wildfire attack in the usa

1. when fire danger is high - more staff is put on duty - more
vehicles are staffed - and staffing is increased on already staffed
vehicles - every agency has a step up plan or staffing plan or
response plan or mobilization plan ish - its all in writing

2. extra units are sent on first alarms when fire danger is higher

3. radio waves travel faster during red flag days - and computers work faster

4. sometimes extra fire units are prepositioned in the affected area
from outside areas - this can be coordinated at regional or state or
national levels

5. all federal type 1 helos and type 2 fire helos and airtankers and
type 1 hand crews are considered to be 'national assets' - therefore
Boise gets to decide where they are assigned and/or prepositioned

6. some state forestry agencies will surge some of their equipment
from 1 part of the state to another to get ahead of fires - some state
agencies dont seem to have enough manpower to surge anyone from
anywhere to anywhere

7. "call when needed" equipment is privately owned assets that have
written agreements with wildfire agencies to help out when needed -
this ranges from engines to dozers to tenders to kitchen crews to
helicopters to airtankers - all (or most) of the employees are trained
to federal wildfire standards - ie - the private engines have 'engine
bosses' and firefighter 1 and 2 staff - just like the government
owned engines - both the feds and the states use these 'call when
needed' agreements

8. many federal wildfire desk jockeys also work on type 2 hand crews -
these are 'on call' hand crews - their primary jobs are not on the
handcrews - the handcrew assignments are considered to be '2ndary'
jobs - this is ak the 'local fire militia' which is a colloquial or
slang term

9. apparently it is quite common in 2024 for federal type 6 engines to
travel coast to coast on fire assignments - and its very common for
fire 'overhead' (commanders) to travel coast to coast - there must be
tons of money spent on airfares for all of these people

10. when all else fails - there are some military infantry units who
have basic wildfire training - and they can be mobilized to help out
at huge wildfires - but this only happens once every 5 years ish

11. USFS used to have a metric called MEL - "most effective level" -
or maybe - 'most efficient level' - they would plot out costs of fire
control vs losses due to fires - when they ended up spending more than
what they saved - they would cut back on firefighting expenditures -
not sure if anyone still does those calculations

12. all agencies have written "draw down levels" - the 'draw down
levels' mandates the minimum number of fire fighting resources (etc)
they have to keep in their area - this puts a limit on the amount of
resources that they can send to help other agencies or areas

13. there might not be any standards that dictate how fast a fire call
is dispatched

14. there might not be any written standards that dictate how fast a
fire unit has to mobilize for a call - but 2 to 5 minutes seems
typical - just like a structural FD - shortest for chiefs and engines
- maybe longest for helos and airtankers (maybe 10 to 20 minutes)