NWCG Glossary of Wildland Fire, PMS 205

Overview

The NWCG Glossary of Wildland Fire provides an extensive listing of approved terms and definitions used by the NWCG community. It contains terms commonly used by NWCG in the areas of wildland fire and incident management and is not intended to list all terms used by NWCG groups and member agencies. The NWCG has directed that all committee and subgroup product glossaries be contained within the NWCG Glossary of Wildland Fire to maintain definition consistency and clarity among documents.

Comments, questions, and recommendations shall be submitted to the appropriate agency program manager assigned to the Data Standards and Terminology Board (DSTB).

NWCG Glossary of Wildland Fire, PMS 205 (Quick View)

EDG Explorer is a database platform used for managing NWCG Glossary terms. The following table is a quick view of the terms found in EDG. More detailed information such as rules, documentation, and term relationships may be viewed in EDG Explorer.

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Title	Steward	Status	Definition
fire resource category	NCSC National Coordination System Committee	Approved
fire resource kind	NCSC National Coordination System Committee	Approved
fire resource status	NCSC National Coordination System Committee	Approved	Indicates if the resource record being submitted or updated is an initial response resource or daily resource record.
fire resource type	NCSC National Coordination System Committee	Approved	Gabriella did workflow in Data Standards Glossary.
fire resources	IBC Incident Business Committee	Approved	All personnel and equipment available or potentially available for assignment to incidents.
fire retardant	ETC Equipment Technology Committee	Approved	Any substance except plain water that by chemical or physical action reduces flammability of fuels or slows their rate of combustion.
fire risk (agent)	WFISC Wildland Fire Investigation Subcommittee	Approved	A causative agent.
fire risk (likelihood)	WFISC Wildland Fire Investigation Subcommittee	Approved	The chance of fire starting, as determined by the presence and activity of causative agents.
fire risk (potential)	WFISC Wildland Fire Investigation Subcommittee	Approved	A number related to the potential number of firebrands to which a given area will be exposed during the rating day.
fire scar (landscape)	FUSC Fire Use Subcommittee	Approved	The mark left on a landscape by fire.
fire scar (vegetation)	FUSC Fire Use Subcommittee	Approved	A healing or healed injury or wound to woody vegetation, caused or accentuated by a fire.
fire scar analysis	FUSC Fire Use Subcommittee	Approved	Analysis of one or more fire scars to determine individual tree fire frequency or mean fire intervals for specified areas.
fire season (likelihood)	FWS Fire Weather Subcommittee	Approved	Period(s) of the year during which wildland fires are likely to occur, spread, and affect resources values sufficient to warrant organized fire management activities.
fire season (regulated)	FWS Fire Weather Subcommittee	Approved	A legally enacted time during which burning activities are regulated by federal, state or local authority.
fire sensitive tree	FUSC Fire Use Subcommittee	Approved	A species with thin bark or highly flammable foliage that has a relatively greater probability of being killed or scarred by a fire.
fire service	IOSC Incident Operations Subcommittee	Archived	The organized fire protection service; its members, individually and collectively; allied organizations assisting protection agencies.
fire severity	FUSC Fire Use Subcommittee	Approved	Degree to which a site has been altered or disrupted by fire; loosely, a product of fire intensity and residence time.
fire shelter	RMC Risk Management Committee, ETC Equipment Technology Committee	Approved	An aluminized cloth tent that offers protection in a fire entrapment situation by reflecting radiant heat and providing a volume of breathable air.
fire shelter deployment	RMC Risk Management Committee	Approved	Removing a fire shelter from its case and unfolding it to use as protection against heat, smoke, and burning embers.
fire shelter deployment site	RMC Risk Management Committee	Approved	Immediate area where a fire shelter has been deployed.
fire shovel	ETC Equipment Technology Committee	Approved	Type of shovel specifically designed for use in constructing a fireline; has a tapered blade with both edges sharpened for scraping, digging, grubbing, cutting, and throwing.
fire simulator	IPSC Incident and Position Standards Committee	Archived	Training device that imposes simulated fire and smoke on a landscape image, for the purpose of instructing fire suppression personnel in different fire situations and fire suppression techniques.
fire size class code	FRSC Fire Reporting Subcommittee	Approved	A code that corresponds to one of several ranges of fire size based on the number of acres within the final fire perimeter.
fire sketch	WFISC Wildland Fire Investigation Subcommittee	Approved	A not to scale drawing.
fire spread model	FBSC Fire Behavior Subcommittee	Approved	A set of physics and empirical equations that form a mathematical representation of the behavior of fire in uniform wildland fuels.
fire storm	FBSC Fire Behavior Subcommittee	Approved	Violent convection caused by a large continuous area of intense fire. Often characterized by destructively violent surface indrafts, near and beyond the perimeter, and sometimes by tornado-like whirls.
fire strategy		In Development
fire suppressant	ETC Equipment Technology Committee	Approved	Any agent used to extinguish the flaming and glowing phases of combustion by direct application to the burning fuel.
fire suppression	IOSC Incident Operations Subcommittee	Approved	All work and activities connected with control and fire-extinguishing operations, beginning with discovery and continuing until the fire is completely extinguished.
fire suppression organization (area)	IOSC Incident Operations Subcommittee	Approved	The personnel responsible for fire suppression within a specified area.
fire suppression organization (fire)	IOSC Incident Operations Subcommittee	Approved	The personnel and equipment collectively assigned to the suppression of a specific fire or group of fires.
fire suppression organization (management structure)	IOSC Incident Operations Subcommittee	Approved	The management structure, usually shown in the form of an organization chart of the persons and groups having specific responsibilities in fire suppression.
fire swatter	ETC Equipment Technology Committee	Approved	A fire tool that consists of a thick, flat piece of rubber on a long handle used to drag over or smother out flames of grass fires.
fire tool cache	ETC Equipment Technology Committee	Approved	A supply of fire tools and equipment assembled in planned quantities or standard units at a strategic point for exclusive use in wildland operations.
fire trap (material accumulation)	FWS Fire Weather Subcommittee	Approved	An accumulation of highly combustible material, rendering firefighting dangerous.
fire trap (situational)	FWS Fire Weather Subcommittee	Approved	Any situation in which it is highly dangerous to fight fire.
fire treatment	FUSC Fire Use Subcommittee	Approved	The use of fire to accomplish a specified objective.
fire triangle	FBSC Fire Behavior Subcommittee	Approved	Instructional aid in which the sides of a triangle are used to represent the three factors (oxygen, heat, fuel) necessary for combustion and flame production; removal of any of the three factors causes flame production to cease.
fire type	FMB Fire Management Board	Approved	A management distinction, made to satisfy legal and budget constraints, based on whether the ignition source was planned or unplanned. Under the implementation guidance, only two types of wildland fire - wildfire and prescribed fire - are recognized.
fire vector	WFISC Wildland Fire Investigation Subcommittee	Approved	The direction of fire spread identified as one of three categories: advancing, lateral, or backing.
fire weather	FWS Fire Weather Subcommittee	Approved	Weather conditions which influence fire ignition, behavior, and suppression.
fire weather forecast	FWS Fire Weather Subcommittee	Approved	A weather prediction specially prepared for use in wildland fire operations and prescribed fire.
Fire Weather Index	FDSC Fire Danger Subcommittee	Approved	A numerical rating in the Canadian fire danger rating system, based on meteorological measurements of fire intensity in a standard fuel type. (The standard fuel type is representative of jack pine and lodgepole pine.) The FWI is comprised of three fuel moisture codes, covering classes of forest fuel of different drying rates, and two indices that represent rate of spread and the amount of available fuel.
fire weather station	FWS Fire Weather Subcommittee	Approved	A meteorological station specially equipped to measure weather elements that have an important effect on fire behavior.
fire weather watch	FWS Fire Weather Subcommittee	Approved	A Fire Weather Watch is issued to advise of conditions which could result in extensive wildland fire occurrence or extreme fire behavior, which are expected to develop in the next 12 to 48 hours, but not more than 72 hours. In cases of dry lightning, a Fire Weather Watch may be issued for the next 12 hours.
fire whirl	FWS Fire Weather Subcommittee	Approved	Spinning vortex column of ascending hot air and gases rising from a fire and carrying aloft smoke, debris, and flame. Fire whirls range in size from less than one foot to over 500 feet in diameter. Large fire whirls have the intensity of a small tornado.
Fire Year		Approved
fire-day	FDSC Fire Danger Subcommittee	Approved	Standard 24-hour period beginning at 1000 hours, during which most wildfires undergo a predictable speeding up and slowing down of intensity, depending primarily on the influence of weather and fuel factors.
fire-flood cycle	FWS Fire Weather Subcommittee	Approved	The greatly increased rate of water run off and soil movement from steep slopes that may follow removal of the vegetative cover by burning.
fire-proofing	IOSC Incident Operations Subcommittee	Approved	Removal or treatment of fuels to reduce the danger of fires igniting or spreading. (E.g., fire-proofing roadsides, campsites, structural timber.) Protection is relative, not absolute.

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National Wildfire Coordinating Group

PMS 205

NWCG Glossary of Wildland Fire, PMS 205

Overview