Uniting the global wildland fire community
Just after midnight on October 30, 2012, Chief Robert Maynes, Borough Commander of Queens, in New York City, found himself in chest-high surge waters from the Atlantic Ocean in the middle of a hurricane. As he waded his way to the scene of Box 1407 at Beach 130th Street in Belle Harbor, he came upon […]
The 1936 fire season in Alberta was long, hot and dry and had taken its toll on men and equipment by early August. The numbers of fires, persistence needed to control and extinguish them, limited resources and long distances with little access were all factors in wearing down the fledgling Alberta Forest Service that had been established […]
Over the seasons, Jeff Shelton has brought his camera to the fireline and captured the routine of daily life and work of a Southern California strike team. Shelton is stationed on the edge of the Cleveland National Forest in Silverado Canyon and is working his twenty-fifth season in fire. Having deployments from San Diego to […]
IAWF members have free online access to all research articles and back issues, a great member benefit. The IAWF member page directs you to the Journal, where you can search for your paper, author and/or fire subject of interest. All papers that have been accepted, even those not yet published in hard copy, can be […]
Good question. When fire behavior becomes threatening, wildland firefighters disengage the fire and travel along escape routes to reach safety zones to avoid being entrapped or burned-over. In spite of the fact that the concept of escape routes has been a formally recognized element of wildland firefighter safety for almost 55 years, there is surprisingly […]
This is the seventh year the IAWF will be awarding two scholarships valued at $2,500 to promote the scholarly pursuits and graduate-level training within the global wildland fire community. The 2013 scholarship program received several applicants from students around the world in a range of science disciplines including social, environmental and physical sciences. This year’s […]
THOUGHTS ON LEADERSHIP. We understand leadership in many ways: as a function of personality, as behaviors in which we engage, as the ability to influence and persuade others, as our style, and our ability to adapt to the situation, as charisma, credibility, and the ability to inspire and motivate. All serve to explain some aspect of […]
BRIEFING: Farmers, baseball fans and firefighters all talk about the coming season. This year, in our corner of Wyoming, the talk is of wet months and dry and a hope for a normal summer of thunderstorms. Yet, along with most of the West, we’re in long-term drought. Spring flushed green with hints of a normal […]
FROM THE PRESIDENT’S DESK. As you may recall from the previous column, the absence of basic statistical information about the U.S. wildland fire problem — specifically, the wildland/urban interface (WUI) — is frustrating to those of us in the wildland community. In the last column, the final discussion about the 46 million homes in the WUI […]
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