NWCG Safety Gram Reporting Criteria
Revised: 8/14/09

Safety Gram data will include wildland fire related incidents/accidents that result in:

• Fatality(s)
• Entrapment(s)
• Burnover of personnel
• Burnover of fire suppression apparatus (e.g., fire engines)
• Incidents/accidents that result in three or more persons requiring in-patient hospitalization
• Serious life threatening injury/illness or high probability of life threatening injury/illness
• Vehicle accidents (including ATV/UTVs) with potential for serious injury/property damage (e.g., rollovers)
• Aviation Fatalities


Data will be collected for:

• Personnel involved in the direct support of wildfire, firefighting, prescribed fire, fire suppression damage repair and fire rehabilitation (private citizens acting on their own behalf resulting in injury or death will not be included).
• Suppression apparatus that are damaged and/or destroyed as a direct result from operational involvement (parked vehicles with no occupants that are damaged from flame impingement will not be included).
• Any fire resource on an incident, in mobilization or demobilization status.
• Training or work capacity test related accidents that result in any of the above.


Data will be captured under the following categories:

Date – the date that the incident/accident occurred

Location – the location where the incident/accident occurred:
• Incident name (if applicable)
• Jurisdictional Unit (e.g., forest, district, refuge, etc.)
• State
• If jurisdictional unit is not available, identify by nearest town/city

Activity – describe primary and secondary (if available) operational activity when incident/accident occurred:
• Firefighting (signify wildfire or prescribed fire)
• Driving (on incident, mobilization, or demobilization)
• Training
• Work Capacity Test
• Tree felling
• Aviation

Agency/Entity of personnel involved – identify personnel involved by agency.
• Specify if Federal, State or local employee or contractor
• If state employee list the state employed not state occurred

Type of Accident/Illness – describe type of incident/accident or direct causal factor:
• Vehicle Accident (rollover, collision, etc.)
• Medical (describe cause)
• Entrapment
• Burnover
• Hit by hazard tree
• Lightning
• Drowning
• Aviation Accident
• Falls

Number of People – total number of persons directly involved in the incident/accident

Number Fire Shelters Deployed – total number of shelters deployed

Fatalities – of the number of persons involved state how many resulted in fatality

Injuries – briefly describe type of injuries sustained

Totals – number of personnel involved and fatalities

The respective SHWT agency representative who has jurisdiction involving the incident/accident will make the recommendation on Safety Gram posting. SHWT will make final determinations for Safety Gram posting.


Key Definitions (from NWCG Glossary):

Burnover – A situation where personnel or equipment is caught in an advancing flame front.

Entrapment – A situation where personnel are unexpectedly caught in a fire behavior-related, life-threatening position where planned escape routes or safety zones are absent, inadequate, or compromised. An entrapment may or may not include deployment of a fire shelter for its intended purpose. These situations may or may not result in injury. They include "near misses."

Fire Shelter Deployment – The removing of a fire shelter from its case and using it as protection against fire.

Wildland Fire – Any non-structure fire that occurs in the wildland. Three distinct types of wildland fire have been defined and include wildfire, and prescribed fire.

Wildfire – An unplanned and unwanted wildland fire including unauthorized human-caused fires, escaped wildland fire use events, escaped prescribed fire projects, and all other wildland fires where the objective is to put the fire out.

Prescribed Fire – Any fire ignited by management actions to meet specific objectives. A written, approved prescribed fire plan must exist, and NEPA requirements (where applicable) must be met, prior to ignition.


Note: The Fire Shelter Task Group is proposing changes to fire shelter deployment definition. Also, definitions for burnover, entrapment, wildland fire, and wildfire will also be revised with recent fire policy changes.