The International Association of Fire Chiefs seeks comments on the draft 2009 Quadrennial Fire Review Report, which summarizes a national, strategic evaluative process to develop an internal assessment of current wildland fire programs and capabilities for comparison to future needs for fire management. Like the first review conducted in 2004, the 2009 QFR is charted by the U.S. Forest Service, the four U.S. Department of Interior agencies and their state, local and tribal partners that constitute the wildland fire community.

The QFR is based on the Defense Department’s Quadrennial Defense Review model which, for the past two decades, has served as a vehicle for the military to re-examine shifts in military strategy and changes in organizational tactics and capabilities. The intention of the QFR is to use the four-year interval between reviews as an opportunity to reassess the future environment in wildland fire; summarize shifts in mission, roles and responsibilities, and agency relationships; and chart new course directions for fire management. Projections of future conditions and risks potentially affecting fire management are longer term, set in a 10- to 20-year reference timeframe. Strategies for new mission requirements and building new capabilities are defined in a 4- to 5-year period.

QFR isn’t a plan or a policy-making document. It contains no recommendations, action items or timetables. As an interagency assessment, it’s purely advisory in tone and format and isn’t intended as a decision-making document requiring formal organizational approvals. QFR focuses on fire management as a whole enterprise. There is no review of the separate programs — preparedness, prevention, suppression, fuel reduction and restoration — or the functions that make up fire and fuel management. Integration also means that review is conducted as a joint effort by the five federal public-lands agencies with wildland fire responsibilities.

State, local, tribal and non-government partners in the greater wildland fire community were also asked to participate in different phases of the QFR effort to ensure that a broad range of interests were fully considered and melded into the final report.

The draft 2009 QFR Report is available at www.iafc.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=151.