The International Association of Wildland Fire, in cooperation with the International Association of Fire Chiefs and the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Research Station, has announced a new conference, “Wildfire 2002: Surviving the Interface Danger Zone,” to be held Dec. 4-6, in Kansas City, Mo.

This conference and exhibition is the first-ever national conference held by the co-sponsoring organizations to deal exclusively with wildland-urban interface issues. It's also the first major exhibition of wildland and urban interface vendors, services and products.

The conference planning committee includes representatives from the IAWF, the IAFC, the Rocky Mountain Research Station and the Forest Service. In addition, a wide variety of wildland fire agencies participated in reviewing the program and speakers. As a result of this planning and research effort, the conference program will focus on four areas:

1. Safety in the interface.

2. Wildland-urban interface suppression, management, tactics and tools.

3. Prevention, mitigation, environmental concerns and fuels management.

4. Promoting community assistance.

Breakout sessions within these areas will focus on a number of timely topics, such as certifications and qualifications for responders, advances in technology, proper use of ics in the interface, developing local incident management teams, GIS and modeling, pre-fire planning in the interface, firewise and fire safe councils, and effective local land-use planning, among others. For a specific program, visit <www.iawfonline.org>.

This conference aims to bring together representatives from both wildland fire agencies and structural fire departments. Although wildland fire agencies and structural fire departments have common goals and work closely with each other to combat interface fires, they traditionally have been alienated from each other and haven't been trained or organized to work together.

“We need to make sure that [structural] fire departments realize that wildland fire agencies are an important part of success when planning for urban interface fires,” said Garry L. Briese, executive director of the IAFC. “At the same time, wildland agencies need to recognize the important role and the significant resource that exists in structural fire departments.”

General session speakers will include:

• John Maclean, author of Fire on the Mountain, an account of the 1994 Storm King Mountain fire that claimed the lives of 14 firefighters, who will explore other lesser-known yet compelling events in wildland fire history; and
• Jack Cohen, research physical scientist with Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory, who will present his Structure Ignition Assessment Model, a method for assessing wildland fire threat to homes.

In addition, representatives from the Departments of Interior and Agriculture will be conducting a review of federal wildland fire policies and strategies.

More than 100 exhibitors will be on-hand to display the latest wildland products and services.

For more information or to obtain a brochure for the conference, visit either <www.iawfonline.org> or <www.iafc.org> or call 703-273-9815, ext. 310.