2005 International Wildland Fire Safety Summit[1]

The 8^th International Wildland Fire Safety Summit as organized by the International Association of Wildland Fire (IAWF) will take place in Missoula, Montana, April 26-28, 2005.  The theme of the 2005 summit is Human Factors Ten Years Later since it will represent the 10^th anniversary of the Wildland Firefighters Human Factors Workshop held in Missoula in June 1995[2].

Scene from the field trip to site of the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire in northwestern Montana on June 14, 1995, associated with the original Wildland Firefighters Human Factors Workshop (from Putnam 1995).  The workshop organizer, Ted Putnam is located at centre (seated) and the workshop moderator, Dave Thomas is located on the left.  The person to the right is Dave Turner, who served as local guide/interpreterduring the field trip.

The following oral presentations have tentatively been scheduled for delivery over the course of the three-day summit in 2005:

• Keynote Address: Human Factors and Wildland Firefighter Safety -- Where Have We Been and Where Do We Need To Go?
• TEFF: The Ten Essential Factors in Firefighting
• Wildland Fire Leadership Development Program
• Five Years of SAFENET
• What Factors Influence the Risk Perception of Volunteer Firefighters
• High Tech Versus Low Tech Training
• How Do We Want Our/Your People To Behave? An Empirical Study In Fire Organization-Type III Incidents
• 10 Years of Progress: Research and Development in Human Performance
• Cedar Fire Review and Analysis
• Staff Rides: An Interactive Tool for Wildland Firefighter Education
• A Progress Report on the Entrapment Avoidance Project -- Solving Crew Cohesion Problems on Fires: Leader’s Stories
• Fatigue, Decision Making, and the Fireline
• Effective Communications in Wildland Firefighting: Can Wildland Fire Organizations Really Walk the Talk?
• Developing a Comprehensive Operational Performance Improvement Program
• Changes in Crew Lead Attitudes About Organizational Culture and Safety Since 1998
• Use of Human Factors Analysis for Wildland Fire Accident Investigations
• Human Factors Review Interview Protocol
• Integral Leadership for High Reliability Organizing
• Eruptive Fire Behavior in Past Fatal Accidents
• Liability Issues Related to Wildland Fire: Personal, Civil and Criminal
• Command Decisions during Catastrophic Interface Wildfires
• Improving After Action Review (AAR) Practice
• Wisdom in the Lessons Learned Library: Work Ethics and Firefighter Identities in the Fire Orders
• Fire Behavior vs. Human Behavior – Why Lessons from Cramer Matter

Certainly one of the highlights of the summit will be the attendance of noted author John N. Maclean  who will speaking at the banquet on the topic of “What has changed - and what hasn't changed - in the 10 years since the 1994 South Canyon Fire”.

A poster session will also be an integral part of the summit.  Sample titles so far submitted include:

• Human Behavior Associated with Fatal Accidents of 2003 in Portugal
• Firefighter Safety Management: An Annotated Bibliography
• Travel Rates of Alberta Wildland Firefighters Using Escape Routes

If you are planning to attend the summit please consider presenting a poster paper. Dr. Marty Alexander, a Senior Researcher with the FERIC Wildland Fire Operations Research Group, is a member of the summit planning committee and is also responsible for coordinating the poster session.  Contact Dr. Alexander for further information.

For additional details on the summit visit the IAWF website (http://www.iawfonline.org/).