Last issue, Jerry Williams candidly discussed the national agenda for the country's growing interface problem and his own top priorities for firefighter preparedness.

Our in-depth one-on-one continues with a look at how wildland firefighting influences both national security and local structural firefighting. As a member of the California Blue Ribbon Panel on last year's firestorms, Williams emphasizes the importance of a systems approach to future wildland operations.

What kind of impact is the Department of Homeland Security having on the management of wildland incidents?

I can't say that they're having an impact, and certainly not in a negative way. This is a department that's still growing. We have people on our staff that do direct coordination and liaison with the Department of Homeland Security. And several federal agencies, FEMA among them, have been folded into the Department of Homeland Security.

Right now, the relationship that we have with the Department of Homeland Security goes both ways. The Forest Service and other wildland fire agencies with DOI in the states are giving the Department of Homeland Security a command-and-control model called the Incident Command System that's being used more and more widely. Matter of fact, last year we finished up some training with the New York City Fire Department, training their chief officers in the Incident Command System — in fact brought them out to several incidents, wildland fires in the west where they got to see firsthand how this system works.

The Forest Service has been actively engaged with everything from the Columbia shuttle recovery effort to exotic Newcastle disease in the poultry industry. We've been helping the Department of Homeland Security with the command-and-control model, and I think the Department of Homeland Security has benefited from the work we've been able to do with them.

Particularly on incident command of large incidents?

Well they're not too involved with the command of large incidents. We're doing that. What their focus principally is on is security. Now insofar as there's going to be overlap between wildland firefighting and security, those potentials always exist, and it's something that … we're working closely with them and them with us in planning, preparing for the kind of threats that would occur simultaneously. I'm grateful that to date, knock on wood, we haven't had a significant, all-risk incident that has coincided with the peak of significant wildfire threats. But that day is something that we need to plan for, and we are planning for it.

What is the role of the Fire and Aviation Management in homeland security?

Right now, we play a significant support function. As I mentioned earlier, we're providing a lot of federal agencies a common command-and-control model through the National Interagency Management System, NIMS. The Incident Command System is that model, and that's the one where command staff have in place a management model that is able to deal with virtually any kind of an emergency over any length of time.

To kind of explain that, here's one of the things that we were able to help the structural fire departments with. Most of the incidents that they deal with are very short-lived — maybe a day or two and their incident is done. In that world, most of their emphasis is on fireground operations. In the wildland, operations are still a critical part of what we do but, by virtue of the fact that many of the wildland incidents that we manage may go on for days in very remote locations, planning and logistics are a very important part of that management model.

So an incident commander and the command staff — the operations section chief, the logistics section chief, the planning section chief, the finance section chief — and the interaction of those people in a team environment that may be occurring over several days, maybe many weeks, is a new kind of management model that we're able to introduce to the structural fire departments that many of them, if they're confronted with an all-risk emergency that lasts for several days, are better prepared to deal with.

I might add that many of the fires we're dealing with today occur at the interface, and those fires bring to us a set of hazards that we're not always well-equipped to deal with. So we in turn rely on the structural fire departments for their expertise and their skills in dealing with everything from hazmat — propane tanks — to electrical fires to evacuation protocols.

This relationship has been growing with the structural fire departments. I think it's going to be accelerating under the Department of Homeland Security and, like I mentioned earlier with some of the work we're doing with the JFK School of Government or the military, we're benefiting from these relationships.

Have those relationships been formalized in some respects in the last year or so?

I think they're getting more and more formalized. I can't tell you that we have formal memorandums of understanding in place and that sort of thing, but we are certainly moving in a much more integrated direction.

My deputy and I meet with the International Association of Fire Chiefs. We've been a part of many of the efforts that they're working on. We have structural fire department personnel on many of our incident management teams. Today at the local levels a lot of the planning and so forth that occurs at a district or forest level now includes rural fire departments, municipal fire departments.

The relationships have become much stronger over the past several years and they're going to be getting stronger, not only because there's a new Department of Homeland Security, but … because of the realities of our world. More and more people are moving to the wildland-urban interface. Our world demands that coordination, communication and cooperation between wildland agencies and the structural side of the fire services get stronger and stronger.

You're a member of the Blue Ribbon Panel appointed to study the catastrophic Southern California fires from last October. Can you give us an update on the panel's work?

I am a member of the governor's Blue Ribbon Commission in California. It was set up by outgoing Gov. Gray Davis and incoming Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The commission is being chaired by retired State Sen. William Campbell. Campbell has been around the fire services for many, many years going back to FIRESCOPE in the 1970s. He knows the fire problem in California.

The approach that the commission is taking tries to look at a systems approach. By that I mean there are several [aspects] of an effective wildland fire preparedness/structural fire preparedness strategy. It's important to point out that one of the things that has to get our attention in a place like California is the fact that California may represent the largest fire department in the U.S., arguably the largest fire department in the world, and you have to ask yourself the question, how can record-setting fires still occur? How can over 3,000 homes [be destroyed] and over 20 people [killed], how can that still happen?

Well, when you take a systems approach to it, I think you start to recognize that there are several elements to an effective fire protection program. We've always relied on strong fire department capabilities and capacity, and we need to continue to do that. But we need to start looking beyond that, too. What's the role, for example, of safe building construction codes and zoning requirements? What's the role of defensible space and non-flammable vegetation growing around people's homes and structures? And finally, what's the relationship of land management and resource management objectives that dominate the landscape?

When you look at that from the systems approach, you start to realize … that there are important things that we need to do in each of these areas. We must have strong fire departments with the capability and capacity to deal with the threats that are likely to come their way.

A fire environment like Southern California must have safe building construction standards and strong zoning requirements for subdivisions. That means if you have a choice between cedar shake roofs with open eaves and open decks versus non-flammable building materials on the roof and siding, it makes a lot of sense to put in place construction standards that harden that home to the eventuality of a severe wildfire.

In terms of defensible space from a homeowner's standpoint, brush-clearing is one of the smartest things that homeowners can do to protect their homes. In terms of land management or resource management objectives across the landscape, we have to start looking at managing vegetation not only for endangered-species habitats and air quality and water quality and visual quality and all the things that we want, but we also have to start looking at managing it in terms of wildland fire risk.

In terms of the land management objectives, one of the findings I think you'll see reflected in the report is that we were managing wildland vegetation for a whole variety of purposes. We were managing it for endangered-species habitat, water quality, visual quality. We were managing it for a lot of different expectations, but … the most severe, most damaging wildfires were occurring in vegetation that was not being managed to mitigate wildfire risks. It's being managed for lots of other reasons but not that one.

And when you look at a place like Southern California, … the chaparral … is one of the most volatile fuel types in the world. Not managing that vegetation for wildfire risk sets the stage for a catastrophic wildfire, and when you look back at the Bel Air Fire in 1961 or the Laguna Fire in the 1970s, the Panorama Fire in the 1980s, the Malibu-Topanga Fire in 1993, about once every 10 years or so in California, old vegetation, dense brush and drought come together with Santa Ana winds and it exceeds the biggest fire department capacity in the world. If we're going to mitigate wildfire risks in Southern California, we're going to have to deal with the fuel situation down there. And in fact I and others believe that across this country, the megafire, the large firefight, is going to be won or lost on the fuels front.

Another finding that I think you'll see reflected in this report: Most of the homes that were lost were homes that were vulnerable to wildfire risk. They were built of combustible building materials and they had little or no brush clearance around them.

I contrast that with Ventura County in Southern California, which over a decade ago put in place very strict building construction standards, put in place very strict brush clearance standards and has actively managed the wildland component of the county. Since it put those codes and ordinances and regulations and requirements in place — despite I don't know how many fires — they haven't lost a single home in Ventura County. That's an important observation we need to heed as we develop a systems approach to fire protection for people and communities and natural resources and these wildlands where they make the interface.

Again, having a strong fire department and a strong capacity in our firefighting organizations is extraordinarily important. But looking at the size and severity and intensity of these wildfires, we can no longer overlook the vegetation and what people are doing to protect their homes and how these homes are being built. We've got to look at the whole picture and look at the systems that define the severity of these wildfires.

Will that panel be issuing a report soon?

It's supposed to be coming out here next month, but the chairman is meeting with the governor … to lay out the commission's findings and recommendations and lay out a timeline for the release of that report. So that's really now up to the chairman and the governor to work out.…

When we look at these extraordinarily large fires … that have been occurring over the last several years, the size, the severity, the intensity of these fires, the loss, the cost, the damages that are occurring are telling me and others this is no longer a fire operations issue per se. It's a public lands policy, public-use policy issue more than a simple fire operations policy issue.

One of the tragedies, I think, that occurred in Southern California and is occurring elsewhere — same dynamic occurred in the Rodeo-Chediski Fire in Arizona. I mentioned earlier that we're managing these forests and brush lands for a variety of resource benefits. The tragedy is that the strategies we're using to manage these lands ecologically are in fact imperiling the very values we hope to sustain.

I don't know how many more Rodeo-Chediski fires we can have before the Mexican spotted owl is extinct because of the loss of its habitat. I don't know how many more Cedar fires Southern California can experience before the endangered species down there are altogether lost. And don't get me wrong, I'm not being critical of the Endangered Species Act. I would say the same thing about watershed values or visual values or recreational values.

We have to manage these landscapes in ways that are consistent with the ecological dynamics of these fire regimes. If we hope to manage for species or for watersheds or for air quality or to protect people in communities, that has got to be factored in. One of the things that these fires are telling us is when we manage for resource values, whatever they are, is if we're not managing in ways that are consistent with the ecological dynamics of these fire regimes, we're looking for a nosebleed.

What role can local fire chiefs play?

I think they have an extraordinarily important role. I look at local fire chiefs as being the real conduit between many of our publics and many of the political influences that drive decisions at the local level. Whether that's a fire chief being the conduit between a local public, an assemblyman or a county commissioner or a mayor, that fire chief plays an extraordinarily important role.

That role might be awareness. The wildland agencies can do a better job in communicating the wildland fire risks that may surround a community and making that known to a fire chief so that the fire chief can help make that known among the local public and among the political influences that drive decisions.

I also believe that local fire chiefs play a vital role in helping us manage the wildlands. It's in all of our best interest to be working together. I look at a fire like Cerro Grande that went into Los Alamos and burned something like 240 homes. When you look at that incident, some people will be very critical of the fact that they didn't have a strong enough burn plan or on site they didn't have a good enough forecast for the weather. And I want us to start looking beyond the operational influences of these fires, good or bad, and start looking at them from a programmatic standpoint at landscape scales.

One of the problems I think many of us on the Cerro Grande Fire simply can't repeat is that we can no longer manage our jurisdictional interests in isolation. What I mean by that is we have to start looking at how we manage at landscape scales across jurisdictions. That means that if we have a hazard on forest service or park service or state land or county land or city land, that we all work together in understanding the nature of that hazard together in figuring out ways to mitigate that hazard.…

Fire chiefs, forest FMOs, district FMOs, rangers, park superintendents, county commissioners, our publics, mayors: We all have a stake in this, and working together I think is the only way to go if we're going to be more effective in dealing with these kinds of fires at a systems level.