It was not all that long after I I first wrote about wildland firefighting in the summer of 2008 that I first heard about the 10 Standard Fire Orders and the 18 Watch Out Situations (go here to read this article). Before I began focusing first on wildland firefighting and then on aerial wildland firefighting I had a vague idea that safety is of the utmost importance to any emergency responder. A while back, one of my friends was an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) in New Jersey. If memory serves, she told me once that they were trained not to put their own lives in jeopardy when responding to a call.
As I began to learn more about wildland firefighting both on the ground and in the air, I the importance that wildland firefighters put on staying safe had an increasingly profound impact on me. As I read various remarks, comments and forum posts by wildland firefighters (ground pounders) and those engaged in aerial wildland firefighting I observed that they would often their remarks with "stay safe."
When I thought about how to start this series of posts about wildland firefighting I knew that I had to begin by writing about the tools that wildland firefighters (aka groundpounders) use to stay safe. And one of these "tools", if you will, are words in the form of the 10 Standard Fire Orders and 18 Watch Out Situations.
This is another nice short video from the National Interagency Fire Center on the 10 Standard Fire Orders that all wildland firefighters follow. In addition there are list of 18 situations that all wildland firefighters watch out for, aka the 18 Watch Out Situations:
1. Fire not scouted and sized up.
2. In country not seen in daylight.
3. Safety zones and escape routes not identified.
4. Unfamiliar with weather and local factors influencing fire behavior
5. Uninformed on strategy, tactics, and hazards.
6. Instructions and assignments not clear.
7. No communication link between crewmembers and supervisors.
8. Constructing line without safe anchor point.
9. Building line downhill with fire below.
10. Attempting frontal assault on fire.
11. Unburned fuel between you and the fire.
12. Cannot see main fire, not in contact with anyone who can.
13. On a hillside where rolling material can ignite fuel below.
14. Weather gets hotter and drier.
15. Wind increases and/or changes direction.
16. Getting frequent spot fires across line.
17. Terrain or fuels make escape to safety zones
18. Feel like taking a nap near fire line
(obtained from http://www.nifc.gov/safety/safety_10ord_18sit.html on Dec. 5, 2012)
Over the last four years that I have writing the blog on aerial wildland firefighting, I have often referred to what is commonly known as the "Red Book" (revised annually) outlining standards for wildland firefighting here in the U.S. Chapter 7 of the Red Book is on safety, a link may be found here. For a listing of each chapter in the Red Book, as well as a link to a single PDF file for the latest Red Book, go here.
Aerial Wildland Firefighters fly to support the groundpounders.