For a number of years, I've been fortunate to work with some amazing command teams, structure protection group supervisors and specialists, task force leaders and fellow firefighters on many wildland-urban interface incidents. During these operations I've worked as a firefighter, a structure protection group supervisor and all positions in between from Central Alberta to Florida.

The one thing each fire in each location had in common was a no man's land, where the structure firefighters work to the fence in the back yards while the wildland firefighters work to the same fence from the forest side. It's time we start to bridge the gap between structure and wildland firefighters.

Structure firefighters understand structure fires but little about grass fires or small bushfires where a two-day incident will task the resources and crews. Those who deal with the wildland fires that can last months on end with 14- or 21-day deployments are very versed on the ins and outs of wildland fire and have been told enough about structure fires that they probably don't want to be around them.

For the past 10 years we have been sending crews to WUI deployments without the proper training, equipment and knowledge. As these incidents happen more often, affecting a larger number of people who are looking to move away from the big city into the beautiful wilderness, it's our responsibility to address these issues.

Educational objectives

Our first responsibility is to our firefighters, getting the crew members who are being deployed to these types of incidents trained to help function as a part of a team that has been dispatched to save homes and businesses. Structure firefighters must know just how that 5,000-acre fire is going to affect them. The temperature, wind speed and direction, temperature vegetation, and even the time of day or year can or will play a very large part of the decision to even commit.

Structure firefighters must know how the chain of command works for them as well as all the other firefighter around them. Structure firefighters need to be taught that they may be one of only 100 crews that have been tasked with protecting 10,000 structures, that priorities need to be set and that we may not be able to get to every structure — even the ones we can get to may be too far gone and require us to move on to the next one.

Firefighters need to use as little effort as possible to get the maximum affect. Teach these crews to think outside of the box. Take your crews and preplans for a problem neighborhood and use that area to drill all of the engine companies on the who, how, when, where and why until everyone understands what their roles and responsibilities are. This should include your closest Forest Service or Park Service office to teach the wildland aspects. The Forest Service crews can help with one of the biggest problems: communication.

Part of that communication problem stems from the use of different terminology. Terminology for both wildland and structure firefighting is an important component of the operation. The structure firefighters may find this a little tougher, entering into the wildland world. Wildland firefighting has a number of differences with the command system compared to many fire departments, the biggest being that a small city is constructed to manage the incident, and within this city you have tents or buildings that will have names such as incident command, finance, operations, logistics and planning. Each one of these plays a very important role in the safety and effectiveness of the operation.

To help make the change to a large or longer operation go much more smoothly, each municipal firefighter needs to understand the terminology of the wildland firefighters and what each means. Some of the terms that you need to know are RH (relative humidity), safety zone, escape route and ops chief. It's very important to not mix up terms , such as tender and tanker. In the wildland fire world, a tanker flies and a tender drives. This can be embarrassing when you order three 1,000-gallon tankers, thinking that they will drive up only to find out that you have just ordered three planes.

Terminology is very easy to learn and find. It is so much easier to do this prior to being deployed than not understanding just what is being said. For departments that have been trained for and experienced WUI incidents, this may not seem very important. For the department or even officer who may be deployed, it's very important.

Well-equipped

Once the crews are trained, they need to be geared up for the job. This may mean simply supplying each firefighter with leather boots or completely outfitting each with full wildland PPE. This can include Nomex coveralls or pants and shirts, leather boots, hard hats, leather gloves, and fire shelters. They also may need GPS, tents, sleeping bags and other gear to be self sufficient for 48 hours.

If your department is in the market for a new piece of equipment and you're dealing with a large WUI problem, take the time to look at what's available to fill your needs. From a brush truck to a full-size engine you need to spend your money wisely. Remember that you can have an engine to deal with the WUI problems as well as help with all of the day-to-day issues of the department.

When deciding on WUI engines and tenders, you need to look at a number of issues including, but not limited to, overall size of the unit, water capacity, wheel base, and angle of approach and departure. Pump and roll is a great option for an engine to have, which will allow the unit to perform a much wider range of tasks. Send the crew out with spare parts like an air filter, oil filter, belts and a small tool kit so they can perform quick repairs until a mechanic can see the unit.

When working in a task force or strike team, every company should understand the capabilities and equipment on each engine and get to know the capabilities of each team. This will give you an understanding of any special skills that someone may have that may be needed. This should only take 10 or so minutes on the first day, possibly during a lunch break if everyone's together. This is a very important practice to build trust within the team.

Roles & strategies

When we are working on a WUI incident, our roles and responsibilities may change slightly from day-to-day structure work. During a WUI incident we will be working with a large number of agencies and contractors and may be asked to work under a volunteer or contractor in a command position. It's our responsibility to work together for a common goal, which is to complete our tasks in a safe and effective manner. It's also our responsibility to make sure that our crew members understand we are all a large team that needs to work together.

As a structure engine company working on a WUI incident, some operations will be foreign to you. When we are working on an incident where 200 to 5,000 homes and businesses may be threatened, with only a small amount of resources to deal with the problem and no more resources to fill extra alarms, your strategies and tactics will be very different from normal operations. This may take some time working with your crews beforehand, along with a good debriefing following the incident. When we have a very large number of exposures to deal with over a large geographical area, we need to look at a different approach.

Our number-one objective is to have all crew members come home safely, then to protect homes and businesses to the best of our abilities with what we have for resources. This may mean that we prep as many homes as possible prior to the fire front's arrival, then retreat to our closest safety zone. When the fire front has passed, we can return to clean up the embers that usually take out more of the homes than the big front of flames.

If a structure is involved, we need to assess the situation. If we can deal with the fire with one engine company, we can proceed to extinguish; if the fire is too big, than we need to realize that the best that we can do is to protect the exposures.

Also, when working off of a hydrant, only deploy one of two lengths of supply line and no more than 200 feet of attack line. If you need to bug out, you don't want to have all of your equipment on one structure.

Outside influences

One very important role, from command staff down to front-line firefighters, is to make contact with residents whenever possible to give them a feeling that there are people their to help and that everything that can be done is being done.

We all know how difficult it can be to get people involved when no fires are burning, but when they are burning it's too late. It is very important to get these people involved in what you are trying to accomplish. As one entity we can't accomplish this WUI issue on our own. It's a multiple approach that needs to be very coordinated to succeed. You need to invite the public and the politicians to open houses and exercises to show them just what can happen and what is needed to deal with it. Show them how they will be affected and just what they can do.

The media are the best tool here, and they're usually very happy to help. Try using the same weekend every year for consistency. Involve the public as far as cleaning their own yards and neighborhoods, and have the local government participate by removing yard waste.

The local government needs to take a large part of the education off of the fire department's shoulder by dealing with building codes and regulating the builders and developers. This doesn't mean that we leave them alone; we get the information they will need to deal with the issues at hand. It's the local government's responsibility to deal with the issues that will affect the firefighters being sent into these problem areas.

The world of WUI is old news to some of us and very new and humbling to others. We need to know the limitations of not just our crews but our equipment. WUI fires are just as different as wildland fires are to structure fires and industrial fires. We have schools to go to for structure, industrial, aircraft and marine firefighting, but there is no school for wildland-urban interface firefighting. Each type of fire has its own hazards that we all need to know and understand.

We are all firefighters who know how to extinguish our own types of fire. As structural firefighters, we need to understand the wildland fire issues that affect us, and wildland firefighters need to understand the structural end of things.

We are making huge steps in the right direction in dealing with the pressing issues of WUI. With technology and innovative thought by firefighters in the WUI world, we will bridge the gap, making our operations safer and achieving more successes than ever.

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Darren Hutchinson is with Quintech Fire Services, a firefighting, consulting and training firm. He has six years of experience as a structural firefighter, one year as an industrial firefighter and 10 years as a wildland firefighter.