Three Special Issues of Fire Management Today on Wildland Fire Behavior Coordinated by Senior FERIC Researcher Are Now Available For Free!

 

 

The USDA Forest Service journal Fire Management Today (FMT) has now completed the publishing of the third and final installment of a series of special issues dealing with wildland fire behavior.  All three issues are available for free by downloading from the FMT website. 

 

In total, the special issues consists of 58 previously published articles that appeared in FMT and its predecessors (Fire Management Notes, Fire Management and Fire Control Notes).  The first issue (Vol. 63, No. 3, Summer 2003) entitled Wildland Fire Behavior Case Studies and Analyses: Part 1 included 19 articles published between 1937 and 1967.  The second issue (Vol. 63, No. 4, Fall 2003) entitled Wildland Fire Behavior Case Studies and Analyses: Part 2 included 18 articles published between 1967 and 2001. 

 

The third and final issue (Vol. 64, No. 1, Winter 2004) entitled Forecasting Wildland Fire Behavior: Aids and Guides includes articles dealing with aids, guides, and knowledge-based protocols involved in predicting wildland fire behavior for safe and effective fire suppression.  It includes 21 articles published between 1947 and 1998.     

 

The three FMT special issues on wildland fire behavior were coordinated by Dr. Marty Alexander, Senior Researcher, Wildland Fire Operations Research Group, Forest Engineering Research Institute, Hinton, Alberta, and Dave Thomas, Regional Fuels Specialist, USDA Forest Service, Intermountain Region, Aviation and Fire Management, Ogden, Utah.  In addition to serving as FMT issue coordinators and selecting the articles, they also prepared introductory overview articles for each issue (Alexander and Thomas 2003a, 2003b, 2004). 

 

How did the idea of the three special FMT issues come about? While the general concept had been brewing in Alexander’s head for some time, it wasn’t until he attended the Dude Fire Staff Ride in May 1999 that he felt it was a subject worth pursuing (Alexander 2002).  As a result of a conversation he had at the staff ride with the Superintendent of the Payson Interagency Hotshot Crew he decided to formally pursue the idea and so with the assistance of fellow collaborator Dave Thomas, the rest is now history!

 

 

 

Publications Cited

Alexander, M.E. 2002. The staff ride approach to wildland fire behavior and firefighter safety awareness training: A commentary. Fire Management Today 62(4):25-30.

Alexander, M.E.; Thomas, D.A. 2003a. Wildland fire behavior case studies and analyses: Value, approaches, and practical uses. Fire Management Today 63(3):4-8.

Alexander, M.E.; Thomas, D.A. 2003b. Wildland fire behavior case studies and analyses: Other examples, methods, reporting standards, and some practical advice. Fire Management Today 63(4):4-12. 

Alexander, M.E.; Thomas, D.A. 2004. Forecasting wildland fire behavior: aids, guides, and knowledge-based protocols. Fire Management Today 64(1):4-11.