The USFA & National Wildfire Coordinating Group announce new wildfire training aid for rural firefighters

The U.S. Fire Administration (USFA), in cooperation with the National Wildfire Coordinating Group, announced a new aid to help rural firefighters identify training equivalencies and needs for effectively fighting wildfires that threaten residential areas. The “Skills Crosswalk” (available at  http://www.usfa.dhs.gov/downloads/pdf/wildland_training_crosswalk.pdf ) identifies critical wildland firefighting skills that structural firefighters need to be safe and effective when making an initial attack on a wildland fire in their jurisdiction or when working with state and federal wildland firefighter agencies.

“Our nation’s firefighters already have the necessary skills for fighting fires in all structures in a community,” said U.S. Fire Administrator Greg Cade. “Structural training does not, however, always address the critical wildland fire suppression techniques which differ from structural firefighting techniques. The new ‘Skills Crosswalk’ highlights the differences in order for structural firefighters to be able to address wildland fire suppression challenges.”

According to the U.S. Census Bureau 2006 report, in every area of the nation rural development is expanding into wildland areas. Since the 1980s, the rural population has more than doubled, with 140 million people now living in rural areas. As a result, rural and volunteer firefighters increasingly manage fire in the wildland/urban interface.

The new “Skills Crosswalk” provides a performance-based methodology and a learning resource guide for qualified structural firefighters to develop wildland firefighting knowledge and skills in a focused and time-efficient format. This methodology will assist structural firefighters with wildland skills in working more safely and effectively on initial and extended-attack operations and enhance cooperative firefighting efforts with neighboring jurisdictions and federal wildland firefighters.