I was just finishing lunch when a good friend of mine called. It was a typical Montana summer day: hot and dry. My kids were excited to get to the pool and enjoy the afternoon and I was looking forward to joining them.
My friend–a fire chief who lives in the next county about 45 miles away from me–asked “What’s that column of smoke in your fire district?” (Our fire districts border each other.)
“We don’t have anything going on here ” I quickly replied. Only several days later would I truly understand how wrong I was.
The Big One
Every fire chief has a “what if” incident: the fire or disaster you’ve always known was a possibility or even a probability that’s going to be bigger than big–an incident that will test all your systems relationships and training.
For some this “big one” might be a bridge collapse or a bus accident an explosion at the plant or a fire at the school. It’s the one you can try to plan and train for but for which you know you’ll never be ready.
For me the big one is a fire up the west fork of Rock Creek a 15-mile-long drainage located within the Beartooth Ranger District of the Custer National Forest. The canyon extends west from our community. It’s clogged with dying timber campgrounds several trailheads a ski area critical to the local economy and about 25 homes. The canyon opens up to our community several large subdivisions and hundreds of homes.
I’ve always known that almost all of the so-called disasters we face are predictable maybe not in terms of exact time or size but predictable nonetheless. For example if you live on a beach in Florida you can expect wind and a flood from a hurricane just like if you live next to a forest in Montana you can expect a wildland/urban interface (WUI) fire. It doesn’t take sophisticated computer programs or million-dollar federal grants to determine the possibilities just a good look at your own community.
This is especially true for wildland fire events and for us a fire in the West Fork was predictable. Fire behavior prediction done by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) indicated that a fire in this area would likely produce very extreme fire behavior and even with only moderate winds spotting could extend three-quarters of a mile pushing fire into our community.
As I spoke to my friend I walked around the corner of my house to take a look. I fully expected to see a small harmless column of smoke far in the distance most likely someone burning a field or a pile of brush in another fire district. We’d had the wettest spring in 15 years and in my mind we weren’t susceptible to a large fire.
But when I rounded the corner what I saw surprised me: a large column of smoke growing before my eyes located straight up the west fork of Rock Creek. The column was big and it was at that point where you can tell by the way it’s developing that the fire below has all the energy it needs. I told my friend that we’d need his help and to get here as quickly as he could.
We had thought about this fire talked about it we had even planned for it. Now we would experience it.
In the end the fire lasted 2 weeks burned 10 000 acres and destroyed five homes. Following are a few key points that it taught us.
You must have a plan.
Several years ago the fire management officer for the Beartooth Ranger District led the development of a West Fork evacuation plan. It wasn’t an easy plan to develop and it required the participation of all the agencies that would be responsible for ensuring the safety of the public.
Based upon expected fire behavior the plan realistically looked at how the fire would behave and outlined the steps that we would need to take to ensure public and firefighter safety. As a result when the fire started we already had an incident action plan with clear priorities and a list of key participants. We knew that evacuation would be our first priority and campground dwellers would challenge any evacuation plan. We knew there would be a potential for people on the trails and in the wilderness to become trapped. We knew the fire could move down the canyon extremely fast and that weather would be the key influence on fire behavior.
We also recognized during the planning that it would take a significant amount of work to develop a truly seamless and integrated response plan in which our local state and federal (local units) agencies respond together as if they are one organization deploying mutual aid from as far away as necessary and respecting each other’s training qualification and organizational systems.
A significant amount of research has shown that in times of stress and emergency people tend to resort to acting in ways that are familiar and comfortable to them. Because of this multiple agencies began to respond together to almost all wildland fire incidents in our area whether or not the situation needed that level of response. This combined response over several years has enabled all of our firefighters to become proficient at working together.
We knew better than to expect someone to swoop down and save us when the big one hit. However when I look back at our local response plans there were still some holes places where we made assumptions that someone else would solve the problem provide a resource or remove a hazard. These holes in the plan created roadblocks to a successful execution areas where the plan needed to be developed during the emergency rather than simply executed.
Example: We discovered that we lacked a definitive plan for a mass evacuation and consequently we spent a lot of time in the middle of the incident trying to develop a system that worked. During an emergency we have very little decision time and limited access to the resources that can help us solve the problem. Preplanning is crucial.
Build critical relationships before the fire starts.
We all like to believe that our way of operating is the best way and as firefighters we typically aren’t very flexible when one of our response partners does something differently. As a result we tend to give up easily when we can’t get along. However you can’t manage a large event without good working relationships with all the key people in neighboring agencies and disciplines. It’s essential to reach out to our neighbors long before a large WUI fire to build the relationships needed to establish a great emergency response system.
Getting mutual aid is one thing managing it is another.
Shortly after the 2000 fire season the fire departments in our two counties in conjunction with the USFS and the Bureau of Land Management developed a loose incident management organization made up of local government and federal fire officers.
The fire chiefs had recognized that if we were ever going to successfully and safely attack all the wildland and WUI fires we were experiencing we needed to respond in a coordinated manner. We realized that when mutual aid arrived at a fire a significant amount of time was lost getting organized. More importantly we were frequently unable to account for the status of all resources.
This required us to develop a system to manage resources we could typically produce for an initial attack. The team doesn’t have a formal structure but relies instead on the working relationship of all the people involved. When a fire starts we all respond and fill the positions that are needed.
Unified command is essential from the beginning of the fire.
During our planning process we noted that implementing a truly unified command would be essential. We began the unified command process from the very beginning of the response incorporating the different fire agencies as well as law enforcement.
We continued this well into the incident. At times we had some minor breakdowns in the communication between the different incident commanders (ICs) but for the most part we were able to sustain a high level of integration from the moment the fire started.
Communicate with the public constantly consistently and in terms they can understand.
In the very beginning of the fire we recognized that communication with the public was going to be critical. As a result less than 4 hours into the fire we began talking about our first public meeting.
I know it may seem neglectful to be talking about public meetings while firefighters are protecting homes and performing evacuations; however we had learned from past fires that our community likes to be well informed and as involved as possible.
We held the first meeting less than 24 hours after the fire started and met every other day for the rest of the week. It was a struggle to figure out what to tell our community but we realized we needed to be honest with them. We attempted to outline a realistic worst-case scenario without being overly dramatic.
Because the fire was up a long narrow canyon the public wasn’t able to see where it was burning. During the public meetings we were able to use a dual projector system to simultaneously show pictures of the fire as well as 3-D Google Earth maps.
Know when you need to rest and look out for your friends.
During the fire we had several critical fire weather days where we thought a “blow up” of the fire was likely. On day 5 a friend pulled me aside and nicely explained to me that I wasn’t doing the job I was capable of doing.
As an IC an organizational leader or a parent for that matter people look to you for clues about how to act and feel; if you’re tired angry or frustrated it will show not only in your actions but also in the actions of the entire organization.
Sometimes it’s hard to recognize when you’re making bad decisions or projecting a bad attitude. My friend was able to make me feel good about the work I was performing but pointed out that I was headed in a bad direction and that I needed some rest. He was right; after taking an afternoon off my attitude and capability improved significantly.
It’s Up to Us
There continues to be a lot of debate over wildland fire training qualifications and response systems. This fire has strengthened my beliefs and my resolve: We must fix our critical response systems. We must be able to deliver 90 engines in 90 minutes with all the management staff that they require everywhere in this country. This response must be seamless and integrated. Whose land is burning or the color of the responding engines cannot matter. We must adequately train the people who actually respond to these fires in the first 90 minutes.
When a large WUI fire strikes the only thing that will ensure an adequate response is a global prospective of the possibilities combined with adequate planning and coordination at the local level. Good mutual aid plans respect for all organizations’ training and a realization that effective help won’t come from Washington D.C. is the only way to deliver the kind of service that the public deserves.
