When you think of wildfires like the LA Firestorm, traffic control probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. But every year, wildfire smoke obscures roadways, prompts mass evacuations, and requires driving emergency vehicles near firefighters on foot. The issue of vehicles and people in the same space during wildfires is most acute in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), where the built environment meets the natural environment. Despite the proximity of vehicles to people during wildfires, traffic incident management (TIM) and responder safety around vehicles at wildfire responses is typically not covered during training. With the Cumberland Valley Volunteer Firefighters Association’s Emergency Responder Safety Institute, we developed a package of training materials to help organizations responding to wildfires deliver traffic incident management training to their personnel during deployment travel and in the field. Traffic Incident Management in the Wildland-Urban Interface includes:

• Protecting Emergency Responders from Moving Vehicles During Wildfire Responses (Project Report)
• Responder Safety Learning Network “Wildland Fires and Traffic Management” (Online Training Module)
• Roadway Safety Short: Traffic Incident Management at Wildfires (Short Video)
• Traffic Incident Management at Wildfires: Part 1 (PowerPoint Presentation)
• Traffic Incident Management at Wildfires: Part 2 (PowerPoint Presentation)
• Two cue cards for quick reference:
  • Implementing a Traffic Incident Management Area at Wildfires
  • Essential Actions for Roadway Incidents or Operational Along Roadways
• Training Program Guidelines

Structural firefighters and wildland firefighters are often both involved in WUI responses yet are trained differently and conduct operations differently, so providing the same TIM training to both groups puts them on the same page in how they protect responders from vehicles. The package format is designed to fit the unique scheduling needs of wildland firefighters. Wildland firefighters may be called up at a moment’s notice or go months between deployments, so it was critical to create training pieces that could be used during transit or in camp during breaks, played on mobile devices, and accessed at any time. Even just creating this “TIM in the WUI” training package has brought awareness to the risks moving vehicles pose to people during wildfires, whether the context is deployment, fire containment and extinguishment operations, or evacuations. This package enables the firefighting organizations to deliver consistent TIM best practices training for wildfire responses but customize the delivery as appropriate for their personnel, including specifics that apply to their mission, when TIM training is taught, and how the TIM best practices are reinforced in the field. This project moved the fire service closer to reaching the goal of making firefighters and civilians safer when firefighters are battling wildfires abutting active roadways, working off-road, resting in camp, and assisting with evacuations. Any time vehicles and people are near each other during a wildfire, following the best practices in this training package reduces the risk that a vehicle in motion will strike someone.