Wildland Fire Modules
History of Wildland Fire Modules
Between 1995 and 1999 the US National Park Service (NPS) founded seven Wildland Fire Modules (formerly Fire Use Modules) in park units across the United States. These modules were and are highly qualified and extremely effective in a variety of fire operations including, but not limited to, basic suppression, extremely accurate fire behavior analysis, and other tactical predictive services.
The primary purpose of these modules was managing rather than suppressing fires to reduce costs, assisting park units with resource benefit fires and prescribed fires, meeting the agency project preparation objectives, and executing prescribed fires within narrow burn windows. Modules were also intended to monitor fire effects, manually reduce fuels in park units, and assist other agencies with fire use and fuels treatment projects.
Nearly two decades later The USDA Forest Service, The Bureau of Land Management, The Fish and Wildlife Service, and The Nature Conservancy also support Wildland Fire Modules. These modules continue to fulfill their original purpose outlined by the NPS, while also embracing the significant technological advances seen within fire monitoring and modeling. Today, WFMs are highly skilled and versatile fire crews of at least 7 personnel, that provide technical and ecological based expertise in the areas of long term planning, ignitions, holding, and suppression, prescribed fire preparation and implementation support, hazard fuels reduction, and fire effects monitoring, resulting in fire fulfilling its natural/historic role to meet resource and management objectives.
Mission & Purpose
The PURPOSE of the Interagency Wildland Fire Module Program is developing and providing innovative, safe, highly mobile, logistically independent, and versatile fire modules committed to maintaining fire’s role as a natural ecological process within wildland fire management and incident operations.
The MISSION of the Interagency Wildland Fire Module Program is facilitating communication, standardization, and advancements between Wildland Fire Modules.
