The 6 Minutes for Safety Program

Have you ever wondered how or why
the 6 Minutes for Safety Program was formed?
 

In 1994, 34 wildland firefighters lost their lives in the line of duty. In July of that year on the South Canyon Fire, near Glenwood Springs, Colorado, the wildland fire community lost 14 of our own in a single incident. Following this deadly season, the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior called on the wildland fire agencies to review the organizational and safety culture in the wildland fire program. The agencies chartered the Wildland Firefighter Safety Awareness Study (TriData Study) which proposed changes to enhance firefighter safety. Over the next decade, several of these recommendations were implemented including the establishment of the Wildland Fire Leadership Program, the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center, the formalization of the Wildland Fire Safety Annual Refresher (WFSTAR) program and the 6 Minutes for Safety Program (6MFS).

The 6MFS program began as a grassroots effort by a group of wildland firefighters to highlight the basic tenets of firefighter safety. Part of the value in these messages that remains today is that the topics and contents come from the field, for the field, to share lessons with other firefighters. In the early days, the 6MFS group established a calendar with topics for two-week periods and shared across the wildland fire community through emails. By 2000, a simple website was created to share these daily topics. Today, 6MFS is a subcommittee under the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) Risk Management Committee comprised of members from the field representing each NWCG participating agency.

Why six minutes?

The name and short safety message style originated from organizational and operational risk management expert Gordon Graham, who used a 6-minute style to brief his staff on important information with messages that focused on the basics. A group of firefighters were inspired by one of Graham’s presentations at the Lookouts-Communication-Escape routes-Safety zones (LCES) conference in the late 90s. The backbone of this initiative was the basics: the 10 and 18s, and LCES. The audience was the boots on the ground, and the intent was for the messages to be “By the firefighter. For the firefighter.”

Any individual or crew can write their own or submit a 6MFS Daily Topic Suggestion, at any time.

Over the years, 6MFS has continued to evolve with the addition of new daily topics, the creation of ‘This Day in History,’ and the Wildland Firefighter Week of Remembrance. These additions provide an opportunity to take a deeper dive into incidents where powerful learning opportunities exist as well as to honor and remember the fallen as we discuss the lessons learned.

2024 marks the 30th anniversary of the 1994 fire season, the South Canyon Fire, and the origins of major cultural shifts in the wildland fire community to include the 6MFS program.

A special thank you to Kathy Komatz for carrying the torch for so many years and ensuring that every component of the program was created to support and inform the boots on the ground!

Discussion Questions:

• Why is it important to discuss the 6MFS daily topic?
• How do you incorporate the daily topic into day-to-day activities?
• What are the different ways to access 6MFS in the field?
• What other types of topics should be considered?
• How do you submit feedback or suggest for a new topic?