To: Gregory Larson, Assistant Professor, Communication Studies,
University of Montana

Vita Wright, Research Application Program leader, Rocky Mountain
Research Station

From: Jim Cook and Larry Sutton, NWCG Leadership Committee

Subject: Review of April 2005 Draft of Annotated Reading List

Date: May 18, 2005

Thanks very much for providing us an opportunity to review the reading
list that you have developed. It is obvious that a great deal of work
has gone into this document and we applaud your diligence.

Our initial reaction on seeing this list was one of concern. In the
wildland fire leadership development program we have been promoting the
values of becoming a "student of fire" and self-development through
reading for a number of years. To that end, we have been maintaining a
Professional Reading List for the leadership program since 2002. We
really have two separate concerns here. First, how many reading lists
are too many for the wildland fire service? Second, how much overlap is
there in terms of titles that are identical between these two lists?

Addressing the first question -- how many lists are too many -- we feel
that if two or more separate reading lists are maintained for the
wildland firefighting community, then the lists need to be labeled and
"branded" uniquely. In other words, the title, design and content of
each list should be different from that of any other list. In fact, in
the interest of putting first things first, the purpose for each list
needs to be clearly described and it should be unique from the purpose
of any other reading list.

The Leadership Committee's Professional Reading Program is part of a
comprehensive self-development component of the leadership program.
Titles from this list are currently being used in a variety of ways
ranging from reading for annual refresher training to pre-course work
for formal training courses.

Our program was modeled after the U.S. Marine Corps' Professional
Reading Program. One of the statements that the Marines make is that
"all reading is good," and we agree. That is why we applaud your efforts
and don't want our comments to be construed as attempting to discourage
your development of an Annotated Reading List. In fact, in reviewing
your list we found many documents that we'd like to read ourselves (in
addition to some that we've already read). We just think it is important
to clarify the intent of any list that is developed and try to keep from
confusing our firefighters in the field with a proliferation of reading
lists that look similar.

Our second concern -- how much overlap is there between the two reading
lists in terms of titles -- led us to compare the lists. Interestingly,
there is not a great deal of overlap. We found 8 items common to both
lists; of these, three are books. Five of these 8 items are found in
your section entitled "Human Factors and Fire Fighting". The books in
common are *Managing the Unexpected* by Weick and Sutcliffe, *Normal
Accidents* by Perrow and *Managing the Risks of Organizational
Accidents* by Reason. We did have *The Challenger Launch Decision* by
Diane Vaughan on our list but removed it during a recent revision
because it was too technical and lengthy a read. We have replaced it
with a shorter but more pertinent article by Vaughan entitled *Targets
for Firefighting Safety: Lessons from the Challenger Case*.

In other words, our lists don't really overlap very much, which leads us
to think that they satisfy different purposes and reinforces our belief
that they need to be titled and described very differently. In creating
our Professional Reading List for the leadership program, we sought to
find titles that would be engaging and thought-provoking for our
developing leaders. As you can see (on
[www.firleadership.gov](http://www.firleadership.gov/) under the
"Leadership Toolbox") we have a mix of fiction and nonfiction,
technical, historical and autobiographical titles. Your list appears by
design to be oriented more towards research papers and topics centered
on organizational management. While there are many people engaged in
fire management who are required to manage complex organizations, there
are also many others who lead at lower levels. If our work force is
modeled like a pyramid, it would probably only be the upper one third
that is primarily concerned with managing organizations. Small unit
leadership is a key in our business and many of the titles on our
reading list are oriented in that direction.

Another aspect of your list that caught our attention was accessibility
of the reading material. We believe that, unfortunately, if documents
are difficult to obtain then many firefighters will never see them. For
example, if articles from journals, quarterly reviews and newspapers are
not available via the Internet then how should a firefighter in Ely,
Nevada obtain them? In our view, this is a key consideration in
publishing a reading list designed for firefighters: they must have easy
access to the information.

We'd like to make what we hope is a constructive suggestion that will
perhaps help resolve some of the issues we've raised. Perhaps the title
of your reading list could be changed to "Wildland Fire Organizational
Management". You might also consider removing the sections on Human
Factors and Leadership (perhaps retaining your titles regarding change
management). Our lists would be more complementary to each other as well
as unique if these changes were made.

Again, we appreciate the opportunity for input to your efforts. Please
keep in touch as your work continues and don't hesitate to contact us if
we can be of any further assistance.