In the United States, the National Wildfire Coordinating Group operates a nationwide, web-based database system for managing wildland firefightingresources. The system, called National Interagency Resource Ordering and Status System or Resource Ordering and Status System, (or simply ROSS), improves efficiency of borrowing and sending home of fire equipment in a large, campaign-type fire. It coordinates equipment movements across bureaucratic lines, making state and federal resources look more like a single pool of equipment and staff.
In the past, borrowing equipment and staff, called resources, from other agencies required people in a command center to place telephone calls and make radio inquiries to find out what was available. Some agencies had internal computer systems to manage equipment and staff moves but they could not exchange data with the systems of other agencies. This made processes produce non-repeatable results and was labor-intensive, tying up staff on the telephone during their busiest periods. ROSS speeds the process and gives system users an enhanced understanding of:
what quantity of resources are assigned to a fire.
what quantity of resources are on the way to the fire.
how deeply their resources have been depleted by requests.
how soon local equipment will return from a distant assignment.
The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages 193 million acres (780,000 km2) of land. Major divisions of the agency include the Chief's Office, National Forest System, State and Private Forestry, Business Operations, and Research and Development. The agency manages about 25% of federal lands and is the only major national land management agency not part of the U.S. Department of the Interior, which manages the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management.
The Incident Command System (ICS) is a standardized approach to the command, control, and coordination of emergency response providing a common hierarchy within which responders from multiple agencies can be effective.
The National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS) of the United States protects federally managed wilderness areas designated for preservation in their natural condition. Activity on formally designated wilderness areas is coordinated by the National Wilderness Preservation System. Wilderness areas are managed by four federal land management agencies: the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management. The term "wilderness" is defined as "an area where the earth and community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain" and "an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions." As of 2016, there are 803 designated wilderness areas, totaling 111,368,221 acres (45,069,120 ha), or about 4.5% of the area of the United States.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection is a fire department of the California Natural Resources Agency in California, United States. It is responsible for fire protection in various areas under state responsibility totaling 31 million acres, as well as the administration of the state's private and public forests. In addition, the department provides varied emergency services in 36 of the state's 58 counties via contracts with local governments. The department's director is Thom Porter, who was appointed by Governor of California Gavin Newsom.
In the United States, a hotshot crew, formally known as an interagency hotshot crew, is a handcrew of 20-22 wildland firefighters which responds to large, high-priority fires across the country and are assigned to work the most challenging parts of the fire. They have specific qualifications to provide leadership for initial-attack and extended-attack on wildland fires, and are trained and equipped to work autonomously in remote areas for extended periods of time with little or no logistical support. Hotshot crews are the most highly trained, skilled, and experienced type of handcrews. Hotshot crews are organized by agencies such as the United States Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, and state and county agencies; the National Interagency Fire Center coordinates hotshot crews on the federal level.
Wildfire suppression is a range of firefighting tactics used to suppress wildfires. Firefighting efforts in wild land areas require different techniques, equipment, and training from the more familiar structure fire fighting found in populated areas. Working in conjunction with specially designed aerial firefighting aircraft, these wildfire-trained crews suppress flames, construct fire lines, and extinguish flames and areas of heat to protect resources and natural wilderness. Wildfire suppression also addresses the issues of the wildland-urban interface, where populated areas border with wild land areas.
Incident management team (IMT) is a term used in the United States of America to refer to a group of trained personnel that responds to an emergency. Although the incident management team concept was originally developed for wildfire response, it has been expended into what is now known as "All-Hazards Incident Management Team”. An AHIMT can respond to a wide range of emergencies, including fires, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunami, riots, spilling of hazardous materials, and other natural or human-caused incidents.
The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho is the physical facility which is the home to the National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC), and the National Multi-Agency Coordination group.
The National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) was formed in the United States as a result of the aftermath of a major wildfire season in 1970.
In wildland fire suppression in the United States, S-130/S-190 refers to the basic wildland fire training course required of all firefighters before they can work on the firelines.
In the state of New Jersey, the New Jersey Division of Parks and Forestry is an administrative division of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. In its most visible role, the Division is directly responsible for the management and operation of New Jersey's public park system which includes 42 state parks, 11 state forests, 3 recreation areas, and more than 50 historic sites and districts. However, its duties also include protecting state and private lands from wildfire, managing forests, educating the public about environmental stewardship and natural resources, as well as growing trees to maintain and restore forests in rural and urban areas, and to preserve the diversity of the trees within the forests.
The United States National Response Framework (NRF) is part of the National Strategy for Homeland Security that presents the guiding principles enabling all levels of domestic response partners to prepare for and provide a unified national response to disasters and emergencies. Building on the existing National Incident Management System (NIMS) as well as Incident Command System (ICS) standardization, the NRF's coordinating structures are always in effect for implementation at any level and at any time for local, state, and national emergency or disaster response.
FIRESCOPE is a system for efficient interagency resource coordination system for fire and other emergencies in the southern California region of the United States. It was developed after a bout of massive wildfires in southern California in 1970 that burned for days and involved multiple jurisdictions.
The Virginia Department of Forestry (VDOF) was established in 1914 to prevent and suppress forest fires and reforest bare lands. Since its inception, the agency has grown and evolved to encompass other protection and management duties:
Wildfire suppression in the United States has had a long and varied history. For most of the 20th century, any form of wildland fire, whether it was naturally caused or otherwise, was quickly suppressed for fear of uncontrollable and destructive conflagrations such as the Peshtigo Fire in 1871 and the Great Fire of 1910. In the 1960s, policies governing wildfire suppression changed due to ecological studies that recognized fire as a natural process necessary for new growth. Today, policies advocating complete fire suppression have been exchanged for those who encourage wildland fire use, or the allowing of fire to act as a tool, such as the case with controlled burns.
InciWeb is an interagency all-risk incident web information management system provided by the United States Forest Service released in 2004. It was originally developed for wildland fire emergencies, but can be also used for other emergency incidents.
A fire adapted community is defined by the United States Forest Service as "a knowledgeable and engaged community in which the awareness and actions of residents regarding infrastructure, buildings, landscaping, and the surrounding ecosystem lessens the need for extensive protection actions and enables the community to safely accept fire as a part of the surrounding landscape." The National Wildfire Coordinating Group definition, which was developed and approved by the Wildland Urban Interface Mitigation Committee, is "A human community consisting of informed and prepared citizens collaboratively planning and taking action to safely co-exist with wildland fire."
The New Jersey Forest Fire Service (NJFFS) is an agency within the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Founded in 1906 with a focus on wildland fire suppression and fire protection, the Forest Fire Service is the largest firefighting department within the state of New Jersey in the United States with 85 full-time professional firefighting personnel, and approximately 2,000 trained part-time on-call wildland firefighters throughout the state. Its mission is to protect "life and property, as well as the state's natural resources, from wildfire".
Wildfires can happen in many places in the United States, especially during droughts, but are most common in Western United States and Florida. They may be triggered naturally, most commonly by lightning, or by human activity like unextinguished smoking materials, faulty electrical equipment, overheating automobiles, or arson. Fire management policy favored aggressive wildfire suppression starting in the early 20th century. In the 21st century, higher temperature and droughts driven by global warming have become more of a concern, and there has been increased advocacy for controlled burns and other measures to prevent fuel from accumulating in wild areas that can create more intense, larger, and difficult to control fires. Firefighters are generally employed by governments, including municipal and county fire departments, regional mutual aid organizations, and state agencies like the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the New Jersey Forest Fire Service. Wildfire response is coordinated at the federal level by the National Interagency Fire Center, with the participation of the U.S. National Weather Service, and various agencies of the Departments of the Interior, Agriculture, Homeland Security, and Commerce. Fire squadrons of the United States Army are also sometimes called to large fires.
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