The following letter is directly from the Redondo Escaped Prescribed Fire FLA
TO: Current and Future Burn Bosses
FROM: An Old Type 1 Burn Boss
As an Old Type 1 Burn Boss, I’ve had the opportunity to work with a ton of great people and do what I believe is a lot of awesome work within our fire adapted ecosystems. This was my first time serving on Facilitated Learning Analysis (FLA) team. If you have the opportunity, I encourage you to participate on an FLA team. Please don’t wait as long as I did to get involved. Never stop learning, never stop communicating, and always strive to BE A STUDENT OF FIRE.
As a Prescribed Fire Burn Boss you operate in a very complex and ever changing environment. You spend months preparing for an event, and all along you need to be gathering situational awareness:
• Who will be on that hill at a specific time?
• Did I order enough blue houses?
• Will the food be on time?
• What piece of equipment will break down?
Oh, and don’t forget your day-to-day job requires a facility check next week and a hundred other things.
As a current burn boss, spend as much time as possible with future burn bosses. Teach new burn bosses to document everything, even if they think it is trivial. Why? Because to truly move forward with a learning culture, you have to be able to tell your story, and trust me, notes are golden.
As an Old Type 1, I want to share my experiences with you. Some learning was easy, some came the hard way. I’m sharing with you today with the hopes that you may learn from my scars.
• COMMUNICATION – COMMUNICATION – COMMUNICATION. Up, down, sideways. Never stop.
• Utilize the District as an ID Team to ensure your complexity analysis and burn plan is robust.
• Build an organization around yourself for support.
- This could be as simple as utilizing the type 3 militia.
- Find the person that can locate anything, anywhere, and get them to assist with logistics.
- Make sure you have plenty of drivers.
• Use an Incident Action Plan (IAP) and take the time to update all the blocks. The IAP will become your most critical piece of documentation.
• Invite overhead in at least two shifts prior to ignition. This will ensure everyone is familiar with the plan you’ve been working on for the past six months.
- Challenge these overhead resources to read the plan, to find what is missing, to poke holes in it – so that your plan becomes their plan, and is better for it.
- Make time for a small command meeting before your first briefing. This will allow you to gauge the employees you have on hand and provide a chance to identify any resources/needs that are lacking.
- CHECK RED CARDS.
• Partner with your dispatcher – they are extremely important to your success. Use ROSS to track assignment and qualifications of your people.
• Be in constant communication with your Agency Administrator (AA).
- During the writing of the burn plan and complexity analysis, have meaningful dialogue with your AA. They are sharing the risk with you. If you can’t have a meaningful conversation or you don’t feel comfortable they are sharing the risk, STOP–THINK-TALK-THEN SIGN. Remember this is not about just checking a box.
- If possible, have the AA on site for the entire event, or at a minimum during the critical shifts.
- The AA is your partner during the burn; if you are not getting what you need, ASK – make some noise – get what you need.
• During the technical review process, ask for honest feedback and don’t take comments personally. Honest feedback helps you learn and makes for a better plan.
• Smoke is so very important, don’t just look at what the smoke is doing around the fire – look to where it will be that afternoon and where it will settle during the night.
- Look at the area you could affect and double it.
- Get the word out early and often.
- Make sure you know who your smoke sensitive individuals are.
• Create a partnership with your district and/or forest PIO. Use the winter to provide information to the public and tell the good story about prescribed fire. Perhaps go with your AA and do some media interviews.
• Always look at ordering a FEMO for your prescribed fire events. This person is your weather and fire behavior documentation leader.
• Look at bolstering your fuels program. A strong fuels specialist will take your planning to a new level.
• REMEMBER:
- BEING FLEXIBLE IS WAY TOO RIGID
- YOU CAN ONLY BURN AS FAST AS YOU CAN HOLD
- EVERYONE IS WILLING TO HELP, YOU JUST NEED TO ASK!
Thank you for all your hard work and never forget it is an honor to be a Burn Boss!
– Old Type 1 Burn Boss
Read the full report: Redondo Escaped Prescribed Fire FLA
