Proceedings of International Wildland Fire Summits Now Available on the WWW
In 1997 the International Association of Wildland Fire (IAWF) held the first international wildland fire safety summit in Rossland, British Columbia, Canada, from September 29 to October 2. Six additional summits have been held since that time:
Winthrop, Washington, USA, October 26-29, 1998 - Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, November 2-5, 1999
- Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, October 8-10, 2000
- Missoula, Montana, USA, November 6-8, 2001
- Luso, Portugal, November 18-23, 2002
- Toronto, Ontario, Canada, November 18-20, 2003
The next wildland fire safety summit will take place in Missoula, Montana, April 25-28, 2005, with the theme “Human Factors Ten Years Later” and will constitute the 10th anniversary conference of the 1995 Wildland Firefighter’s Human Factors Workshop.
The FERIC Wildland Fire Operations Research Group feels its important for the Canadian wildland fire management community to be aware of the fact that the papers and presentations from the 2001 and 2003 wildland fire safety summits are currently available for downloading from the IAWF’s website at:
http://www.iawfonline.org/summit/
Also noteworthy is the fact that two of the presentations made at the 2003 wildland fire safety summit were by members of the FERIC Wildland Fire Operations Research Group:
- Fire Behavior as it Relates to Firefighter Safety: Six Key Points for Discussion[1] – M.E. Alexander
- Assessing the Need for Footwear with Protective Toecaps for Wildland Fire Operations in Alberta – G.R. Dakin
A total of four presentations were made by FERIC Wildland Fire Operations Research Group staff in association with others at the 2001 wildland fire safety summit:
- The Determination of Ground Rates of Travel by Fire Crews Using Escape Routes in Variable Fuel Types and Terrain Factors – G.R. Dakin
- LACES versus LCES: Adopting an “A” for “Anchor points” to Improve Wildland Fire Safety – W.R. Thorburn and M.E. Alexander
- Principles of Fire Behavior: A CD-ROM Based Interactive Multimedia Wildland Fire Training Course – W.R. Thorburn, A. MacMillan, M.E. Alexander, N. Nimchuk, K.W. Frederick and T.A. Van Nest
- Wildland Fire – Safety on the Fireline: A New CD-ROM Based Wildland Firefighter Safety Training Course – W.R. Thorburn, A. MacMillan, M.E. Alexander, D. Campbell and J. McLevin
The proceedings of the 1997, 1999 and 2000 wildland fire safety summits will also eventually be posted on the IAWF website (there were no proceedings for the 1998 summit). The following papers at the 2000 summit were authored by members of the FERIC Wildland Fire Operations Research Group staff in cooperation with other specialists:
- An introduction to the International Crown Fire Modelling Experiment -- M.E. Alexander, R.A. Lanoville, B.M. Wotton and B.J. Stocks
- A Pocket Card for Predicting Fire Behavior in Grasslands Under Severe Burning Conditions -- M.E. Alexander and L.G. Fogarty
- 1998 Results from the International Crown Fire Modelling Experiment, Performance of Safety Equipment -- M.Y. Ackerman and G. Dakin
- Wildland Fire – Safety on the Fireline: An Application of Interactive Multimedia CD-ROM Technology to Wildland Firefighter Safety Training - R.W. Thorburn, A. MacMillan and M.E. Alexander
The proceedings from the first wildland fire safety summit in 1997 includes a paper by FERIC Senior Researcher Dr. Marty Alexander entitled “A Wildland Fire Behavior Researcher’s Perspective of Firefighter Safety in Canada”.
The papers from the 2002 wildland fire safety summit are included as part of the proceedings of the IV Conference on Forest Fire Research and were published by Millpress Science Publishers (http://www.millpress.com).