Book Description

Each year, the incursion of private residences into wildlands increases the potential for the devastating loss of important natural resources and private property from wildfire. Structural and wildland firefighters are working side-by-side in a setting that is not typical of their traditional workplaces. These wildland-urban intermix fires have proven to be a special risk to the safety of the firefighters battling them. In the 1990gass alone, firefighters have been seriously injured or killed on intermix fires in Arizona, California, Utah, Kentucky, and other States. This report discusses key areas of concern for firefighter safety in the wildland-urban intermix: command and control, mix of forces, access, civilian population, personal protective clothing and equipment, and special hazards.