The Dangerous Middle: Situational Awareness and Worker Perception of Beetle Kill

Firefighter Observations of “Surprising” Fire Behavior in Mountain Pine Beetle-Attacked Lodgepole Pine Forests

“…For example, on the 2012 High Park Fire, feller-bunchers, machinery commonly used in tree harvesting operations, were deployed to clear trees to assist a multi-division burnout operation adjacent to high MPB-mortality lodgepole pine stands; "burnout" refers to the intentional ignition of fuels ahead of a wildfire to reduce fire behavior and prevent further fire spread. Durbin et al [19] found this same tendency in their study of firefighters in MPB fuel complexes. Fixed-and rotary-wing aircraft were also found to be very useful on several of the MPB fires examined in the present study.…”

“…On the three largest wildfires involved in the study (i.e., Fern Lake, High Park, and Squirrel Creek wildfires in 2012), firefighters commented on non-regional Type 1 incident command teams wanting to aggressively approach the fire but not fully appreciating the various MPB-related hazards. During all three wildfires, non-regional team decision-makers eventually utilized advice received from local fire operations personnel and eventually employed more indirect attack strategies, an action similar to that observed by Durbin et al [19].…”

“…These narratives emerged from a broad range of topographic, fuel, and weather conditions. More specific to MPB-attacked forests, Durbin et al [19] utilized direct observation, participant-observation, informal interviews, and semi-structured interviews of firefighters, foresters, and loggers to elicit perceptions about, and responses to the hazards posed by working in MPB-attacked forests, namely, the unpredictability of falling snags. The focus of this research was on the heightened situational awareness and additional safety triggers required of forest workers.…”

“…Previous anecdotal observations by firefighters have suggested that fire behavior in post-outbreak MPB forest stands can be considered as quite surprising [15,17], indicating that the observations of fire behavior made by wildland fire personnel in these situations was unexpected. This gap between expectation and observation can impact firefighter safety [18,19], and is critical to the understanding of informed fire management strategies and operations. To date, however, there has been a lack of systematic research connecting fire behavior characteristics in MPB-attacked lodgepole pine forests to changes, or lack thereof, in firefighter strategies and tactics.…”

Parent perspectives on the benefits and risks of child-livestock interactions

“…Our work builds on previous biomedical research on respiratory and immunological health impacts of childhood livestock exposure as noted above, anthropological research exploring questions about how we think and talk about occupational risk (21,22), translational research on tailoring safety and health information (23-26), along with literature on the relevance and importance of culture in agricultural safety and health research (1,(27)(28)(29)(30)(31). We also use the Socio-Ecological Model (SEM) as a conceptual framework for thinking about the embeddedness of farm and ranch families in broader levels of social organization.…”