I’m thinking that this post from Frank Carroll will be particularly controversial. So please remember to be civil and respectful to him and to each other.
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Proposed new rules governing strategic firing operations for Agency Administrators, Incident Commanders, and Operations officers at all level.
These are the key rules and protocols that would do more to rescue public confidence in the Wildfire agencies than any other action from government, in my opinion and experience.
In crisis, agencies tend to dig in, to limit, to constrict, and to go silent. Silence is exactly the wrong approach. Hiding only works in war. Stonewalling builds distrust.
I’ll leave these here for comments:
1. We should only allow firing ops as a normative part of line construction to eliminate small finger in direct attack.
2. We should only allow firing ops in indirect attack at night, from the next best ridge.
3. Eliminate big boxing.
4. No firing within 48 hours of predicted red flags.
5. No firing private property or other ownerships without owner approval.
6. We should pass a law requiring the government to compensate private property owners for damage from unilateral decisions to light stuff on fire, even in emergencies. Bypass FTCA and the Tucker Act.
7. Require refresher training for all firefighters in anchor, flank, hold, and pinch off with one foot in the black, and next best ridge—not next best highway or lake shore or ocean beach.
8. Retrain IMTs, ICs, DIVS, and Hotshot Superintendents in direct attack strategies, tactics, and protocols. Require two affirmative decisions—Hotshot and DIVS, or DIVS and IC—to light shit on fire.
9. Require incendiary drone use only from established lines or anchors, no retardant wet lines without holding troops and equipment.
10. Remove unilateral firing ops decisions and operations to have two levels of leadership present.
11. Require non-fire local leadership like county commissioners, local fire chiefs, county sheriffs, or other recognized local leaders to be present.
12. Require IMTs to report daily the miles of indirect fire line construction and acres burned intentionally on the ICS-209.
13. Open NIFC.ftp (or the comparable site) to the public. Load all GIS products, IAPs, the WFDSS’s from the initial preparation to the last iteration on the public facing site.
14. Require IMTs and AAs to be completely transparent from start to finish. No more “full suppression” meaning anything other than “Put the fire out as quickly as possible in the smallest possible footprint” in fire season.
15. If the AA decides to use the wildfire for natural resource management—in a preplanned Rx fire area, or to “reduce energy in a POD, or to “reintroduce fire to fire-depleted ecosystems”—immediately declare it a Rx fire, withdraw WFM “emergency fire suppression” authority and dollars, and follow the existing IFDSS or write a new IFDSS to guide the remainder of the fire.
17. Require any crew declining an assignment to propose an alternative to meet the same objective. The proposal may not result in changing IMT Plans strategies—changing direction hand-line to an indirect firing operation.
18. Require a local elected official not directly associated with the fire or a former or current Wildland FF to accompany major firing ops and report to local constituents in public briefings on their judgment of the action and the outcomes.
19. Require AAs and IMTs in all locations to allow full, credentialed media access to the incident at all times, in all places, including planning meetings and briefings, following California rules for media. Total access is good for everyone. In addition, federal and state OSHA require the employer, not the government, to provide PPE, training (in cooperation with fire agencies so media and firefighters are learning the same lessons), red cards, and communications to employees like reporters, not the government agencies. Eliminate mandatory government escorts, guides, or handlers for media, eliminate the need for media to stop at road blocks (free and open passage to the ICP and the fire ground), and declare all operations open to media coverage. Provide PIOs and guides upon request—most media desperately want, and gratefully accept, knowledgeable guides like PIOs, Hotshots on light duty—but not mandatory.
20. Fight fire aggressively, having provided for safety first.
I LIKE it! It’s about time to rein in theoretical “fire use for resource benefit”!
One through five and nine would eliminate the IMTs experience, judgement and flexibility to most safely manage a fire.
My concern with number 11 is primarily a concern with the word “require.” IMTs don’t have the authority to require non-local fire leadership to be “present.” And what does “present” even mean?
I like number 13, although it does add extra work to teams already stretched thin. Perhaps it can be done efficiently.
I’m not sure I understand 17. A crew should be able to decline an assignment for safety reasons, such as it is too dangerous to be build hotline. But I read this as it saying they can decline because they think they should be attacking the fire directly rather than indirectly, but not for pulling back to use indirect methods for safety reasons. Maybe I’m reading it wrong.
Eighteen – similar to 11 with the concern for the word “require.”
Nineteen is tricky. While I agree in transparency and that there are many ICs that want to tightly control information – similar to the WO – there is also the concern for safety and to ensure fire fighters are focused on suppressing the fire. I was once on a fire where our squad was pulled off the line to search for a lost local reporter.
I’d like to say, all NGO, Industry affiliated groups, and anyone who directly spends at least 10% of their life commenting in person/remotely (or receive a single dollar from the government) also have all of their emails and text messages and social media interactions, open to being FOIA/PRA’d, as well that they have their books open to public scrutiny, as well as have all of their meetings recorded and posted publicly (#19). If we want accountability, then in 2026 let’s hold *everyone* accountable publicly.
Outside of “Mike”’s reasoned response, I’m beginning to wonder if the lack of any impassioned punch-back to Frank’s post is an indication that those embedded within (or retired from) the Fire Community know that he is on to something. They just don’t want to talk about it publicly. The movement to just “get fire back onto the land”, no matter how cavalierly it is done, is not working out too well, and they don’t want to discuss true ownership of the forest destructions that have been occurring as a result of it. At a field session in the southern Sierras in the last year I heard one active duty Fire Officer openly say that we need to quit looking at the forest as something to be managed for protection and start looking at the forested landscape as something that needs to be managed as a “firescape”. That’s the kind of b…sh.t that got us into this mess. Forests should not be playgrounds for the trial and error ideas of those who don’t value a forest as something that should be managed for retention particularly during on the ground wildfire events. Where we are right now with forest destruction as a result of wildfire is insane. Kudos, Frank, for having the guts to attempt to reign some of it in. The public trust particularly in rural communities has been severely damaged by much of it.
Lack of engagement to Frank’s opinion piece does not equate to support or agreement with his proposed changes to wildfire management.
Chris – I think there is a lack of response because this is not only retrograde, and to put it Frankly unworkable. Chief Brian Fennessy is forward thinking, and it is unlikely he will recommend replacing operational judgment with rigid commandments—night only, ridge only, never before a Red Flag Warning—written as though fire obeys clocks, maps and political boundaries. I was just on the Grasshopper fire, and while Red Flag conditions existed at the lower elevations, they did not at the higher elevations. This is fundamentally fire-phobic: every acre burned is treated as failure, every firing operation as suspect, and “success” means forcing every wildfire into the smallest possible footprint.
That denies the natural reality that fire is inevitable, ecologically necessary and sometimes impossible to attack directly without putting firefighters in extraordinary danger. Transparency and accountability are essential. But turning “one foot in the black” into national dogma and putting county commissioners on firing operations would not restore trust—it would substitute political theater for fire science and get people hurt.
Ralph and Anon are certainly free to express their opinion on Franks piece, but as usual, we’ve lost sight of the far-reaching complexities of species and environmental factors affecting fire. One size does not fit all; never will!
Interesting I grew up in the South where Rx fire is commonplace. Folks west of the 100th see this as an ah-ha moment to make the world a better place. Then, working in the West; Oregon, Montana, Colorado, Arizona, Idaho, South Dakota and New Mexico, putting fire on the ground and trying to suppress it surely exposes the complexities of the “one size fits all” approach!
I am so sick of seeing millions of acres of incinerated ecosystems, and seeing the interactions of private landowners being bullied by IMT’s! I see this as really two good options, there may be more; stay the course, or have Congress smack some sense into the fire organization to start appreciating the power of the people! Some IMT’s are currently out of control!
Substituting ‘heroism’ for firefighter safety isn’t going to reduce burned acreage….. or firefighter deaths.