NFPA Journal - July/August 2020 - 52

Perspectives

WILDFIRE
PREP PRO

THE WILDFIRE PREPAREDNESS COORDINATOR FOR
MISSOULA COUNTY, MONTANA, TALKS ABOUT HIS
ROLE, RECENT PROJECTS, AND WHAT PEOPLE OFTEN
GET WRONG ABOUT PREPPING FOR WILDFIRE
Interview conducted and edited by Angelo Verzoni
ildfire can wreak havoc on a
community. There is perhaps no
better example than the Camp Fire,
which tore through Paradise and
other northern California towns
in November 2018, killing 86 people and razing
11,000 homes. According to numbers published by
the Washington Post, four more people died from
the Camp Fire than from Hurricane Harvey, a
Category 4 hurricane that slammed into the coast
of Texas in August 2017.
Despite this, in many towns, counties, and states
across the country, wildfire preparedness is not
handled by the same emergency management officials who are involved in the preparation, response,
and recovery around events like hurricanes, floods,
and tornadoes. Instead, wildfire is more often seen
as a fire service or land-management issue. "Very
few offices of emergency management, whether
state or local, seem to engage in wildfire to any
great extent," says Michele Steinberg, director of
the Wildfire Division at NFPA.
But wildfire shares more similarities with a natural disaster than it does a structure fire. At the
same time, though, it isn't as predictable as, say, a

W

HIGH RISK
Though it may not
immediately come
to mind when
people think about
wildfire hot spots,
Montana, including
the college town
of Missoula-seen
here against an
approaching
rainstorm-faces
some of the highest wildfire risk
in the country.
"Western Montana
and eastern Idaho
have always had a
legacy of wildfire,"
says Max Rebholz,
Missoula County's
wildfire preparedness coordinator.

Most jurisdictions don't have a dedicated
wildfire preparedness coordinator, nor
are wildfire preparedness efforts even
carried out by emergency management

GETT Y IMAGES

WILDFIRE

hurricane tracking in an
expected direction up the
coast, and wildfires can
last much longer. That's
why wildfire is arguably
the most complicated event
for public safety professionals to deal with. And
as the planet continues
to warm, experts predict
the frequency and severity
of wildfires will increase,
too. In a landmark report
published in October
2018, the United Nations
Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change warned
that even if the most ambitious climate change goals
are met, the global risk of
wildfire remains high.
Coincidentally, October
2018 was also the month
Max Rebholz began
working as the wildfire
preparedness coordinator in Missoula County,
Montana-a position
based within the county's Office of Emergency
Management and created
because of wildfire's
unique and complex
nature. "It was the first
position of its kind in
Missoula County," says
Rebholz, who previously
led a vegetation management crew in the Gallatin National Forest and
responded to oil spills in the Pacific Northwest.
With wildfire and its impact increasingly pushing their way to the forefront of the nation's
psyche, positions like Rebholz's are expected to
become more common. NFPA Journal recently
spoke with the 26-year-old Wisconsin native about
the uniqueness of his role, what he's been up to
after a year and a half on the job, and what he
considers some of the major misconceptions about
wildfire preparedness.

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NFPA Journal - July/August 2020

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