National Wildfire Coordinating Group
Encyclopedia
Wildfire
A wildfire is any uncontrolled fire in combustible vegetation that occurs in the countryside or a wilderness area. Other names such as brush fire, bushfire, forest fire, desert fire, grass fire, hill fire, squirrel fire, vegetation fire, veldfire, and wilkjjofire may be used to describe the same...
season in 1970.
The 1970 fire season underscored the need for a national set of training and equipment standards which would be standardized across the different agencies. NWCG included representatives from the United States Forest Service
United States Forest Service
The United States Forest Service is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass...
, the Bureau of Land Management
Bureau of Land Management
The Bureau of Land Management is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior which administers America's public lands, totaling approximately , or one-eighth of the landmass of the country. The BLM also manages of subsurface mineral estate underlying federal, state and private...
, the National Park Service
National Park Service
The National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...
, the Bureau of Indian Affairs
Bureau of Indian Affairs
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is an agency of the federal government of the United States within the US Department of the Interior. It is responsible for the administration and management of of land held in trust by the United States for Native Americans in the United States, Native American...
, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Association of State Foresters
National Association of State Foresters
The National Association of State Foresters is a non-profit organization that represents the directors of all 50 State Forestry agencies, the eight United States territories, and the District of Columbia...
.
After a series of meetings in the early 1970s, the NWCG was officially chartered by the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture in 1976.
Among the notable results of the NWCG has been the adoption of the Interagency Fire Qualifications Rating system, more commonly known among firefighters as the "red card" qualification system; the establishment of the series of training classes associated with the red card system (such as the basic wildland fire course, S-130/S-190
S-130/S-190
In wildland fire suppression in the United States, S-130/S-190 refers to the basic wildland fire training course required of all firefighters before they can work on the firelines....
); the establishment of an interagency fire training center at Marana, Arizona
Marana, Arizona
Marana is a town in Pima County, Arizona, located northwest of Tucson, with a small portion in Pinal County. According to the 2010 census, the population of the town is 34,961...
; the publication of training manuals such as the Fireline Handbook; and the Resource Ordering Status System
Resource Ordering Status System
In the United States, the National Wildfire Coordinating Group operates a nationwide, web-based database system for managing wildland firefighting resources...
.
NWCG was formed independently of two other programs which also formed in the 1970s out of the need for greater interagency coordination: the Boise Interagency Fire Center (now the National Interagency Fire Center
National Interagency Fire Center
The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, is the physical facility that is home to the National Interagency Coordination Center , and the National Multi-Agency Coordination group ....
), and the FIRESCOPE
FIRESCOPE
FIRESCOPE is an abbreviation which stands for "FIrefighting REsources of Southern California Organized for Potential Emergencies." It is a system developed to improve the capability of firefighting agencies in southern California in allocating and managing fire suppression resources.-System design...
program in southern California.
SmoC
The NWCG oversees the Smoke Committee (SmoC), an advisory group that addresses strategies and guidance for addressing smoke within fire and fuels programs nationwide.The Committee's web page describes itself as a forum where air resource and wildland fire management programs and member agencies will discuss and attempt to resolve technical, regulatory and policy matters of joint interest concerning fire emissions and air quality impacts on firefighter and public safety and health from planned and unplanned fires.