Pacific Southwest

Title: International Wildfire Emergencies: Management in the 21st Century

Author: Taft, Julia V.; Mutch, Robert W.

Date: 1987

Source: In: Davis, James B.; Martin, Robert E., technical coordinators. 1987. Proceedings of the Symposium on Wildland Fire 2000, April 27-30, 1987, South Lake Tahoe, California. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-101. Berkeley, CA: Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture; p. 155-163

Station ID: GTR-PSW-101

Description: The U.S. Government, through the U.S. Agency for International Development's Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), responds to a wide variety of disasters throughout the world every year. These disasters range from "slow-moving" events like prolonged drought or plagues of grasshoppers and locusts to "fast-moving" threats to human populations resulting from fires, hurricanes, earthquakes and volcanoes. Although disaster types vary considerably, there is a recurring theme of disaster assistance elements that constitutes a meaningful and effective response. Critically evaluating the "lessons learned" from recent responses to world-wide natural disasters will prepare the disaster management specialist to develop an improved international assistance program for the 21st century. Details of natural disasters, the response process and "lessons learned" are given and future developments that will strengthen disaster assistance are discussed. A case example of the 1987 wildfires in southern Argentina illustrates disaster management requirements and needs.

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Citation

Taft, Julia V.; Mutch, Robert W.  1987.  International Wildfire Emergencies: Management in the 21st Century.   In: Davis, James B.; Martin, Robert E., technical coordinators. 1987. Proceedings of the Symposium on Wildland Fire 2000, April 27-30, 1987, South Lake Tahoe, California. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-101. Berkeley, CA: Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture; p. 155-163.