Federal wildland fire agencies will be changing their strategies to battle wildfires, especially on fighting “megafires,” according to Jerry Williams, director of Fire and Aviation Management of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service.

In a recent interview with Wildfire magazine, Williams said the Forest Service is looking to develop strategies tailored to the unique demands of four kinds of wildfires:

1. Small, initial-attack fires, which account for 95% of the fires each year. “We attack aggressively and quickly contain and control it,” says Williams. “It's suppressed with relatively small effort and little notice.”

2. Extended-attack fires, which have escaped initial attack efforts and require stronger attack and reinforcement to put out. Although they make up only about 4% of wildfires, 70% of wildland fatalities occur in these fires.

3. Large fires, which require Type 1 or Type 2 Incident Management Teams. “They're going to manage this fire for several burn periods, but eventually they're going to bring the forces to bear to put the fire to rest.”

4. Megafires make up less than .01% of all fires and require several Incident Management Teams and an area command to manage. They capture national media attention.

Williams said his agency is working with the JFK School of Government at Harvard and the Special Forces Command at Fort Bragg, N.C., to develop a ‘megafire management model’ that “challenges the notion that more is better, the larger these fires become. We're starting to look at different strategies and tactics that emphasize point protection over perimeter control, for example.”