I moderated a wildland fire session at the Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER) Annual Summit in August.
One of the things I learned from that experience was about the use of water or fire retardant as a tool for fighting wildland fires.
Here’s the deal: Water is used for direct attack, meaning you drop water on the flames themselves where they are burning to suppress the fire.
Fire retardant (the red material we see being disbursed by flying tankers) is for building a fire line ahead of the fire, much as a bulldozer does on the ground. The retardant is meant to contain the fire and let it burn out within a specific area. You don’t dump retardant on an actively burning area.
