Overview Of Wildland Fire Fighting and Management Wildland fires are extremely complex and potentially dangerous to the ecosystem hence the need to understand the fighting mechanisms as well as management efforts to contain such an occurrence (Nix par 1). When approaching the issue of wildfires, our basic foundation remains on the premise that wildland fires are neither innately destructive to the forest nor are they in the best interest of the forest (Nix par 2). However, wild land fire operations are contained in a high risk environment where firefighter and non fire fighters can incur severe injuries in a matter of seconds especially due to burn overs (Nix par 2). Therefore, it is crucial for the relevant authorities to device mechanism and strategies aimed at improving their response to wildland fires and promote effective management to ensure that they protect life and resources from the negative implications associate with occurrence of wildland fires. Wildland fires result may result from human activities or from natural phenomena such as volcanic eruptions and lightening (Goldammer Ahern & Justice 20). Historically, frequent and low intensity wildland fires occurred in short fire return interval ecosystems and their elimination in various regions have resulted in build up of uncharacteristically high fuel loads consequently posing a greater risk of severely intense wildland fire occurrences (Goldammer Ahern & Justice 20). Increased intensity of wildland fires has prompted various authorities to establish mechanisms aimed at transforming the response approach towards an approach that focuses on minimizing intensity and adverse negative effects. United States wildland fire programs have worsened over the past decades evidenced by the increases in annual acreage burned (Dalton 1). This has prompted the agencies responsible to take necessary measures to improve the fire management programs in the country. Steps towards implementation of new approach towards managing wildland fires effectively in America Although it has widely been recognized that wildland fire could be beneficial in certain ecosystems, the increased number of damaging fires in the 90s led to the establishment of federal wildland fire management policy (Dalton 5). This policy recognized that wildland fires as not only being beneficial to some regions, but also an inevitable part of the landscape (Dalton 5). Further, earlier attempts to put out all wildland fires had been in part responsible for increasing the severity of recent fires (Dalton 5). Consequently, this policy dictated agencies to abandon their attempts to put out every wildland fire and sought to reduce the vulnerability of communities and resources to the negative effects of wildland fires (Dalton 5). Further, the policy enhanced agencies’ response such that their main focus was to protect communities and people at risk while taking into consideration the cost and long term effects of such a response (Dalton 5). Adoption of this policy ensured that agencies focused on land management rather than suppressing all fires as well as utilization of less aggressive fire fighting strategies which minimize overall cost and provide safer mechanisms for fire fighters by reducing exposure to unnecessary risk (Dalton 5). In addition, agencies started