As of late October wildfires had blistered more than 9.3 million acres, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, with the bulk concentrated in eastern Washington, the Idaho panhandle and western Montana, along with a handful in Northern California. For much of the summer, the nation has been at Wildfire Preparedness Level 5, the highest level.
As with most any major catastrophe in the United States, alumni of various Center for Homeland Defense and Security educational programs were at the forefront of staffing the plethora of emergency operations while also flexing their planning skills as leaders pieced together staff at home while sending firefighters, often the most skilled of them, to participate in mutual aid agreements. Read the story Wildfire Nation [pdf] …
Associated resources:
Theses from NPS alumni:
- “Improving Air Support for Wildfire Management in the United States” [pdf], by Geoffrey Glickstein
- “Covering the Homeland: National Guard Unmanned Aircraft Systems Support for Wildland Firefighting and Natural Disaster Events” [pdf], by Robert Moose
