Glossary
Glossary of Wildfire Related Terms
Aggressive fire suppression - the proactive and immediate application of activities necessary to extinguish undesired forest fires, beginning with fire detection and continuing until fires are completely controlled and extinguished.
At-Risk Community - a group of homes or other improvements (such as utilities or transportation routes) within or adjacent to federal land in which conditions are conducive to a large-scale wildland fire and pose a significant threat to human life or property.
Best Management Practices (BMP) - a practice or combination of practices that provide the most effective and practical means of controlling point and nonpoint pollutants at levels compatible with environmental quality goals.
Biomass - the quantity of living matter, expressed as a concentration or weight per unit area.
Biological Diversity - the variety of life in all its forms, levels and combinations including ecosystem diversity, species diversity and genetic diversity.
Canopy - the top part of a forest. This top layer provides protection for birds and butterflies and shade to cool the forest in summer.
Community Boundary - the geographic area considered to be Communities at Risk.
Community At Risk - a geographic area within and surrounding permanent dwellings with basic infrastructure and services, under a common fire protection jurisdiction, government, or tribal trust or allotment, for which there is a significant threat due to wildfire.
Community Rating - populated areas meeting the community criteria with overall rating assigned.
Community Wildfire Protection Plan - a plan developed by a community in an area at-risk from wildfire.
Conflagration - a raging, destructive fire. Often used to describe a fire burning under extreme fire weather. The term is also used when a wildland fire burns into a wildlandurban interface, destroying many structures.
Crown Fire - a fire that advances from treetop to treetop or shrubs independent of a surface fire.
Defensible Space– an area, typically a width of 30 feet or more, between an improved property and a potential wildfire where the combustibles have been removed or modified.
Digital Elevation Model (DEM)– data files which are digital representations of cartographic information.
Diversity - an ecological measure of the variety of organisms present in a habitat.
Driveway - the primary, privately owned vehicle access road that serves a dwelling, which is controlled by the owner of the dwelling, and which is longer than 150 feet.
Dwelling - a structure, or a part of a structure, that is used as a home, as a residence, or as a sleeping place by one or more people who maintain a household in the structure.
Easement - a limited right to make use of a property owned by another, for example, a right of way across the property.
Ecology - the study of interrelationships between living things and to their environment
Ecosystem - all the organisms in a particular region and the environment in which they live. The elements of an ecosystem interact with each other in some way, and so depend on each other either directly or indirectly.
Endangered - a species that is in immediate danger of becoming extinct and needs protection to survive.
Endemic species - a species that is restricted in its distribution to a particular locality or region.
Environment - the place in which an organism lives, and the circumstances under which it lives. Environment includes measures like moisture and temperature, as much as it refers to the actual physical place where an organism is found.
Environmental data - any measurements or information that describe environmental processes, location, or conditions; ecological or health effects and consequences; or the performance of environmental technology. For EPA, environmental data include information collected directly from measurements, produced from models, and compiled from other sources such as data bases or the literature.
Erosion - the disruption and movement of soil particles by wind, water, or ice, either occuring naturally or as a result of land use.
Escape Route - route away from dangerous areas on a fire and should be pre-planned.
Evacuation - the temporary movement of people and their possessions from locations threatened by wildfire.
Exotic Species - any introduced plant or animal species that is not native to the area and that may be considered a nuisance.
Extant species - a species which is currently in existence (the opposite of extinct).
Extinct species - a species which has disappeared from existence due to either natural or human-induced means (opposite of extant).
Extreme Fire Behavior - a level of fire behavior characteristics that ordinarily precludes methods of direct control. One or more of the following is usually involved: high rates of speed, prolific crowning and/or spotting, presence of fire whirls, a strong convection column. Predictability is difficult because such fires often exercise some degree of influence on their environments and behave erratically, sometimes dangerously.
Fire Behavior - the manner in which a fire reacts to the influences of fuel, weather and topography.
Fire Behavior Fuel Model (FBFM) - a model that requires measurements of elevation, slope, aspect, weather and vegetation to simulate fire behavior across the landscape.
Fire Front - that part of the fire within which continuous flaming combustion is taking place. Unless otherwise specified it is assumed to be the leading edge of the fire perimeter.
Fire Regime Condition Class (FRCC) - an interagency, standardized tool for determining the degree of departure from reference condition vegetation, fuels and disturbance regimes.
Fire-resistant roofing - roofing material that has been installed and is maintained to the specifications of the manufacturer, and which is rated by Underwriter’s Laboratory as Class A, Class B, Class C, or is equivalent thereto; or is metal.
Forestland - any woodland, brushland, timberland, grazing land or clearing that, during any time of the year, contains enough forest growth, slashing or vegetation to constitute, in the judgment of the state forester, a fire hazard, regardless of how the land is zoned or taxed.
Fuel break - a natural or a human-made area immediately adjacent to a structure or to a driveway, where material capable of allowing a wildfire to spread does not exist or has been cleared, modified, or treated to significantly reduce the rate of spread and the intensity of an advancing wildfire; and create an area in which fire suppression operations may more safely occur.
Ground Fuels - all combustible materials such as grass, duff, loose surface litter, tree or shrub roots, rotting wood, leaves, peat or sawdust that typically support combustion.
Hazard - resistance to control once a wildfire starts, being the weather, topography and fuel that adversely affects suppression efforts.
Hazard Reduction (see also Mitigation) - any treatment of living and dead fuels that reduces the threat of ignition and spread of fire.
Hazardous Areas - those wildland areas where the combination of vegetation, topography, weather and the threat of fire to life and property create difficult and dangerous problems.
Healthy Forest Restoration Act (HFRA) of 2003 - the central legislative component of the President's Healthy Forests Initiative.
Homeowners’ association or property owners’ association - a legal nonprofit corporation that manages a community of homes or residential properties.
Ignition Probability - chance that a firebrand will cause an ignition when it lands on receptive fuels.
Initial Attack - the actions taken by the first resources to arrive at a wildfire to protect lives and property, and prevent further extension of the fire.
Included rural lands - lands which meet the definition of "rural" but which have been classified as "suburban."
Infrastructure - the physical systems and that support community function (roads, sewers, water lines).
Ladder fuel - branches, leaves, needles, and other combustible vegetation that may allow a wildfire to spread from lower growing vegetation to higher growing vegetation.
Landscape Rating - a composite rating for risk, hazard, protection capability, and values at risk covering the entire landscape of Oregon.
Land cover - anything that exists on, and is visible from above, the earth's surface. Examples include vegetation, exposed or barren land, water, snow, and ice.
Land use - the way land is developed and used in terms of the kinds of anthropogenic activities that occur (e.g. agriculture, residential areas, industrial areas).
Metadata - documenting data is critical to preserving its usefulness throughout time. Metadata is a component of data which describes the content, quality, condition, and other characteristics of data. It is "data about data." A good example is a library catalog card, which contains data about the nature and location of a book: It is data about the data in the book referred to by the card.
Mitigation - action that alleviates the severity of a fire hazard or risk.
National Association of State Foresters (NASF) - a non-profit organization that represents the directors of all 50 State Forestry agencies, the eight U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia.
Needle - a long slender leaf, such as those seen on the Douglas fir.
Non-fire-resistant roofing - roofing material that is not fire resistant including, but support of the body in the lowest chordates, such as the lancelet; a primitive not limited to, cedar shakes.
Open Space - an area of land that is valued for natural processes and wildlife, for agricultural and sylvan production, for active and passive recreation, and providing other public benefits.
Oregon State Fire Marshal (OSFM) - protects citizens, their property and the environment from fires and hazardous materials.
Overstory - that portion of the trees in a forest that forms the upper or uppermost layer.
Perennial - a term used in botany used to describe plants that live for more than two growing seasons. Such plants either die back after each season, as some herbaceous plants do, or grow continuously, as some shrubs do.
Preparedness - 1) Condition or degree of being ready to cope with a potential fire situation. 2) Mental readiness to recognize changes in fire danger and act promptly when action is appropriate.
Prescribed Burning - controlled application of fire to wildland fuels in either their natural or modified state, under specified environmental conditions, which allows the fire to be confined to a predetermined area, and to produce the fire behavior and fire characteristics required to attain planned fire treatment and resource management objectives.
Protection Capability - risks associated with inadequate wildfire protection capabilities, including capacity and resources to undertake fire prevention measures.
Quality Assurance (QA) - an integrated system of management activities involving planning, implementation, documentation, assessment, reporting, and quality improvement to ensure that a process, item, or service is of the type and quality needed and expected by the customer.
Risk - the chance of a fire starting from any cause.
Road - a road over which the public has a right of use.
Riparian area - riparian refers to the area of land adjacent to a body of water, stream, river, marsh, or shoreline. Riparian areas form the transition between the aquatic and the terrestrial environment.
Rural - a geographic area which has not been classified by a committee as suburban or urban and shall include:
- Lands zoned primarily for farm or forestry uses;
- Lands which have an average tax lot size of 10 acres or larger;
- Lands not zoned to allow a concentration of structures; and
- Lands which do not contain a concentration of structures.
Safety zone - an area that is substantially free of flammable materials, and which can be used as a refuge to protect people from an advancing wildfire.
Species - a population or group of populations that are in reproductive contact but are reproductively isolated from all other populations.
Standards - the actions, efforts, or measures which owners of suburban and urban lands shall take on their property, prior to a wildfire occurrence which originates on the property.
Structural Fire Agency - a firefighting organization, usually at the local level, trained and equipped to fight structure fires. Local structural fire agencies may also be trained and equipped to combat wildland fires.
Structure - a permanently sited building, a manufactured home, or a mobile home that is either a dwelling or an accessory building, which occupies at least 500 square feet of ground space, and which has at least one side that is fully covered.
Suburban - a geographic area which includes one or more of the following:
- Lands where a concentration of structures exists;
- Lands on which current zoning allows a concentration of structures; or
- Included rural lands.
Suppression - the most aggressive fire protection strategy, it leads to the total extinguishment of a fire.
Sustainability - The ability to continue existing.
Threatened - a species that is likely to become endangered if not protected.
Understory - just beneath the canopy, this layer of the forest is composed of small trees and shrubs. As older trees die, they leave a gap in the canopy, which younger trees quickly grow to fill.
Urban - a geographic area that includes one or more of the following:
- Lands within a city limit; or
- Lands within an urban growth boundary.
Values - human and economic values associated with communities or landscapes.
Watershed - a region bounded at the periphery by physical barriers that cause water to part and ultimately drain to a particular body of water.
Wildfire - an uncontrolled fire that is burning on forestland and which is damaging, or is threatening to damage, forest resources or structures.
Wildland-Urban Interface - an area within or adjacent to an at-risk community identified in a Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP).
Zone Concept- a way to establish a survivable space. Zone 1 is the closest to your home and Zones 2 and 3 move progressively further away.
source: basic glossary from http://www.oregon.gov/ODF/FIRE/SB360/sb360_glossary.shtml and the Union County Commununity Wildfire Protection Plan.
