First Things First

By Darren Hutchinson

Although triage often focuses on the structures and neighborhoods threatened by wildfire, it's also an important factor in firefighter safety in the interface.

Triage is one of those tools that we hear about and learn how to perform, but how many of us actually do it properly or really understand what to do with the information we've gathered? It is very important to understand just how important triage is when working in the wildland-urban interface. You need to know the number of structures, their locations and which ones require action. As firefighters in the WUI, we need to step back and ask ourselves, "Can we really make a difference at this location?" and "Can we do it while placing safety first?"

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Course of Action Almost anyone who has been deployed to the interface has been involved in the triage of structures threatened by wildfire. For some you have days and...

At its most basic, triage is the sorting and prioritizing of structures that require protection from wildfire. It's important to make a strong effort to triage any and all structures that require action. Doing so helps responders to:

• Fully understand just what may need to be protected and what we can't protect

• Determine what resources are needed to accomplish their goals

• Build the action plan for responding resources

• Help maintain the span of control during the incident

• Ensure the safety of all responders.

I have been on fires where there are no maps showing where any structures are, and I have heard of firefighters responding to an incident where they were told there were only 100 structures, but once they arrived they learned of an additional 30-plus structures. Once the extra structures were identified, the local government made the call: "Do not action the structures that were found." This creates a problem if any of the newly found structures (that were not to be protected) catch fire and threaten the other structures.

When conducting triage, it's important to have a game plan regarding what information to collect and how to do so. The data-collection method needs to be determined by the time you have to collect the data. Even with an untrained crew, you can still get the job done by setting the parameters of data to collect. If it's not during a fire or even the fire season, then there's more time to conduct a thorough triage.

For structures in the WUI, there are three types of triage:

1. Down and dirty triage occurs when the fire is right there, you have less than eight hours and you need to know just what needs to be protected. This level of triage can be performed with a quick drive-by to snap a digital picture, record the GPS coordinates and take some simple notes to justify your decisions. Be sure to check whether there is a safety zone on-site or nearby. Engine officers are your best bet to collect this data because they have the most decision-making experience and are responsible for the engine and crew.

2. Rapid triage is performed when the fire is going to be at the structures in four to eight hours. You will need to look toward the engine officers to get the job done, but with a little more information if possible. This may include some more notes, including what the roof is made of and which fuels are in priority zone 1, along with their proximity to the structure.

3. Detailed triage can be conducted when you have eight hours to several days to collect the data. Data to collect can include access, decks and exterior building materials. Once the field data has been collected, the planning section chief and the structure protection group supervisor can use it to create a structure protection plan.

When you are conducting structure triage, it is important to clearly define what information you are looking for and how you want it to be collected. It does you no good to have 50 engines in the field using a variety of forms that call for different information. You should use only one form, and you should show the engine officers what you want them to do. The time spent doing this on the front-end will help on the back-end.

When the latest Incident Response Pocket Guide was released in January 2010, it included two new triage categories, each with two subcategories, first suggested by Los Angeles County Fire Department Bttn. Chief John P. (J.P) Harris (Ret.). These categories help us in the field by giving us the best tool to justify our decisions when conducting triage in the WUI.

In the new Leadership for the Wildland Fire Officer, Harris suggests looking at interface triage by asking two questions:

1. Are there lives to be saved?

2. Is there a safety zone for personnel and apparatus?

Notice that Harris defines the safety zone as having enough room for personnel and apparatus. Why? Because the apparatus is part of your safety equipment. However, he takes this one step further by saying that your engine should emerge without any melted plastic or scorched paint. If your engine survives unscratched, chances are that you will, too.

If a safety zone exists, the area is defensible, either with little or no attention or with fire department intervention if there is a high probability of ignition. If no safety zone is present, firefighters should prepare and go, rechecking later, or check for homeowners and move on. These situations and courses of action are reflected in the "Triage categories" sidebar.

In addition to looking at individual homes for triage, you need to look at any developed neighborhoods prior to the fire arriving to develop a plan of attack and choose a tactic for the resources. The biggest difference with a neighborhood (as compared to individual homes) is that a single engine can take care of many more structures than when protecting structures that are spread out over a greater distance.

Let's throw another wrench into your tactics by adding infrastructure to what you are asked to protect. We need to remember that when a WUI fire is coming into a developed community, it may impact a large amount of infrastructure such as power lines, communications towers, and water treatment and sewage plants. Can you imagine losing a sewage treatment plant and all the homeowners returning home needing to use the toilet at the same time?

With these new guidelines to help us justify our triage decisions, a big weight has been lifted off our shoulders. By using categories based on the presence of a safety zone, we can say with confidence that we did not protect that structure because it was not safe for our crews. Of course, such decisions require thorough documentation, so there will be no question as to what and why we did or did not do anything.

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