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Wildfire safety

The 10 & 18

The 10 Standard Fire Orders and the 18 Watch Out Situations are the backbone of fireline safety in the United States. I have carried them with me from my first season in 1987 to today. Learn them before you ever step on the fireline.

US Forest Service

10 Standard Fire Orders

The Fire Orders are written to be followed in order: work down the list and by the time you reach number ten, you are safe to fight fire aggressively. Every firefighter is expected to know all ten, in order, without hesitation.

  1. 1Keep informed on fire weather conditions and forecasts.
  2. 2Know what your fire is doing at all times.
  3. 3Base all actions on current and expected fire behavior.
  4. 4Identify escape routes and safety zones, and make them known.
  5. 5Post lookouts when there is possible danger.
  6. 6Be alert. Keep calm. Think clearly. Act decisively.
  7. 7Maintain prompt communications with your forces, your supervisor, and adjoining forces.
  8. 8Give clear instructions and ensure they are understood.
  9. 9Maintain control of your forces at all times.
  10. 10Fight fire aggressively, having provided for safety first.

How the Fire Orders came to be

The 10 Standard Fire Orders were developed in 1957 by a US Forest Service task force formed after the 1956 Inaja Fire in Southern California, in which eleven firefighters died. The task force reviewed the agency’s loss-of-life fires and the circumstances behind them, then wrote ten standing orders that, if followed in sequence, would keep a firefighter out of the situations that had killed people on those fires.

The idea was deliberately modeled on the standing orders of the US military: simple, numbered rules that leave no room for interpretation. They were adopted nationwide in 1957 and have remained the foundation of fireline safety ever since, with only small wording updates as the agency refined how the orders fit together.

Fireline warning signs

18 Watch Out Situations

Where the Fire Orders tell you what you must do, the Watch Out Situations tell you what to watch for. Each one is a warning sign that you are drifting into danger. The field rule is simple: any Watch Out Situation means the Fire Orders are being compromised, and something has to change before you continue.

  1. 1The fire is not scouted and sized up.
  2. 2You are in country not seen in daylight.
  3. 3Safety zones and escape routes are not identified.
  4. 4You are unfamiliar with weather and local factors influencing fire behavior.
  5. 5You are uninformed on strategy, tactics, and hazards.
  6. 6Instructions and assignments are not clear.
  7. 7There is no communication link with crew members or supervisors.
  8. 8You are constructing line without a safe anchor point.
  9. 9You are building fireline downhill with fire below.
  10. 10You are attempting a frontal assault on the fire without support.
  11. 11There is unburned fuel between you and the fire.
  12. 12You cannot see the main fire and are not in contact with anyone who can.
  13. 13You are on a hillside where rolling material can ignite fuel below.
  14. 14The weather is becoming hotter and drier.
  15. 15The wind increases and/or changes direction.
  16. 16You are getting frequent spot fires across the line.
  17. 17Terrain and fuels make escape to safety zones difficult.
  18. 18You feel like taking a nap near the fireline.

How the Watch Out Situations came to be

Thirty years after the Fire Orders, a group of experienced firefighters on the San Bernardino National Forest sat down in 1987 and wrote the 18 Watch Out Situations. Instead of coming from a formal review board, they came straight from the fireline: each situation is a condition those veterans had personally seen kill or nearly kill firefighters, described in plain field language.

The two lists were later paired together and printed side by side in the Incident Response Pocket Guide that wildland firefighters carry today, along with LCES (the Lookouts, Communications, Escape routes and Safety zones order set developed by Paul Gleason after the 1994 South Canyon Fire). Together they form the standard safety litany of US wildfire firefighting, recited on the fireline to this day.