Welcome to “Fireline Fitness”. The intent of this program is to provide you, the wildland firefighter, with basic information to help you develop a fitness regime that is basic and balanced while still meeting the demands of wildland fire. This program has developed over the course of many years, while taking into account valuable “lessons learned” from the wildland fire community. As you will see, the program emphasizes “the basics”, nothing fancy, and nothing extreme – just utilizing good ole “common sense and moderation”.

As you know, the demands of wildland firefighting continue to increase with each new fire season. With so much emphasis being placed on human factors, isn’t it about time that we implement a PT program that incorporates those factors while emphasizing wellness. Human factors include all those elements that are affected by wildland firefighting such as: hydration, fatigue, stress, nutrition, and fitness. Each one of these elements adversely impacts the other with cumulative effect.

With that, this program has been developed with you in mind – to provide you with a basic understanding of developing a balanced fitness program for yourself and crew. It is intended to provide you with the basics in order to minimize injuries and allow you the opportunity to expand your program to fit the needs of your crew.

I take pride in being a part of the wildland fire community and hope that this program will provide you with the necessary information to build a structured, sensible PT program. I would also highly recommend that you obtain other resource materials that are available which include, “Fitness and Work Capacity – 2nd edition” as well as the brochure, “Fit For Work”. These can be ordered through the NFES publications system. I also encourage you to network with your cooperating partners and units in order to achieve the highest quality PT program that you can. There are some outstanding efforts taking place within the agencies and I support and advocate those efforts.