any affidavit lands that you both may be responsible for (one agency provides wildland protection while the other provides structural protection)?
Do you understand how to fulfill your responsibilities to the lands that you may share responsibility for and/or the processes involved in activating operational systems/procedures when a WUI fire begins?
If you don’t know the answers to these questions, you should figure them out as soon as possible. One way to do this is to simply go on a “date” with your potential partners on WUI incidents. In other words, conduct a training drill with neighboring departments or agencies, start a community outreach program for residents that live in high fire-danger areas, invite local government officials to visit the firehouse, etc. These encounters will hopefully lead to another “date” and another.
Hash It Out
Most couples that have been married for quite some time have had their relationship tested in some way. But how do they maintain their relationship during those trying times? Answer: They have frank, honest discussions about their problems and work to find an agreeable solution. In other words, they compromise where needed.
The same holds true for your relationships with responding agencies in the WUI arena. There will be times when everything is going great, and then something happens: leadership changes, a new policy is created, one agency changes its interpretation of an existing policy–the list could go on and on. This change may create disagreement, confusion, debate, etc. But it shouldn’t result in the end of the working relationship.
When problems arise, just as in personal relationships, we must sit down, talk it out and find a middle ground that we can all agree on. It’s the tougher times like these when, hopefully, all of the time and effort that led to our positive working relationship will carry us through.
In my local area, we hold a meeting every spring where all the major WUI players sit down together, put all of our concerns on the table and work them out. We talk, enjoy lunch, and then resume hashing out our differences. At the very least, in the end, we walk away with an understanding of the operational expectations for the upcoming fire season. We may not agree on all the minute details, but what we do agree on is that we’ll work cooperatively to reach the desired outcome for our customers. Just as a married couple learns through the years, if you want to maintain a long-term relationship, you must remember that nothing in life is perfect. Sometimes you just have to put your head down and trudge through it, knowing it’s the right thing to do.
A Final Note
Remember: It’s our responsibility to foster and grow our relationships with our responding partners in the WUI, because the ultimate goal is to do what’s right for our customers. It may be difficult to maintain multiple working relationships with all the WUI players, but if we fail to cooperate, we may be putting many lives at risk.
