Alice Forbes is the assistant director for operations, fire and aviation management for the U.S. Forest Service and the forest service fire director at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. She began her career as a seasonal Forest Service employee in 1972 on the Stanislaus National Forest in California. Fire Chief recently spoke to her about the upcoming U.S. wildland fire season and other wildland issues.

FC: Tell me about your position within NIFC and the Forest Service.

Forbes: As assistant director of operations at NIFC, I oversee with the four other directors the coordination and mobilization of aviation and other resource firefighters, crews, engines and assets between geographic areas nationally as well as internationally. And then I work with the National Interagency Support Cache System to provide management oversight and direction to that group. We have a National Interagency Incident Support Radio Cache System as well.… We have a significant number of radio kits that we can send out to support an incident, whether it's a wildland fire or a hurricane. Of course we support FEMA efforts; we're right now doing the shuttle recovery in Texas and we've been involved with the AFIS/Exotic Newcastle disease outbreak in California. We've been to Australia this winter; we have been very, very busy. As more and more people look at us and see what we can accomplish, more and more people are asking for our assistance. We are moving more toward an all-risk response in most cases.

FC: Experts are predicting that this year's wildland fire season won't be as severe. What are your thoughts on that?

Forbes: Well, I was taught early in my career that only fools predict fire seasons, but of course that was before we got a lot of the tools that we have today, so I'm a little more comfortable now. The predictive services group that we have in Boise now and the models that they've developed are so far superior to what we used to use, and they actually come fairly close to what we can expect. And so, while we're not, at this point, expecting the season to shape up to be as severe as it was last year, we still are in for a potentially busy fire season through the Southwest, into Southern California.… The fire season is looking like it's going to be higher than normal in Southern California, on the eastern side of the Cascades and in Oregon and Washington, across Idaho, into the Great Lakes states, dipping down into Colorado and Utah as well as Nevada.

When we get into problems is when we have the high potential and we have a multiple-ignition day, for example, and it happens in two or three areas at once. If the fire season does what it normally does, which is starts in the South, curves around to the Southwest, the monsoons come and then we have fire season in the Rockies and the lake states, then we'll be in pretty good shape. If we end up in a situation where we have multiple ignitions and multiple geographic areas at the same time, that's where we get into the stretched resources, the numbers are short and that's when we get really organized in a MAC [multiple agency coordinating] group and start saying “OK, where are our highest priorities, where are our highest threats to life and property and where are we going to move resources?”

FC: NIFC can set up a support system for 10,000 firefighters in 24 hours. How are the resources distributed? How is it coordinated?

Forbes: We have a very efficient system set up. We have contracts in place in advance of the fire season with catering, showering units, you name it and we probably have a contract with them ahead of the fire season just so that when these events happen we can order those folks up and basically set up a town for 5,000 to 10,000 people. We've just done it for a lot of years and we're pretty efficient at it, if I may brag a moment about our coordination system. Believe me, those people do yeoman's work to make it happen. I'm not saying we don't have glitches along the way, you get new people in positions or just something goes wrong at one point or another, and we all have those every season, but realistically it's a pretty good organization.

FC: How helpful are Red Cards — structural firefighters who get wildland certification?

Forbes: According to the National Wildfire Coordinating Group guidelines, of which all the federal fire agencies are members, if a department certifies that an individual is qualified to do the job then the receiving agency accepts that qualification. In addition to that, this year we are, as part of our operating strategic plan … reminding all of our local units to include their partner agencies. If they're going to put on a training session, call us. We're going to put on this training and we have X slots available, and we'd be more than happy to have you share it with us. That way, you also get to know your partners before you get into a fire emergency.