Opportunity Recognition

Danger or Opportunity: Examining how We

Perceive Large Fires
Good Situational Awareness (SA) is the first step in the decision making process.
This is based on observing and communicating what is seen, heard and felt. This
allows the match of perception of the environment as closely as possible to the
reality of the environment. This is a complicated process as humans tend to make
decisions based on perception (observation + communication + emotion) and
not necessarily on reality. Good SA equals good perception and ultimately good
decisions.
A common perception of fire managers and line officers is that unwanted large
fires must be aggressively suppressed. Simply put . . . Fire = Danger. Any other
course of action, its felt, will sail into a sea fraught with failure and promote a
negative public reaction. Many feel it is important to be perceived by the public to
be doing everything possible to deal with the unwanted, unplanned fire (danger).
This is described in literature as the “Precautionary Principle.”
An unwanted fire in the wrong place at the wrong time is truly a danger.
Recognizing this, the Agency has designed an aggressive and effective approach
to initial attack and will continue to aggressively suppress problematic fires.
Ironically, the ability to successfully suppress the majority of the fires that occur, has
allowed a drift into complacency in decision making by automatically engaging
the suppression machine before mindful decisions about the effects of the fire are
made.
Often fire is perceived to be a danger simply because it triggers dramatic change
and disrupts our lives. Therefore, it is easy to choose to “fight” the fire through the
application of overwhelming mass. The language used reinforces this behavior.
There is a battle to contain the wildfire that is “burning out of control” and
“threatening” the forest. The reliance on abundance of aircraft and ground crews
gives the impression it is possible to sail into safer waters, away from negative
public perception, away from danger. The perception is as follows . . . more fire =
more firefighters.
However, there is now a more broadly held understanding of the reality of fire. Fire
is important and necessary. Almost all of the vegetation and ecosystems in United
States are fire adapted and/or fire evolved. Fire belongs here. Fire has always been
and will always be a part of the landscape. Native Americans used fire regularly.
European settlers brought a negative perception of fire which is still pervasive in
this country. The longer fire is out of the equation, the greater the impact when it
is included. That is reality. Fire is not always good, fire is not always bad. It just is.
Like rain, too little or too much can be harmful.
But, what if fire was perceived as opportunity? What if this latest escaped fire was
seen as an opportunity to finally allow fire on the landscape, to reset the ecological
clock. This fire could allow for a more “fireproof” community which no longer had
to stop worrying every summer about evacuations. This fire could allow stronger
bonds with neighbors and bring the community together.

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Opportunity Recognition
Imagine if every fire was
viewed as an opportunity to
think carefully about when,
where and how much risk the
lives of our young men and
women should be exposed
to? Often the risk from
the values to be protected
(infrastructure, threat to an
endangered species, historic
cabin, etc) is transferred
directly to the firefighters and
into the cockpits of aircraft.
What is truly a greater danger
(risk); a closed highway or
100 firefighters and multiple
aircraft working to keep the
highway open?
This leads to a simple question
when looking at a fire; is the
danger real or perceived; is
aggressively suppressing the
fire truly worth the risk?
An excerpt from a recent article in the December edition of the Journal of Forestry:
“External Human Factors in Incident Management Team Decision Making and Their
Effect on Large Fire Suppression Expenditures” accurately depicts the decision
dilemma.
“Sociologist W. I. Thomas wrote, “If men define things as real, they are real in their
consequences” (as cited by McHugh 1968, p. 7). Because perceptions are reality
in a person’s mind, decisions are made based on those perceptions. This means a
tendency toward risk aversion and a shrinking pool of midlevel fire managers may
continue, as will increase costs, unless the perception is changed.”

Basing Strategy and Tactics on Recognizing

Opportunity
Traditional wildland fire strategies start with an anchor point and then require an
ever-increasing insertion of people and equipment until either a direct or indirect
line is completed. This traditional strategy is based on Agency Administrator
and incident managers’ perceptions of threats (dangers) and rarely considers the
naturally pre-determined, and possibly inevitable, path of the fire.

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 Opportunity Recognition
Consider if a strategy was developed based on hot, dry and unstable weather,
Type I crews and aviation resources being in short supply and recognition that the
frightened public is reacting emotionally to their perceptions of the danger of fire
and smoke? Consider whether this strategy would not transfer risk to firefighters?
And, whether the strategy developed would not saddle the taxpayers with the
financial burden of a multi-million dollar fire? What would that strategy look like?
Additionally, what if the strategy saw fire as an inevitable occurrence and the
fire was managed with the view that considered the next fire as pre-determined
and inevitable. This more enlightened strategy would recognize the role of fire
in shaping vegetation and ecosystems, yielding a fire management strategy that
considered all risks, opportunities and outcomes, rather than just “fighting the fire,
or battling the flames.

A Large Fire Story

Initial Attack of the Big Pine Fire was unsuccessful. The IMT was able to protect
the nearby community but nine days later only 40 percent of the fire is contained
and the remainder is in rough terrain. Rain is 4-6 weeks out. The fire is not going
away anytime soon and, frankly, a few Red Flag days could make the situation
worse. The fire could make another run at the community if several factors line
up. Six hundred firefighters are committed to the incident. The cost to date is
$6 million and the daily cost rate is $900,000. Smoke is impacting the adjacent
National Park. The Governor has called, twice. What is your perception; one of
danger or one of opportunity?
Either way, now is the time to develop a very clear and succinct strategy. Identify
the values at risk. Identify the dangers and then look at the opportunities. There
are a number of non-traditional strategies that may offer opportunities.

Recognizing Opportunity
Flashing back to the Big Pine Fire, why wait for the inevitable Red Flag conditions?
Knowing overwhelming mass is going to be ineffective in the rough terrain and
knowing an alignment of conditions will create a negative outcome, then where
are the opportunities? Where could and should the appropriate amount of force
be applied? Where are the trigger points that can prevent the next run at town? Is
the insertion of small mobile assets to significantly alter the undesirable scenario
possible? Are there options to check, direct and delay with minimal firefighter
exposure? Just because the flanks can be secured, will it make any difference to
the community?
Scientist and analyst have made great strides in technology and predictive services
in the last few years. Decision makers now have the ability to identify windows
of opportunity. Surgically applying burn-out operations, securing a key piece of

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Opportunity Recognition
ground or expanding and contracting suppression resources, to be in the right
place at that right time, is now a realistic approach.
Traditional burn-outs have an anchor point and a tie-in point. This common-sense
approach is safe and effective and has been used for decades. It works on the vast
majority of fires. Some fires, especially the large, long duration fires may warrant
unanchored burn-outs that target fuel reduction and fire behavior mitigation
and not necessarily perimeter containment. These actions can mitigate fire and
suppression impacts, ensure community protection and can be done under the
most favorable conditions. This is in contrast to waiting on the fire while fuels
become drier and the probability of experiencing Red Flag conditions is near 100
percent.
Choose the ground to hold very carefully. Remember size is less important than
positive or negative impacts on the landscape. Place fire on the ground on fire
management terms not on the fire’s terms. Don’t wait until the fire is at the edge
of what is at risk; don’t be reactive. Consider a well-planned night burn-out.
Timing can limit costly and often unnecessary “line prep” by finding the right
ground. If the land is under a different ownership work with the landowner to
achieve a reasonable objective, explain to the landowner the idea of opportunity.
Large fires often cost more than $1 million/day. Find a way to explain your
predicament to the land owner. It is after all, their tax money. Do a cost analysis, is
“buying” the good ground more cost effective? Run it up the decision tree and see
what happens.
Favorable fuels + good ground + Predictive Services = Opportunity
Heavy fuels + bad ground + reacting = Increased Firefighter Exposure
When developing a large fire strategy, plan for allowing ICS to expand and
contract as it was intended. Designate Trigger Points and Management Action
Points (MAPs) that are designed to activate the necessary resources/actions at
the right time and at the right place.
For fire ground decision makers, it is
important to view this one fire as a
small component of a much larger
puzzle: a puzzle that includes long-term
ecological impacts, as well as short-term
fears and perceptions, and is able to
recognize and act upon opportunity.

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 Social Networking

Community - Agency Interaction

A Joint Fire Science project conducted on Forest Service fires in 2008 explored
how community-agency interaction influenced the exercise of Appropriate
Management Response. This was evaluated from the forest, incident management
team and the community perspectives. As a result of the research, several
recommendations have been made with the hypothesis that initiating the
recommended actions will result in better understanding and support of fire
management activities. The recommendations included:
• Pre-season interaction with communities around fire-prone areas;
• Manage community and cooperator expectations before an event
occurs;
• More timely and widespread dissemination of information; and
• Better coordination and information sharing internally and externally.
Data collected in 2008 will be used to craft a survey that will be administered
in 2009 to a broader segment of the public in three, fire-affected communities.
This will allow for a systematic and comprehensively approach to assess public
attitudes about fire management strategies and tactics and also will help
determine if the above noted recommendations improved community-agency
interaction.

Network Mapping
Network Mapping is how we build a social structure made of nodes (which are
generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types
of relationships. In this case, we are interested in relationships or ties related
to wildfire. Nodes are the individuals within the networks, and ties are the
relationships between the individuals. There can be many kinds of relationships
between these individuals: work, social, family, common interests, etc. Social
networks operate on many levels and play a critical role in determining the way
problems are solved, organizations are run, and the degree to which individuals
succeed in achieving their goals. In its simplest form, a social network is a map
of individuals that serves as a visual tool to identify those whom with they
communicate and the type of relationships they have.
Visual representation of social networks is important to be able to see the
strengths and weaknesses of your communications. Seeing the people you talk
to and the relationships you have, laid out in a map, makes it obvious where the
bottlenecks are and where good communication flows.
There are two primary benefits of network mapping. First it can identify where
communication breakdowns are occurring between and within groups; and
second it can identify individuals with knowledge that might be useful, but are not
being tapped.

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NOTES:

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