The Deep Dive into Wildland Fire Culture is a Forest Service project designed to facilitate an open conversation about the agency’s wildland fire culture. Led by a team with backgrounds in wildland fire, social science and organizational learning, the project’s goal is to cultivate a more inclusive, high-performing workplace.

The unique structure and character of the wildland firefighting organizational culture is a product of its history, and it influences nearly every aspect of wildland firefighting today. For example, recent wildfire accident investigations reveal that exclusion in team culture has negative effects on firefighter safety.

Throughout this fire season, we have been asking firefighters questions about their lived experiences. We wanted to hear from everyone in the wildland firefighting community, including primary and secondary fire positions, militia, IMTs, tanker bases, fire caches and dispatch centers. Participation is confidential. After providing their thoughts, participants can see and rate the thoughts of others. A summary of responses from the previous questions can be found on the Deep Dive webpage.

The current question, Where does the wildland fire culture need to go from here and what are the action steps you think will get us there?, is open through the end of October. Share your thoughts now.

This final question will be open through the end of October. It is designed to challenge participants to reflect on where our wildland fire culture needs to go and what we need to do to get it there. What attributes of our culture are we willing to let go of, and which do we want to be sure to bring with us moving forward? It is not a question of whether the culture will change; it is whether we want to be active participants or passive bystanders in the change that will inevitably take place.

At the end of the fire season, a team of social scientists will bring together a series of focus groups made up of diverse wildland fire personnel. These groups will help our team make sense of the question responses and propose potential action steps. These action steps will be presented to agency leadership for implementation as pilots during the 2023 fire season. If you would like to take part in these focus groups please let us know.

And if you have experience with firefighting, we encourage you to participate in the final question!