Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center

Hot Tips

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View the latest in innovative tactics, technologies, tools and learning opportunities below:

Chino Valley Water Tender Rollover Case Study

While driving Water Tender 66 to a grass fire on April 17, 2008, two firefighters from the Chino Valley Independent Fire Protection District were involved in an off-road rollover accident. The firefighters received minor injuries; Water Tender 66 (WT-66) was a total loss. The case study is based on an actual investigation, which took place in 2008. The members of the investigation team were not trained investigators; they were firefighters with a mission to understand an incident that could have been disastrous. As luck would have it, it was not. What resulted was a spontaneous understanding of the event in terms of conditions, culture, equipment limitations and communications. The underlying construction of the method of the analysis was "Learn, Share and Be Fair".

Lessons from the Whitmire Research Burn (Posted 08/20/09)
Researchers evaluating the impacts of cool- and warm-season burning treatments on watersheds in the oak savannas of southwestern New Mexico joined firefighters from the Douglas Ranger District of the Coronado National Forest on the Whitmire research burn to gather the first post-burn data of the study. For scientific findings about the Cascabel Watersheds study see Dr. Gerald Gottfried's presentation, What we have Learned from the Cascabel Watersheds. Fire managers may also want to see the Escape Prescribed Fire Review for the Frye Mesa and Whitmire Rx Burns, completed by Coronado National Forest in 2008.

Narrated presentations titled MyFireCommunity.net Orientation will be available soon to help you learn how to use many of the updated site's new capabilities.

The Slaughter Draw Fire (7.3 MB) resulted in an engine burnover the investigation team determined could have been prevented. (This is a Flash Presentation and requires the Adobe Flash Player v7.0 or newer to run.) Investigation Team Report (1 MB PDF posted 091305)

Other recent additions we consider Hot Tips:

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