work guide

8/14/2019 Work Guide

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Continuous Improvementin Decision Making forLarge Fire Management


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Additional inormation pertaining to the elements o this guide canbe ound on the Lessons Learned Center website at:

http://www.wildfrelessons.net


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Introduction

The re environment is a dynamic, continually changing system inuencedby climate change, weather, uels, vegetation and humans. Theintersection o these actors drives wildland re impacts, responses and

reactions. Recent years have seen an emerging phenomenon reerred to in varietyo ways including Mega Fire, 0.25% Fires and Fires o National Signicance;regardless o the moniker, the trend is real and has dire consequences. Theseres are larger, more dangerous and more expensive than ever beore. This smallnumber (20-30) o mega res was the scene o all the atalities on U.S. ForestService jurisdiction in 2008. This percentage o atalities has steadily climbedsince 2005 when there were no atalities on these types o res. In addition to theincrease in lives lost, the average suppression cost or these res now exceeds $500million annually. Other trends are emerging as well. Overall, atalities and acresburned are increasing, and the number o res exceeding 100,000 acres is vetimes more than it was just ten years ago.

The wildland re community has at times employed the principle o over-whelming mass, (the precautionary principle) which assumes there will beadequate resources to ully execute the chosen strategies on all res. The notionthat each re is a separate and independent event is one o the most deeplyengrained mental models. The precautionary principle drives many decisionsand basically states: in the absence o science and an expectation o dieringoutcomes, leaders will choose the most conservative approach to a problem.Another way to view this would be - managers will order resources just in case.

Forest Service leadership at all levels, along with partners, stakeholders andcooperators has taken up the challenge o improving both decisions and

management o these colossal res. This should be viewed as a journey and nota destination. Like any journey there are a number o steps. The rst step in theprocess was to deconstruct and study res to discover opportunities to changeoutcomes. It was recognized decisions were driving outcomes and with improveddecisions, leaders could expect better outcomes in saety, res impact on the landand cost. Science-based, decision support tools have been improved and will bedeployed to assist leaders in making better and more inormed decisions. Thesetools do not replace leadership or excellent judgment.

A select group o orests were chosen or the test bed or to pilot this improvedmanagement model. These orests, sometimes reerred to as at risk orests,

display several unique characteristics which led to their selection. High quality,local leadership with the ability and determination to be on the cutting edge onew technology was a prime consideration. Other actors included climatologyand re history. Ideally, the opportunity to pilot an improved set o tools andactions on these dangerous and expensive res will be embraced on these units.

This guide is designed to assist you in the journey o leading wildland re complexincident management into the 21st century.


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Common Approach

Mental Models

Mental models predispose people to act or react a particular way. Another way tothink about mental models is that they are perceptions. They do not have inherentvalue and, at times, keep people sae; at other times they may cause a reaction oraction that is viewed as negative. An example would be: strangers cant be trustedThis model likely keeps people out o harms way; sometimes it also precludespeople rom meeting an interesting or helpul person. When mental models arenot based on act or reality, they can lead to undesirable outcomes. Fear otenarises out o mental models and ear begets strong reactions.

Wildland Fire Disaster Mental Model

In wildland re, a number o common mental models drive decisions. Some o themost common are:

Fire is bad;Airtankers put res out;All res can be put out i you just try;There are unlimited re ghting resources;An incident management team has 50 members;Line ofcers dont know re;Incident management teams dont listen; andThe community will not tolerate any more smoke.

This short list o mental models was captured at various locations and with a widevariety o groups around the country.

This list, by no means, should be considered exhaustive, but rather representative.

Breaking the Cycle

Creating a shit in mental models will otenbe necessary in order to aect a change in the

approach to wildland re. This will requireexplicit action to engage people and theirmental models. One way to accomplish thiswould be through an exercise designed toidentiy and address mental models. Oncethese models are identied, and the root orbasis is determined, a shit becomes possible.


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Common Approach

Converting Fears to Risks

Every change brings risk. No matter what we do, whenever we take action wecause things to change, and change, o course, moves us rom the amiliar to theunknown.

Some actions - deciding where to deploy resources on a large, ast-moving re,or example - set in motion complex chains o events that are easy to recognize ascarrying risk. Other, smaller actions - like pressing the send button on an email -may not seem to carry as much risk. However, depending on the content o themessage or even its context, the risk can be just as great. So the risks o a situationare oten less related to how large or small they appear, and much to do with theircontent and context.

Its important to draw a distinction here between ear and risk. Fear is an emotion,

an uneasy eeling about something that might happen in the uture. Risks, bycontrast, are the possible outcomes o current actions. For example, a personabout to give a presentation to a large group may eel a general sense o ear, butthe risks o what could happen are a lot more specic: people could laugh (or allthe wrong reasons!), the speaker could lose credibility, he or she could orget whatthey wanted to say, and so on.

A general (and normal) sense o ear that individuals and groups experience inthe ace o a new direction or change can almost always be converted into risks,and its worth the time to do so. This is because ear, living generally below thesurace o peoples thoughts, is very difcult to access and deal with head on.Acknowledging risks, however - because they are specic - is a useul starting

point or change that can be conducted saely, anticipating possible unwantedoutcomes.

Just as there are possible hazards associated with taking a new direction, so alsoare there risks to keeping things the way they are. Usually the longer somethinghas been done the same way, the less likely it is that people will remember whythe actions were originally taken, or what problems were being addressed whenthe (then-new) direction was being proposed. For example, many checklists havebeen put together over the decades to ree up decision-makers to concentrate ona larger picture and make sure that no essential step has been orgotten. Howeverwhen checklists prolierate they tend to block the very awareness they were oncedeveloped to acilitate.

The practice o converting ear to risk can be developed individually or in a groupcontext. By applying the same process used in your eld session, you can gounderneath almost any ear and make it actionable, transorming the power oear into a resource that will help you make clear decisions and give you a range ooptions that might not be seen otherwise.


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Common Approach

Operational Risk Management

Operational risk management is very specic, science-based process or dening,analyzing and managing risk. Risk management is a proession and has more

depth than the typical techniques used by the wildland re community toidentiy and mitigate hazards. This system relies on a shit in culture(s), rom rulesand punishment, to operational resilience.

The risk management element o this saety culture system uses:

Risk Assessment where all risks are determined. This determination notonly identies the risks, but quanties them in terms o probability andconsequences.

Risk/Beneft/Analysis once the risks are clearly identied, analysis isperormed to assess the potential trade-os between risk and benet.

Operational Risk Management a continuous eedback loop occurs oncethe activity begins, questioning the assumptions and analysis, reporting nearmisses, and attuned to error detection.

This type o system enables leaders to overcome potentially dangerous mentalmodels such as the continuation o eorts, i.e. there has been an investment inthis operation thereore the action must continue. The current system in use doesnot oten assess the activity in terms o should it be started or completed, butrather views it rom the perspective o mitigate the hazards and continue. Thissystem requires leaders to make risk inormed decisions.

A simplistic contrast o these two approaches can be illustrated in a typical mop-up scenario. The current approach would be to identiy the hazards such assnags, rolling rocks and stump holes. These would be discussed, agged and theoperation would proceed. Additional measures may be weighing the risks andbenets o mop-up. I the likelihood o escape is low (because o uel conditions,re behavior, etc) then explore other alternatives to mop-up such as postinglookouts instead o assigning reghters to do a job unnecessarily. This could bemore eective when compared to extended duration o exposure to reghtersor limited benet to deplete a small chance the re might reignite in that area.

Operational risk management would go beyond the identication o hazards andwould analyze the probability o escape, quantiy the hazards o dealing with an

escape and weigh these ndings against the probability that mop-up would besuccessul.

It should be apparent in this analysis, the application o operational riskmanagement can be a powerul and eective way to improve re ghter saetyand provide leaders with a set o tools or risk-inormed decision making.

This system requires training and practice and will not be implemented withoutboth. The National Incident Management Organization is being trained and willemploy these principles on res where they are assisting.


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Decision Support

Wildland Fire Decision Support System

Over the past several years wildlandre agencies have been working

aggressively to deliver a new systemto support agency administrators andre managers in making improved,re management decisions. Thissystem, the Wildland Fire DecisionSupport System (WFDSS), isstructured to provide access to asuite o decision support analysistools, document re managementdecisions, and provide a long-termoperational plan as needed.

WFDSS is constructed as a web-based system but can also generate avariety o standard or custom reportsOne report, the Decision Analysis

Report (DAR), represents the compilation o all WFDSS subsection inormation intoa single report that becomes the ormal decision documentation or the incident.This report was prototyped in 2008 as a replacement or current decision analysisproducts.

Key Decision Log (KDL)The Key Decision Log (KDL) is one o a suite o evolving tools that make up theWildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS). It allows Agency Administrators,Fire Management Ofcers, incident management organizations and other releaders to accurately record, in near-real time, implementation decisions thatdirectly and indirectly aect the management o a wildland re.

Identiying best practices and promoting organizational learning is thecornerstone o a High Reliability Organization (HRO). By understanding howand why decision makers select a specic course o action, the complexity o anincident can be better understood and transparently communicated through

agency channels. It can also be used as a real time reerence to past decisions thapromotes consistency during team transitions and key decision points along thelie o an incident. The KDL acilitates high reliability and continual improvementby allowing practitioners and researchers to recreate the sequence o events thatoccur over the lie o an incident. These patterns can then be used to developLessons Learned that embrace the undamental concept o Doctrine by sustainingbest practices and identiying and eliminating unwanted decision traps.


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Decision Support

Delegation o Authority & Leaders Intent

Delegating authority is about assigning and sharing ones own authority to takeaction, with subordinate personnel. Policy requires an Agency Administrator

(AA) to issue a Delegation o Authority (DOA) letter to an incoming IncidentCommander (IC) to manage an incident within their administrative responsibility.Circumstances may arise when a verbal delegation is appropriate, i.e., immediateneed or leadership to deal with a serious injury or atality.

Document these delegations in a Key Decision Log. Issuing a brie DOA, (takeoverdate and time) with separate attachments covering leaders intent and the WFDSSDecision Analysis Report, allows an AA to modiy leaders intent and prioritieswithout having to reissue a ormal delegation.

At the heart o every brieng is the purpose or objectives o the assignment or

Leaders Intent. I ollowers know what the goal is, they will be able to determinewhat they must do to reach it, even i the leader is absent. Leaders Intent consistso three parts:

Task how the Leader envisions achieving the objectives, what has tobe done.

Purpose illustrates why tasks are being done (sense-making).

End State expected results, the goal, what the task should look likewhen completed.

The AA and IC should meet to discuss: leaders intent, decision making parameters,during incident review process, approval protocols, collaboration processes,

documentation o shared decision making and responsibility, strategic alternatives,cost management, etc. This process is complimentary to the normal IMT in-brie.

During Incident Review (DIR)

The goal o the During Incident Review is to improve decisions expected todrive successul outcomes. The intent is to build trust and understanding bycreating a solid working relationship to allow or intervention, course correctionsand prevent surprises while establishing clear expectations or how to makerisk-inormed decisions on res. The During Incident Review is a continuous

learning opportunity or both the Incident Management Team and the AgencyAdministrator and contributes toward building a more highly reliable organization.

The During Incident Review is a meeting held at various times throughout theduration o an Incident. The Incident Commander and the Agency Administratorcan sit down and spend quality time together. The During Incident Reviewprovides a orum or important interactive discussions. The intent o thesemeeting(s) and discussion(s) is to build trust and understanding by creating asolid working relationship. Used well and oten, these meetings will allow or


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Decision Support

intervention, course corrections and prevent surprises. The Agency Administratoris able to honestly describe his/her issues, worries, interests and the IC, in turn,is able to describe probabilities, concerns and predicted results. It takes timetogether to build trust, honesty, predictability and reliable results (between the

Host Unit and the Incident Management Team).

Predictive Services

Predictive Services was developed toprovide decision support inormationneeded to be more proactive inanticipating signicant re activity anddetermining resource allocation needs.Predictive Services consists o threeprimary unctions: re weather; redanger/uels; and intelligence/resourcestatus inormation. Predictive Servicesta units are located at the NationalInteragency Coordination Center (NICC)and the Geographic Area CoordinationCenters (GACCs) across the country.

Weather:Meteorologists analyze avariety o weather products and servicesto provide briengs and outlooks or

current and orecasted conditions and, insome cases, provide spot weather and smoke orecasts. A number o innovativeproducts and tools have been created to help re managers assess re potentialand high risk areas.

Fuels and Fire Danger: Wildland Fire Analysts, stationed or detailed at somelocations, provide predictions and condition reports on uels, re danger, rebehavior, re occurrence statistics, and resource needs.

Intelligence: The Intelligence Section provides re management personnel,incident managers, reghters and support sta with access to current intelligenceon preparedness levels, re situation, resources, mapping and satellite imagery,

climatology, preparedness levels, resource availability, rotation schedules, and repotential inormation.


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Decision Support

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Opportunity Recognition

Danger or Opportunity: Examining how WePerceive Large Fires

Good Situational Awareness (SA) is the rst step in the decision making process.This is based on observing and communicating what is seen, heard and elt. Thisallows the match o perception o the environment as closely as possible to thereality o the environment. This is a complicated process as humans tend to makedecisions based on perception (observation + communication + emotion) andnot necessarily on reality. Good SA equals good perception and ultimately gooddecisions.

A common perception o re managers and line ofcers is that unwanted largeres must be aggressively suppressed. Simply put . . . Fire = Danger. Any othercourse o action, its elt, will sail into a sea raught with ailure and promote anegative public reaction. Many eel it is important to be perceived by the public to

be doing everything possible to deal with the unwanted, unplanned re (danger).This is described in literature as the Precautionary Principle.

An unwanted re in the wrong place at the wrong time is truly a danger.Recognizing this, the Agency has designed an aggressive and eective approachto initial attack and will continue to aggressively suppress problematic res.Ironically, the ability to successully suppress the majority o the res that occur, hasallowed a drit into complacency in decision making by automatically engagingthe suppression machine beore mindul decisions about the eects o the re aremade.

Oten re is perceived to be a danger simply because it triggers dramatic change

and disrupts our lives. Thereore, it is easy to choose to ght the re through theapplication o overwhelming mass. The language used reinorces this behavior.There is a battle to contain the wildre that is burning out o control andthreatening the orest. The reliance on abundance o aircrat and ground crewsgives the impression it is possible to sail into saer waters, away rom negativepublic perception, away rom danger. The perception is as ollows . . . more re =more reghters.

However, there is now a more broadly held understanding o the reality o re. Fireis important and necessary. Almost all o the vegetation and ecosystems in UnitedStates are re adapted and/or re evolved. Fire belongs here. Fire has always beenand will always be a part o the landscape. Native Americans used re regularly.

European settlers brought a negative perception o re which is still pervasive inthis country. The longer re is out o the equation, the greater the impact when itis included. That is reality. Fire is not always good, re is not always bad. It just is.Like rain, too little or too much can be harmul.

But, what i re was perceived as opportunity? What i this latest escaped re wasseen as an opportunity to nally allow re on the landscape, to reset the ecologicalclock. This re could allow or a more reproo community which no longer hadto stop worrying every summer about evacuations. This re could allow strongerbonds with neighbors and bring the community together.


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Imagine i every re wasviewed as an opportunity tothink careully about when,where and how much risk the

lives o our young men andwomen should be exposedto? Oten the risk romthe values to be protected(inrastructure, threat to anendangered species, historiccabin, etc) is transerreddirectly to the reghters andinto the cockpits o aircrat.What is truly a greater danger(risk); a closed highway or100 reghters and multipleaircrat working to keep thehighway open?

This leads to a simple questionwhen looking at a re; is thedanger real or perceived; isaggressively suppressing there truly worth the risk?

An excerpt rom a recent article in the December edition o the Journal o Forestry:

External Human Factors in Incident Management Team Decision Making and Their

Eect on Large Fire Suppression Expenditures accurately depicts the decisiondilemma.

Sociologist W. I. Thomas wrote, I men dene things as real, they are real in theirconsequences (as cited by McHugh 1968, p. 7). Because perceptions are realityin a persons mind, decisions are made based on those perceptions. This means atendency toward risk aversion and a shrinking pool o midlevel re managers maycontinue, as will increase costs, unless the perception is changed.

Basing Strategy and Tactics on RecognizingOpportunity

Traditional wildland re strategies start with an anchor point and then require anever-increasing insertion o people and equipment until either a direct or indirectline is completed. This traditional strategy is based on Agency Administratorand incident managers perceptions o threats (dangers) and rarely considers thenaturally pre-determined, and possibly inevitable, path o the re.


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Consider i a strategy was developed based on hot, dry and unstable weather,Type I crews and aviation resources being in short supply and recognition that therightened public is reacting emotionally to their perceptions o the danger o reand smoke? Consider whether this strategy would not transer risk to reghters?

And, whether the strategy developed would not saddle the taxpayers with thenancial burden o a multi-million dollar re? What would that strategy look like?

Additionally, what i the strategy saw re as an inevitable occurrence and there was managed with the view that considered the next re as pre-determinedand inevitable. This more enlightened strategy would recognize the role o rein shaping vegetation and ecosystems, yielding a re management strategy thatconsidered all risks, opportunities and outcomes, rather than just ghting the re,or battling the ames.

A Large Fire StoryInitial Attack o the Big Pine Fire was unsuccessul. The IMT was able to protectthe nearby community but nine days later only 40 percent o the re is containedand the remainder is in rough terrain. Rain is 4-6 weeks out. The re is not goingaway anytime soon and, rankly, a ew Red Flag days could make the situationworse. The re could make another run at the community i several actors lineup. Six hundred reghters are committed to the incident. The cost to date is$6 million and the daily cost rate is $900,000. Smoke is impacting the adjacentNational Park. The Governor has called, twice. What is your perception; one odanger or one o opportunity?

Either way, now is the time to develop a very clear and succinct strategy. Identiythe values at risk. Identiy the dangers and then look at the opportunities. Thereare a number o non-traditional strategies that may oer opportunities.

Recognizing Opportunity

Flashing back to the Big Pine Fire, why wait or the inevitable Red Flag conditions?Knowing overwhelming mass is going to be ineective in the rough terrain andknowing an alignment o conditions will create a negative outcome, then whereare the opportunities? Where could and should the appropriate amount o orce

be applied? Where are the trigger points that can prevent the next run at town? Isthe insertion o small mobile assets to signicantly alter the undesirable scenariopossible? Are there options to check, direct and delay with minimal reghterexposure? Just because the anks can be secured, will it make any dierence tothe community?

Scientist and analyst have made great strides in technology and predictive servicesin the last ew years. Decision makers now have the ability to identiy windowso opportunity. Surgically applying burn-out operations, securing a key piece o


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ground or expanding and contracting suppression resources, to be in the rightplace 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 sae and eective and has been used or decades. It works on the vastmajority o res. Some res, especially the large, long duration res may warrantunanchored burn-outs that target uel reduction and re behavior mitigationand not necessarily perimeter containment. These actions can mitigate re andsuppression impacts, ensure community protection and can be done under themost avorable conditions. This is in contrast to waiting on the re while uelsbecome drier and the probability o experiencing Red Flag conditions is near 100percent.

Choose the ground to hold very careully. Remember size is less important thanpositive or negative impacts on the landscape. Place re on the ground on remanagement terms not on the res terms. Dont wait until the re is at the edge

o what is at risk; dont be reactive. Consider a well-planned night burn-out.

Timing can limit costly and oten unnecessary line prep by nding the rightground. I the land is under a dierent ownership work with the landowner toachieve a reasonable objective, explain to the landowner the idea o opportunity.Large res oten cost more than $1 million/day. Find a way to explain yourpredicament to the land owner. It is ater all, their tax money. Do a cost analysis, isbuying the good ground more cost eective? Run it up the decision tree and seewhat happens.

Favorable uels + good ground + Predictive Services = Opportunity

Heavy uels + bad ground + reacting = Increased Firefghter Exposure

When developing a large re strategy, plan or allowing ICS to expand andcontract as it was intended. Designate Trigger Points and Management ActionPoints (MAPs) that are designed to activate the necessary resources/actions atthe right time and at the right place.For re ground decision makers, it isimportant to view this one re as asmall component o a much largerpuzzle: a puzzle that includes long-termecological impacts, as well as short-termears 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 res in 2008 exploredhow community-agency interaction inuenced the exercise o Appropriate

Management Response. This was evaluated rom the orest, incident managementteam and the community perspectives. As a result o the research, severalrecommendations have been made with the hypothesis that initiating therecommended actions will result in better understanding and support o remanagement activities. The recommendations included:

Pre-season interaction with communities around re-prone areas;

Manage community and cooperator expectations beore an eventoccurs;

More timely and widespread dissemination o inormation; and

Better coordination and inormation sharing internally and externally.

Data collected in 2008 will be used to crat a survey that will be administeredin 2009 to a broader segment o the public in three, re-aected communities.This will allow or a systematic and comprehensively approach to assess publicattitudes about re management strategies and tactics and also will helpdetermine i the above noted recommendations improved community-agencyinteraction.

Network Mapping

Network Mapping is how we build a social structure made o nodes (which aregenerally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specic typeso relationships. In this case, we are interested in relationships or ties relatedto wildre. Nodes are the individuals within the networks, and ties are therelationships between the individuals. There can be many kinds o relationshipsbetween these individuals: work, social, amily, common interests, etc. Socialnetworks operate on many levels and play a critical role in determining the wayproblems are solved, organizations are run, and the degree to which individualssucceed in achieving their goals. In its simplest orm, a social network is a mapo individuals that serves as a visual tool to identiy those whom with theycommunicate and the type o relationships they have.

Visual representation o social networks is important to be able to see thestrengths and weaknesses o your communications. Seeing the people you talkto and the relationships you have, laid out in a map,makes it obvious where thebottlenecks are and where good communication ows.

There are two primary benets o network mapping. First it can identiy wherecommunication breakdowns are occurring between and within groups; andsecond it can identiy individuals with knowledge that might be useul, but are notbeing tapped.


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