Instructor: Todd Leiss

Despite recent severe wildland fire seasons, little attention has been paid to responder safety and traffic incident management during these events. Several struck-by line-of-duty deaths have occurred at wildland fire scenes. These events have involved smoke obscuration of visibility on the roadway, insufficient vehicle backing safety practices, and improper boarding of firefighting apparatus. As buildings and infrastructure encroach further on undeveloped land, wildland fire and smoke will affect more moving traffic on roadways. In addition, wildland firefighting vehicles on and off-road pose a struck-by hazard to wildland firefighters. This program will explore traffic incident management considerations for routes affected by wildland fires, firefighting operations, and safety procedures to follow when wildland firefighting vehicles operate in close proximity to responders on foot.

Important note: This workshop will focus solely on traffic control and the safety of responders operating near vehicles at a wildland fire. Other safety aspects of wildland fire response are outside the scope of this program.