by Tom Harbour The pandemic is upon us. COVID-19 has arrived. We are afraid. Remaining immobile with fear is the antithesis of who we are and what we represent as...
Posted by | April 8, 2020
by Tom Harbour In 1985, I was part of a wildland fire type one incident management team (IMT) assigned to deal with a large wildfire event in northeast Oregon. That...
Posted by | November 4, 2019
by Tom Harbour We've been inundated with the news and visual images of Southern California fires, often described by the media as “unprecedented” and “never before seen” events. It would...
Posted by | October 18, 2019
by Tom Harbour I still remember the look in her eyes. The fear. The thought that her children were in the path of an unpredictable and insatiable wildfire. And that...
Posted by | September 27, 2019
by Tom Harbour Firefighters/first responders want to survive and succeed despite the complex and unpredictable environments the face. They believe in their sisters and brothers. Chiefs and Agency Administrators want...
Posted by | August 2, 2019
The most important questions are the “primary” questions. They are the questions which are most critical - but why?
Posted by | July 8, 2019
Escape route mapping has to be done in real-time or near-real-time, which requires three things: (1) the location of the crew; (2) the location of the designated safety zone; and...
Posted by | April 5, 2019
What happens when you apply Operations Research to the complex, uncertain and highly variable conditions that define wildfire management? You get mathematically optimal strategies with the highest probability of success,...
Posted by | June 24, 2018
This is how we measure performance in wildland fire management: - Relative Production Index (RPI) - Productive Efficiency (PE) - Daily Resource Capacity (DRC) - Fire Line Effectiveness (FLE) -...
Posted by | June 9, 2018
It has taken us almost a hundred years to recognize this, but as a society, we must forge a new relationship with wildland fire. Safety, effectiveness, and efficiency - we...