Wildland fires pose substantial risks to both firefighter and community safety. These risks must first be well understood before tools and approaches for reducing risks can be developed. Our ongoing research about the common factors related to rapid fire growth and firefighter entrapments and fatalities is critical to preventing future harm.

Forest Service scientists are undertaking laboratory and field research to describe fuels, terrain, and weather conditions that lead to firefighter entrapments and fatalities. This work is also being extended to explore conditions where wildfires threaten public health through direct impacts of wildfires on communities as well as both short-term and long-term exposure of populations to smoke. We are leveraging new fire behavior science, fire danger models, and smoke emissions and dispersion models to develop novel tools for assessing firefighter and public safety.

We undertake this important research because:

• By better understanding and mitigating risks associated with fire, we can prevent serious injuries and death on fires.

• There is a need to identify common factors that lead to firefighter entrapments and fatalities on fires.

• Real-time incident information delivery is critical to improving firefighter and community safety.

Featured Work

• Forest Service scientists created the Wildfire SAFE mobile application that incorporates real-time data from sources including the U.S. National Fire Danger Rating System, the U.S. Drought Monitor, weather data, and vegetation conditions to provide targeted information on any wildfire in the continental United States. It was designed in consultation with fire managers to ensure field utility and can be useful when determining how to prioritize incidents and deploy firefighting resources.

• Health risks to wildland firefighters are a priority in fire management. Ongoing Forest Service science estimates smoke exposure and risk of lung cancer and cardiovascular disease mortality to wildland firefighters.

• Forest Service scientists synthesized and reviewed U.S. wildland firefighter entrapments, focusing on trends, important environmental factors, and future research needs.

• Daily identification of suitable safety zones is perhaps one of the most critical decisions affecting firefighter safety on fire incidents. We created the WISE Firefighter Safety application to provide quantitative guidelines for selecting and sizing safety zones in the field.

• The Fire Weather Alert System (FWAS) has been designed and deployed to warn on-the-ground firefighters of dangerous weather conditions in their area.