These crews consist of about 20 individuals who have been organized and trained and are supervised principally for operational assignments on an incident. Generally, these crews are made up of people who have been trained to fire fight, but whose everyday job is something other than fire, i.e., timber, wilderness rangers, recreation, range. There are approximately 500 hand crews in the United States. Engine crews are made up of 3-5 wild land firefighters. A typical wild land fire engine is a heavy-duty off road vehicle able to carry up to 800 gallons of water.
Engines also carry foam to use on wild land fuels.
The foam can also be used to protect the exterior walls of a structure. More than 100 years of excluding fire, combined with past land-use practices, have altered the landscape. Because of these conditions, today s fires tend to be larger, burn hotter, and spread farther and faster, making them more severe, more dangerous, and more costly in human, economic, and ecologic terms. The goal of the fire policy is to restore the natural balance by adopting land management practices that integrate fire into ecosystems as an essential natural process. Fire can be used to reduce the buildup of dead and downed trees and curb insect and disease infestations, while releasing and recycling nutrients essential for the growth and reproduction of many plant species.