The Problem:
Fire is a natural process and a mechanism for biological renewal across forest and
rangeland ecosystems. During the 20th century, federal, state, and local firefighters
were successful at suppressing wildland fires in the early stages creating a fire
exclusion scenario that is not sustainable. An unintended consequence was the
overstocking of forests with trees and ladder fuels. These overstocked conditions
combine with other stressors such as drought, insects and disease, invasive species,
and longer, hotter summers to create uncharacteristically large wildfires that threaten
homes, communities, and cultural and resource values, and can cause widespread
property damage.
If the last century was about understanding and controlling wildland fire, the next
century must be about reconciling our aims, with respect to the dynamics that define
these fire disturbance regimes. It must be about managing our expectations for the land
in ways that are consistent with the dynamics of the land. If the last century was about
strengthening the tactical dimensions of fire control, the next century must be about
restoring fire-dependent lands and, strategically, better aligning our perceptions, our
laws, our policies, our plans, and our practices the “new realities” of a changed
environment.
The International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) supports the vision statement from
the United States National Wildland Fire Cohesive Strategy and adopted a vision for this
century that serves the international community:
“To safely and effectively extinguish fire when needed; use fire where allowable;
manage our natural resources; and as an international community, to live with
wildland fire.”
The National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy (Cohesive Strategy), as
called for in the U.S. Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement Act of
2009, addresses the impacts of wildland fire across the landscape and on communities,
counties, states, tribes, and federal agencies, and what can be done to reduce the
negative impacts of fire on people, property and natural resources. The IAFC strongly
endorses this direction and strategy for the international community.
In this regard, the three goals of the IAFC are:
(1) Restore and Maintain Landscapes: Landscapes across all jurisdictions are
resilient to fire related disturbances in accordance with management objectives.
(2) Fire-adapted Communities: Human populations and infrastructure can withstand a
wildfire without loss of life and property.
(3) Wildfire Response: All jurisdictions participate in reaching and implementing safe,
effective, efficient risk-based wildfire management decisions.
The IAFC embraces the following guiding principles that are consistent with the vision
statement and goals:
- Reducing risk to firefighters and the public is the first priority in every fire management activity.
- Sound risk management is the foundation for all management activities.
- Actively manage the land to make it more resilient to disturbance, in accordance with
management objectives. - Improve and sustain both community and individual responsibilities to prepare for,
respond to and recover from wildfire through capacity-building activities. - Rigorous wildfire prevention programs are supported across all jurisdictions.
- Wildland fire, as an essential ecological process and natural change agent, may be
incorporated into the planning process and wildfire response. - Fire management decisions are based on the best available science, knowledge,
experience and risk assessment tools and processes, used to evaluate risk versus gain - Local, state, tribal and federal agencies support one another with wildfire response,
including engagement in collaborative planning and the decision-making processes that
take into account all lands and recognize the interdependence and statutory
responsibilities among jurisdictions. - Where land and resource management objectives differ, prudent and safe actions
must be taken through collaborative fire planning and suppression response to keep
unwanted wildfires from spreading to adjacent jurisdictions. - Safe aggressive initial attack is often the best suppression strategy to keep unwanted
wildfires small and costs down. - Fire management programs and activities are economically viable and commensurate
with values to be protected, land and resource management objectives, and social and
environmental quality considerations.
The escalating cost of fire suppression expenses for battling wildland fires continues to
be a significant international challenge as have the post suppression damages to
natural resources and community infrastructures. These fiscal issues continue to be
contentious given current fiscal constraint by all levels of government and growing WUI
development. With the expectations of the publics based on previous wildland
suppression successes, these issues will continue to challenge wildland leaders.
The IAFC Challenge:
The IAFC is committed to promoting international efforts to reduce wildfire threats
through aggressive prevention, public information and education, mitigation,
preparedness and integrated wildland fire response efforts. Specifically, the IAFC will
promote programs that improve firefighter and public safety, reduce community life hazards and protect highly valued community assets. As the vast majority of IAFC
members are representatives of local government, the IAFC is well positioned to
address the local government perspective on these issues when dealing with officials at
all levels of government.
The following are the priority concerns to be addressed by the IAFC: - Coordinated efforts between local, state and federal agencies that stress
collaborative efforts to address local wildland fire threats, with priority
on life safety and aggressive fire suppression protection of community
infrastructure, private property and identified community assets at risk. - Firefighter and public safety are priority concerns when managing wildland fire
problems. These concerns must be managed by creating fire adapted and
resilient landscapes, promoting safety on the fire ground, providing adequate
personal protective equipment and radio communications, and establishing
effective lines of command authority and coordination of fire forces to recognize
extreme fire behavior and communicate changing fire conditions and weather
changes to avoid suppression tragedies. - Creating fire adapted communities by utilizing programs such as Ready, Set,
Go!, FireWise Communities, Living With Fire, Fire Safe Councils and Community
Wildfire Protection Plans. Key elements will focus on preparedness, defensible
space, community education and appropriate development/construction and
zoning. - Aggressive local, State and Federal action to recognize and create fire
management plans for all wildland-urban interface threat areas that include a
documented coordination agreement among fire agencies and inclusion of local
general land use plans into the fire management policies. - The fire management plans must include clear lines of authority, prioritized focus
on high fire threat areas, based on local, state and national policy and methods
for incorporating local mutual aid agreements that are well understood and
supported by local fire service leadership. - We support unified command that is well understood and coordinated before the
incident. Response standards, protection priorities and cost-sharing policies must
be clearly understood and supported by local fire service leaders before a
wildland fire event. - The IAFC will identify and attempt to eliminate gaps in fire readiness, with
specific focus on efforts to support standardized levels of training, safety
awareness, physical fitness, cost reimbursement and firefighter pay policy. - Furthermore the IAFC will promote methods that help local fire service plan and
train together with their state and federal fire service partners on an on going
basis, crossing jurisdictional boundaries to accomplish higher levels of local
expertise, readiness efficiency and effectiveness.
The IAFC will be a lead collaborator and play an aggressive role in representing
local fire services when addressing wildland fire planning and policy issues. The IAFC
will seek to use a task force approach, utilizing motivated and informed fire service
leaders who are appropriately experienced to work out the challenges and problems
that exist for member agencies.
The IAFC will support legislation that improves firefighter safety and
effectiveness of fire operations, reduces risk to local private property and high valued
community assets, and promotes seamless and well-coordinated response of local,
state and federal fire forces to wildfires.
The IAFC will be an active voice in Washington, DC representing the Fire Service for
our continued wildland fire threat, fuels reduction challenges and our need to work
together with all local, State and Federal agency’s.
The IAFC will develop clear lines of communication and an easily understood
matrix of responsibility for local fire agencies to use when solving problems and
seeking resources to achieve improved readiness and response times. The IAFC
understands and appreciates cross-jurisdictional areas of responsibility and roles
of the players.
