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, which encompass 193 million acres (780,000 km2). Major divisions of the agency include the National Forest System, State and Private Forestry, Business Operations, and the Research and Development branch. Managing approximately 25% of federal lands, it is the only major national land agency that is outside the U.S. Department of the Interior.
The Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) in College Station, Texas is the largest transportation research agency in the United States. Created in 1950, primarily in response to the needs of the Texas Highway Department, TTI has since broadened its focus to address all modes of transportation–highway, air, water, rail, pipeline, and automated/connected vehicles. TTI is a state agency and a member of the Texas A&M University System. TTI’s cooperative relationship with the Texas Department of Transportation has helped the Institute develop and implement work for numerous other sponsors.
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.
Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service is a state extension agency that offers training programs and technical assistance to public safety workers, both in Texas and around the world. Established in 1940 as the Industrial Extension Service, the agency took on its current name when it joined The Texas A&M University System in 1948. The agency sponsors the state's primary urban search and rescue force, Urban Search and Rescue Texas Task Force 1, and operates the Brayton Fire Training Field. Brayton is the largest firefighting training facility in the United States that also contains a mock city for conducting training operations for emergency responders.
Incident management team (IMT) is a term used in the United States of America to refer to a group that responds to an emergency. Although the primary purpose of an incident management team is for wildfire response, an IMT 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 Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is the agency of the state of Michigan charged with maintaining natural resources such as state parks, state forests, and recreation areas. It is governed by a director appointed by the Governor and accepted by the Natural Resources Commission. Currently the Director is Keith Creagh. The DNR has about 1,400 permanent employees, and over 1,600 seasonal employees.
Texas A&M Task Force 1, abbreviated TX-TF1, is a FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Task Force, one of 28 teams that form the FEMA National Urban Search and Rescue System, and as such it is in rotation for deploying to national disasters and incidents of national significance. It is sponsored by the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service and headquartered in College Station, Texas.
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 original acronym FIRESCOPE stood for "FIrefighting REsources of Southern California Organized for Potential Emergencies." The system was developed after a bout of massive southern California wildfires in 1970, which burned for days and involved multiple jurisdictions. The system was designed to create an efficient interagency resource coordination system for fire and other emergencies in the Southern California Region. The system was later expanded to provide service statewide.
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:
The Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) manages over 3,000,000 acres (12,000 km2) of forest, range, agricultural, and commercial lands in the U.S. state of Washington. The DNR also manages 2,600,000 acres (11,000 km2) of aquatic areas which include shorelines, tidelands, lands under Puget Sound and the coast, and navigable lakes and rivers. Part of the DNR's management responsibility includes monitoring of mining cleanup, environmental restoration, providing scientific information about earthquakes, landslides, and ecologically sensitive areas. DNR also works towards conservation, in the form of Aquatic Reserves such as Maury Island and in the form of Natural Area Preserves like Mima Mounds or Natural Resource Conservation Areas like Woodard Bay Natural Resource Conservation Area.
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.
The Nebraska Forest Service is the state forestry agency for the state of Nebraska. The Nebraska Forest Service serves the citizens on Nebraska by operating with the mission to provide services and education to the people of Nebraska for the protection, utilization and enhancement of the State's tree, forest and other natural resources. Headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska, the Nebraska Forest Service is embedded within the Institution of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
The Bastrop County Complex fire was the most destructive wildfire in Texas history, striking areas of Bastrop County in September and October 2011. Three separate fires started on September 4, 2011, as a result of strong winds caused by nearby Tropical Storm Lee, and merged into one large blaze that burned east of the city of Bastrop. Two people were killed by the fire, which destroyed 1,673 homes and inflicted an estimated $325 million of insured property damage. The fire furthermore caused severe damage to Bastrop State Park and the ancient Lost Pines Forest. After being largely contained in late September, the fire was declared controlled on October 10. The fire moved underground later in October and was finally extinguished on October 29.
The North Carolina Forest Service, formerly known as the North Carolina Division of Forest Resources is a North Carolina state government agency responsible for providing land management assistance to landowners. The agencies priority responsibility is for wildland fire control on all state and privately owned land in North Carolina, United States. The Service was a Division of the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources until July 2011 and is now part of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
Roads and Maritime Services is an agency of the New South Wales Government responsible for building and maintaining road infrastructure and managing the day-to-day compliance and safety for roads and waterways.
Wildfires are outdoor fires that occur in the wilderness or other vast spaces. Other common names associated with wildfires are brushfire and forest fire. Since wildfires can occur anywhere on the planet, except for Antarctica, they pose a threat to civilizations and wildlife alike. In terms of emergency management, wildfires can be particularly devastating. Given their ability to destroy large areas of entire ecosystems, there must be a contingency plan in effect to be as prepared as possible in case of a wildfire and to be adequately prepared to handle the aftermath of one as well.
The New Jersey Forest Fire Service (NJFFS) is an agency within the New Jersey Division of Parks and Forestry, a division of 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 are a common problem for Americans especially for those who live in California and southern areas near. Policies have been implemented starting in 1908 with the Forest Fire Emergency Fund Act. Since then numerous policies have been in place such as the "10AM Policy". FEMA and NFPA created policies to help with damages to buildings and houses. The U.S. Army and U.S. Forest Service also take part in preserving timber. Wildfires were seen to be a major problem. Smokey the Bear was introduced to the public to spread awareness to adolescence. Wildfires have been a problem for years and the most notable fires recently were the 2016 California Wildfires.
