Firestorm & Wildfire Survival

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Firewise Landscaping For thousands of years, we have enjoyed beautifying our surroundings. From the earliest recorded gardens of the Egyptians in 3000 BC. to today's landscaping, the principles of unity, balance, proportion, and variety remain as the basic design tools of landscape architects, designers, and nursery professionals...

Peak Fire Seasons Very cool. Click on a month and see how the nation's fire hazards change...

New Generation Fire Shelter (pdf) The fire shelter is a mandatory item of personal protective equipment for all Federal wildland firefighters and must be carried on the fireline by everyone on Federal wildland fires. State, local, and rural Fire departments may have different policies regarding the fire shelter’s use. However, no one who is required to carry a fire shelter should go on the fireline without reading, understanding, and practicing the recommendations in this booklet.

Fire Hazard Assessment in the Wildland/Urban Interface PDF Version This website was developed by the National Wildland/Urban Interface Fire Protection Program with two purposes in mind. First, to educate homeowners and developers of the wildfire problem. And second, to show homeowners and developers simple steps they can take to make homes built in the wildland safer and more likely to survive a wildfire...

Everyone's Responsibility or PDF Version or Video Version: The National Wildland/ Urban Interface Fire Protection Program originally used the term "interface" in a generic way to describe any area where potentially dangerous combustible wildland fuels were found adjacent to combustible homes and other structures...

Firewise Checklists PDF Version only: A two-page checklist for landscaping design and new home construction

Is Your Home Protected From Wildfire Disaster? PDF Version only: A Homeowner’s Guide to Wildfire Retrofit. The purpose of this document is to provide homeowners with guidance on ways to retrofit and build homes to reduce losses from wildfire damage. It contains suggestions and recommendations based on professional judgment, experience and research and is intended to serve only as a guide...

Firewise - Around Your Home PDF Version only: Snazzy illustrated pamphlet - A two-page checklist for landscaping design and new home construction.

FIRE BEHAVIOR "Fire Behavior" Handouts and "Fire Behavior" Overhead Transparencies

STRUCTURE PROTECTION STRATEGIES: "Structure Protection Strategies" Handouts and "Structure Protection Strategies" Overhead Transparencies

FIREFIGHTER SAFETY: "Firefighter Safety" Handouts and "Firefighter Safety" Overhead Transparencies

Below are links to FIREWISE Interactive modules, in a variety of formats, from HTML to FLASH and Shockwave:

Firewise Hints
Dynamics of Wildfire
Explore a Firewise Home - VR Tour
Preparing a Home for Wildfire Season
Wildfire Approaching
Perry Park Interactive Q&A
How Firewise Are You?

Final Report on Fuel Treatments and Fire Regimes [PDF file] The size and severity of recent fire episodes are widely attributed to altered fuel profiles as a result of fire exclusion and fire regime disruption in many ecosystems. Current national fuels management initiatives propose widespread application of prescribed fire and other treatments both to reduce the potential of catastrophic wildfire and to restore the structure and function of altered ecosystems. However, the chain of hypotheses that link historic fire regimes to appropriate fuel treatment application has not received a systematic assessment. This project seeks to provide such an assessment with a series of quantitative literature syntheses that focus on the following questions...

Wildfire Basics - Before, During & After There are three different classes of wildland fires. A surface fire is the most common type and burns along the floor of a forest, moving slowly and killing or damaging trees. A ground fire is usually started by lightning and burns on or below the forest floor. Crown fires spread rapidly by wind and move quickly by jumping along the tops of trees. Wildland fires are usually signaled by dense smoke that fills the area for miles around...

Wild Land Fire Behavior Basic Concepts By Eli, 13 May 2003. This is article 1 of 2. This is covering fire behavior and the 2^nd article will cover suppressing it and strategies you can use to defend your homestead/retreat from a wild land fire.

"Coping with Wildfires" (c) 1993, Willis Lamm, TrailBlazer Magazine "COPING WITH WILDFIRES" By Willis Lamm Reprinted with permission of TrailBlazer Magazine for non-commercial use. Imagine you and some friends are enjoying an afternoon ride in the foothills. You are in moderately open country, broken by handfuls of oak trees. The wind is whispering through golden, waist high grasses. As you descend around the curvature of one of the hills you notice below you a rather large and wide based column of smoke. The wind is blowing in your direction. What would you do?

FACT SHEET: FIRE Storms The threat of wild fires for people living near wildland areas or using recreational facilities in wilderness areas is real. Advance planning and knowing how to protect buildings in these areas can lessen the devastation of a wildland fire.

Wildfire Safety Short tip sheet.

American Red Cross- Wildfire The American Red Cross helps keep people safe every day as well as in an emergency thanks to caring people who support our work in the community. Here they present a rather lengthy but generalized tip sheet on what to do if caught in a wildfire.

Forest Service Fire & Aviation Management Division of the USDA Forest Service is responsible for wildland fire throughout the nation's forestland. Check out fire reports, and read news.

Western Forest Fire Research Center Interdisciplinary research facility at Colorado State University explores forest fire prevention and control

Firestorm physics (halfway down the page) This description of the physics of mass fire is based on the work of a few scientists who have examined in detail the damaging effects of nuclear weapons, including nuclear engineer Theodore A. Postol and physicist Harold Brode. Postol is one of the country's leading non-government-funded technical experts on nuclear weapons, missiles, and arms control. Brode's five-decade career has been devoted to the study of nuclear weapons effects.

On fire effects of nuclear weapons and military planning Eden claims that fire effects are predictable, which is not true. Note that mass fires did not result from detonations on Pacific islands and in the Nevada desert. Mass fires require fuel. It is not clear that a nuclear detonation over a city will leave enough fuel widely exposed. Recall that the collapse of the WTC towers largely extinguished the mass fires of burning jet fuel and office contents. Some buried fires continued, but in a blast demolished city this won't support a firestorm. The mere examples of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (firestorm in one, conflagration in the other, both in comparable urban environments with comparable weapons) show unpredictability.

Causal Discussion: Example The consequence of a mass fire is total devastation within the affected area. The temperature in a mass fire can exceed 1000 degrees Celsius, a temperature higher than necessary to melt glass and metal and to burn ordinary fireproof materials. In addition to the burn casualties, carbon monoxide and other toxic gases generated by the fire would be deadly.

FIRE BEHAVIOR AND FIRELINE SAFETY The main physical aspects of forest fire propagation are described with the intention of illustrating its complexity and the risks associated with fire-fighting activities. The various modes of fire propagation and corresponding heat transfer mechanisms are described in relation to their effects on personnel working on the fireline. Some study cases of fatal accidents caused by forest fires are presented in order to emphasize the importance of having an adequate assessment of fire behavior, together with training and adequate protective equipment, in order to prevent this type of accident.

Wikpedia results for "Great Urban Fires"

A Reporter's Guide to Wildland Fire Takes a long time to download this 38 page PDF, but if you are patient, it is worth reading.

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