Common Denominators for Escaped Prescribed Fires in the Lake States

The Lake States Fire Science February 2017 Webinar welcomes Steven Goldman, Assistant Director, Fuels Program, Eastern Regional Office, USDA Forest Service, who will present Common Denominators for Escaped Prescribed Fires in the Lake States – Overview of Escaped Prescribed Fires in the Eastern Region of the U.S. Forest Service and Methods for Situational Learning.

This presentation gives an overview of several escaped prescribed fires in the Lake States dating back to the infamous 1980 Mack Lake Fire and the most recent escape on the Superior National Forest in 2016.

Review of the common denominators of these incidents including fuels, weather, personnel & equipment, organization, and human factors. Although these escaped prescribed fires span nearly 40 years, many of the causal or contributory factors remain the same, and many fire personnel across the wildland fire agencies remain unfamiliar with these incidents.

Situational learning tools such as Staff Rides, Facilitated Learning Analyses, Pre-mortems, and Post-mortems can all be used to break this pattern and reduce the likelihood and/or consequences of escaped prescribed fires.  The Mack Lake Staff Ride, Foss Lake Escaped Prescribed Fire FLA, Maple Ridge Post-Mortem will be briefly reviewed.  Sources of information to assist local units in using these products or developing their own products will be provided.

Click here to connect to the webinar. No registration or passcode needed – please choose “Guest Login” and type in your First and Last name. For more information visit the Lakes States Fire Science Consortium website.