In this week’s blog homework, I wanted to cover three optional videos. These videos are “Becoming a Wildland Firefighter’’, ‘’ America Burning: The Yarnell Hill Tragedy and the Nation’s Wildfire Crisis’’, and ‘’ Cohesive Strategy Stakeholders Perspectives”. I will dive in each video content and try to make connections among them.
As we know, fires play a prominent role in the environment all the times, and even though humanity has used fire as a tool, fire has had a lot of devastating effects on both people and other beings. To prevent these impacts, skilled firefighters are trained, firefighting policies are enacted and so on. In the first video, we can see the firefighters and their education systems. Also, important notions like safety zone, fire shelter, or escape routes are mentioned in this video. These terms are important because in the event of fire, firefighters might become alone or not get help like in the Yarnell Fire. So, firefighters should be able to practice them in an effective way. Otherwise, they might encounter undesired outcomes like deaths. In my opinion, death is the most tragic part and unwanted result of wildland fires. In the Yarnell fire, the team called Granite Mountain Hotshots used safety zone or shelters. Nevertheless, 19 firefighters tragically perished. And this shows us that fire managers or forest services should have more effective fire-fighting plans. This notion is directly related to the third video.
In the third video, as a result of the Flame Act, Congress creates a strategy called “National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy”. With this strategy, 3 important goals are targeted. Fire-resilient landscape, a fire adapted community, and safer and more effective fighting operations. Even though firefighting is still dangerous, the negative impact of it is intended to reduce with this plan. So, these kinds of policies have a crucial impact on firefighters and their fight.
To be honest, I should say that there is no future without fire or smoke, but this case should not reduce the effectiveness of firefighting policies. Managers should always come up with more effective fighting plans, and I think the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy might be a good example of this policy.