NFPA Standard Explorer

Framework for wildland fire prevention, mitigation, and response management. Addresses community risk reduction in wildland-urban interface areas, operational organization concepts, and resource management principles for wildland fire incidents.

WUI fire events increasingly threaten communities at the boundary of wildland and developed areas. Departments without a wildland fire management framework often default to structural tactics in an environment where they can become trapped or outflanked. Planned, trained wildland response reduces exposure and improves outcomes.

• Wildland fire behavior fundamentals (fire environment: fuel, weather, topography—high level)
• Pre-fire risk mitigation and defensible space concepts
• Wildland incident organization and command concepts (high level)
• Resource ordering, typing, and coordination concepts
• Safety zone and escape route planning concepts
• WUI community risk reduction concepts

• Developing a wildland response plan for departments with WUI exposure in their response district
• Training company officers on fire behavior recognition: wind, slope, and fuel interactions
• Establishing defensible space criteria for high-risk areas during community risk reduction programs
• Pre-planning safety zones and escape routes for known high-risk wildland access corridors
• Coordinating mutual aid agreements with state forestry or wildland agencies

• Structural tactics work in wildland fires (structure protection in WUI requires wildland-adapted tactics and defensive preparation).
• Safety zones are always pre-identified (in rapidly evolving wildland incidents, safety zones may need to be identified on the fly—crews must know the criteria).
• WUI fires are only a western US problem (wildland-urban interface fires occur across the country—any department near brush, grass, or timber has exposure).

• Map wildland fuel types and access routes in your response district and identify known choke points and dead ends
• Train all company officers on LCES (Lookouts, Communications, Escape Routes, Safety Zones) as a minimum wildland safety framework
• Develop a written wildland response plan that covers trigger points for resource escalation and defensive posture decisions
• Coordinate mutual-aid dispatch procedures with your state forestry or wildland agency before fire season