Preparing for Wildfires during the Off-Season

Fire managers may spend considerable time during the off-season becoming better prepared to contend with future incidents. Example activities include training, updating maps of firefighting resource locations, equipment maintenance and/or replacement, fire planning (including budgeting), or writing fire management project plans. Cooperative agreements may need to be written or negotiated with interagency or private cooperators. Fire specialists also may be called upon to interact with specialists (e.g., soils, water, wildlife, timber, recreation, rangeland ecologists) in developing environmental assessments and forest plans.

An extensive slate of fire training opportunities are required to develop basic competencies and to upgrade skill levels within the fire workforce. Training opportunities run the gamut from basic fire school for incoming seasonal firefighters offered at the local level to advanced incident management techniques offered only to seasoned veterans at a national academy. Agency employees keep fire task books signed off by supervisors that identify desired training and experiences which will allow advancement over time within the fire management hierarchy.  

Each fire station maintains a cache of firefighting tools and supplies, for outfitting engines and crews with necessary equipment. During the off-season, tools and supplies are repaired, replaced, or refurbished. Pre-attack plans may be developed, laying out the location of important features on the landscape that may be advantageous on future wildfires. Plans may be developed for pre-positioning of suppression resources during high fire danger periods, or for complying with protocols for requesting incident support services from cooperating agencies, volunteer fire departments, and municipalities.

Individual prescribed fire or fuel reduction projects aim to reduce risks and hazards in an area.  The goal for many of these projects is to reduce the risks to wildland urban interface areas by decreasing the severity of future fires. Such projects may be subjected to an analysis of cost-effectiveness, requiring estimates for the productivity of the proposed and alternative treatments. Extensive use of computerized fire models and geographic information systems may be required to develop fire plans, based on costs and effects of simulated alternatives. On a different level, short-term monetary resources (such as fire severity funds) may become available on quick notice, requiring submission of written plans for spending the money to beef up forces for an anticipated heavy fire season. In any case, the best-prepared managers are those who have invested the time to anticipate or plan for upcoming contingencies.