RT-130, Wildland Fire Safety Training Annual Refresher (WFSTAR)

Is Your LCES Adequate

RT-130 Decorative banner. Group of photos depicting wildland firefighters performing various duties.

LCES doesn't make any sense if it's not based on fire behavior and worse case fire potential.
Category: Operations
Core Component(s): Incident Reviews and Lessons Learned;
Fire and Aviation Operational Safety;
Human Factors, Communication and Decision Making
Estimated Delivery Time: 30 minutes; Video Length: 8:14

Module Tools

Intent

Establish Lookouts, Communications, Escape Routes, and Safety Zones (LCES) based on worse-case fire behavior and potential.

Facilitator Preparation

Review the video and module tools.
Consider additional activities and discussion questions pertinent to the location and agency.

Facilitating the Discussion

Show the video.
Facilitate a small or large group discussion using the discussion questions.

Discussion Questions

What led to Paul Gleason creating LCES in 1991?
This video states that LCES should be based on worst-case fire behavior. Have you been on an incident where it wasn’t based on a worst-case scenario? What was the outcome?
Where are some of the largest safety zones that you’ve seen? Were they implemented based on explosive fire behavior? Were they adequate?
The term “set it and forget it” was used in this video for LCES. How do you feel about this term?
According to the video, what is the fundamental intent of a lookout?

Resources

Publication: Incident Response Pocket Guide (IRPG), PMS 461
Document: 6 Minutes for Safety – Origin of the 10 and 18
Document: LCES and Other Thoughts by Paul Gleason
Document: The 10 Standard Firefighting Orders and 18 Watchout Situations: We Don’t Bend Them, We Don’t Break Them…We Don’t Know Them

Additional Video Information

This video is also available as a download. (Size 26 MB)
Download the .srt file for closed captioning (you may need to right click and Save As). For information on how to add closed captioning to a video, see this how-to page.

Note: For Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, right click the word download and select Save Link As; for Internet Explorer (IE), right click and select Save Target As.

Print This WFSTAR Module

Page Last Modified / Reviewed:

2023-04-06

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