Safety at the WUI: a firefighters view

Abstract

Firefighting is a risky task. Every year during an even longer fire season we attend to many injuries and fatalities of civilians and firefighters in the frame of forest fires activities, especially in wildland urban interface fires situations. Every fatality and injury are investigated, in most of cases they are object of scientific research in order to learn from mistakes. Extracting the learned lessons helps to try not to repeat the situation. In case of recurrent risks personnel can be prepared to deal with them safely. Research in materials, procedures, protocols and many others, most of them are measurable aspects. State and regional agencies invest resources in education and training of its personnel in fire situations. However, in some cases it is not assessed enough those involved (firefighters) on their own identification and perception of risks.