National Wildfire Coordinating Group

Latest Announcements

A group of 5 firefighters walking downhill in an open wildland area with a mountain range background with trees and mountains.

NWCG Celebrates National Emergency Medical Services Week

This week, NWCG celebrates National Emergency Medical Services Week...  

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Water scooping aircraft flying low over open water

NWCG Standards for Water Scooping Operations, PMS 518

The 2023 update of PMS 518, establishes the standards for dispatching, utilizing, and coordinating water scooping aircraft on interagency wildland fires...

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A red service helicopter hovering over water on a green forest background.

NWCG Standards for Helicopter Operations, PMS 510

The 2023 revision of PMS 510, establishes the standards by which helicopter operations are to be conducted under the exclusive direction and operational control of federal, state, and local agencies...

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A shelter in a carrying bag held upright by a firefighter.

NWCG Standards for M-2002 Fire Shelters, PMS 411

An updated PMS 411 with a new name NWCG Standards for M-2002 Fire Shelters, is now available as an interactive web portal...

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Profile photo a two firefighters from left to right a man and a woman.

Incident Performance and Training Modernization (IPTM) Contract Awarded

The contract will assist NWCG with building incident position standards, developing an integrated performance-based training system, and aid in modernizing training materials and operational tools to meet NWCG’s mission...

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Today's Safety Topic: Hazard Tree - No Work Zones

Knowing the exact time a given hazard tree (or compromised section) will fail is extremely difficult, and is, in many cases, an unpredictable task.

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Incident Performance and Training Modernization

This short video introduces the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) and its members, governing body, and the consensus process by which decisions are made. Additionally, this is the primer for the Incident Performance & Training Modernization (IPTM) effort; a system focused on improving training effectiveness and efficiencies for wildland firefighters...


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About Us

What We Do

How To Get Involved

The National Wildfire Coordinating Group provides national leadership to enable interoperable wildland fire operations among federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial partners.  Primary objectives include:

  • Establish national interagency wildland fire operations standards. Recognize that the decision to adopt standards is made independently by the NWCG members and communicated through their respective directives systems.
  • Establish wildland fire position standards, qualifications requirements, and performance support capabilities (e.g. training courses, job aids) that enable implementation of NWCG standards.
  • Support the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy goals: to restore and maintain resilient landscapes; create fire adapted communities; and respond to wildfires safely and effectively.
  • Establish information technology (IT) capability requirements for wildland fire.
  • Ensure that all NWCG activities contribute to safe, effective, and coordinated national interagency wildland fire operations.

NWCG standards establish common practices and requirements that enable efficient and coordinated national interagency wildland fire operations. These standards may include guidelines, procedures, processes, best practices, specifications, techniques, and methods. NWCG standards are interagency by design; however, the decision to adopt and utilize them is made independently by the individual member agencies and communicated through their respective directives systems.

Incident Position standards are a component of NWCG standards. They enable consistent and uniform performance by personnel mobilized by position under NIMS-ICS principles. Incident position standards include incident position descriptions (duties and responsibilities) and position qualification requirements for training, experience, physical fitness, and position currency.

The National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) was established in 1976 through a Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior. The memorandum defined the function and purpose of NWCG as follows:

“To establish an operational group designed to coordinate programs of the participating agencies so as to avoid wasteful duplication and to provide a means of constructively working together.  Its goal is to provide more effective execution of each agency’s fire management program.  The Group provides a formalized system to agree upon standards of training, equipment, aircraft, suppression priorities, and other operational areas.  Agreed upon policies, standards, and procedures are implemented directly through regular agency channels.” 

Twelve “working teams” and a number of sub-teams, comprised of member agency leaders and experts in various fields, were established in functional areas such as fire equipment, fire weather, incident operations, training, and incident business. These teams led the initial effort to achieve a broad national standardization in key areas of wildland fire management.

Listed in the order of which they joined, current NWCG members are:

Seventeen primary committees and a number of subordinate groups - again representing the key functional areas in wildland fire management - continue the work of their predecessors. And although individual members are different and agency membership has evolved, the primary mission remains largely unchanged. NWCG continues to provide leadership for a seamless response to wildland fire across the nation.