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Volume 24 — Issue 7 | February 15, 2024

Lessons learned from wildland fire operations in 2023

The Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center (LLC) has released its Annual Incident Review Summary and Year End Infographic for 2023.

The Annual Incident Review Summary is based on more than 140 wildland fire incident reports and lessons shared with the LLC in 2023. The report condenses information from these reports into 10 pages, highlighting lessons for safer wildland firefighting operations.

The Year End Infographic is a 2-page snapshot of the 2023 fire year. It highlights selected lessons learned and provides summary statistics on reported fatalities, near miss incidents, and injuries in 2023.

The purpose of these two documents is to promote learning in the wildland fire service, with the recognition that risk cannot always be eliminated, and learning is vital to thriving in high-risk environments.

This information may be used to guide annual refreshers and prepare for the 2024 fire year.

The following are some notable findings from 2023:

• Fatalities. There were 13 wildland firefighter fatalities in 2023.
• Significant increase in UTV-involved incidents. Between 2009 and 2022, only about two incidents involving Utility Terrain Vehicles (UTVs) were reported each year on average. In 2023, there were 13 UTV-involved incidents. In 12 of these incidents, a UTV either rolled over or caught fire.
• Burn injuries. There were 16 separate burn injury incidents reported. The most common scenarios resulting in burn injures continue to be drip torch use and falling into hot ash or active flame exposure.
• Hit by tree. 12 tree strikes occurred under a variety of conditions in seven different states. Two UTVs were struck by trees. In multiple instances, trees fell toward handcrews and engine crews.
• Entrapment. There were 12 separate entrapment events. Over 90% of the reported entrapments occurred during initial attack. Seven of those entrapments involved equipment becoming disabled and impacted by fire.

The LLC’s January blog series discusses the findings in greater detail. Each of the following articles has links to several additional incident reports from 2023 that relate to the type of injury or fatality discussed.

• Jan.16 - 2023 Year End Infographic: Wildland Fire Fatalities.
• Jan. 18 - 2023 Infographic: Trouble on Four (or More) Wheels.
• Jan. 23 - 2023 Year End Infographic: Entrapments and Burn Injuries.
• Jan. 25 - 2023 Year End Infographic: Tree Strikes.

The Annual Incident Review Summary and Year End Infographic are available on the LLC’s website.

(Source: Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center)

Highlights

Lessons learned from wildland fire operations in 2023

New evidence-based guidelines for prehospital airway management

FEMA and Argonne National Laboratory update the Climate Risk and Resilience (ClimRR) Portal

Roundtable Talk: Lessons Learned - Reflecting on the East Palestine Derailment and the Path Forward

Cyber Threats

The U.S. Fire Administration operates the Emergency Management and Response – Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EMR-ISAC).

For information regarding the EMR-ISAC visit www.usfa.dhs.gov/emr-isac or contact the EMR-ISAC office at: (301) 447-1325 and/or fema-emr-isac@fema.dhs.gov.

New evidence-based guidelines for prehospital airway management

Airway management is the foundation of prehospital emergency care. Emergency medical services (EMS) practice now includes a range of airway techniques. However, evidence is still lacking as to which of these airway management approaches under which circumstances have the best outcomes.

To address this issue, the National Association of State EMS Officials (NASEMSO) has been leading a project that recently published an Evidence-Based Guideline (EBG) for Prehospital Airway Management.

Evidence-based guidelines are created for many reasons, but one of the most critical is that they make it easier for EMS medical directors, leaders and clinicians to provide the most appropriate care—even if they don’t have the time or expertise to read, interpret and synthesize the available evidence.

The EBG for Prehospital Airway Management offers EMS providers an opportunity to review and update their airway management strategies.

The EBG makes 22 recommendations on the use of three airway management approaches: bag-valve mask, supraglottic airway, and endotracheal intubation. The three approaches were assessed for two populations (adults and children) and for three types of emergency medical events (cardiac arrest, medical emergencies, and trauma). Additional recommendations address the use of video laryngoscopy and drug-assisted airway management.

Appendix A of the EBG operationalizes the recommendations into a set of Good Practice Statements.

The evidence used to develop these recommendations comes from a systematic review by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) in 2021. The systematic review assessed comparative benefits and harms of these three airway management approaches in various circumstances, based on findings from 99 studies involving 630,397 patients.

This publication is part of a larger project led by NASEMSO through a cooperative agreement with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of EMS (NHTSA OEMS), in partnership with the American College of Emergency Physicians® (ACEP), the National EMS Quality Alliance (NEMSQA), and the National Registry of EMTs® (NREMT).

In accordance with NHTSA OEMS’ National Prehospital Evidence-Based Guideline Model Process, this EBG will be used as a basis for a model protocol for prehospital airway management. The project outcomes will also include associated quality measures and educational materials to help distribute the EBG and model protocol to EMS clinicians and EMS medical directors.

The EBG for Prehospital Airway Management; the methodology for its development; an article summarizing the EBG, its significance, and future direction; and the 2021 systematic review were published in the journal Prehospital Emergency Care.

Learn more about the larger Prehospital Airway Management Evidence Based Guideline project on NASEMSO’s website. Access all EBGs and related documents on EMS.gov.

(Sources: Prehospital Emergency Care, NHTSA OEMS, NASEMSO, AHRQ)

FEMA and Argonne National Laboratory update the Climate Risk and Resilience (ClimRR) Portal

In November 2022, the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and AT&T announced the launch of a new website with the goal of helping communities prepare for future climate extremes.

Since the 2022 launch, the Climate Risk and Resilience Portal (ClimRR) has established itself as an award-winning, free, national online source for sophisticated climate data down to the neighborhood level.

Community leaders, infrastructure managers, civil engineers and public safety officials can use ClimRR to build resilience against the impacts of future climate hazards like extreme heat, heavy rainfall, wildfire, and drought. This climate-related hazard data can be integrated with local demographic and infrastructure data, so that data on future conditions can be incorporated into Hazard Mitigation Plans, land use plans, infrastructure design, and FEMA’s Resilience Analysis and Planning Tool (RAPT).

Last month, a major update to ClimRR was released. FEMA, ANL, and AT&T hosted a webinar on Feb. 1 on how to use ClimRR’s newly enhanced features. This webinar was recorded and is now available on demand via ANL’s YouTube channel. The webinar showed participants how to:

• Generate a local report assessing future climate hazards and community impacts. The new climate projection page allows you to customize a report for your area, combining variables like population demographics with hazard projections.
• Access maps, charts and visualizations. Create easy-to-understand maps, charts and graphs so you can quickly find and communicate important climate risks facing your community.
• Interpret climate hazard data points. Climate data can be overwhelming to explain and understand. Using the portal’s educational features, participants will learn to identify communities most at risk.

Access the ClimRR Portal and learn more about the latest updates at climrr.anl.gov. 

(Sources: ANL, FEMA)

Roundtable Talk: Lessons Learned - Reflecting on the East Palestine Derailment and the Path Forward

The National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) will host a Roundtable Talk on Tuesday, Feb. 27 at 2 p.m. EST entitled Lessons Learned: Reflecting on the East Palestine Derailment and the Path Forward.

Just over one year ago, on the evening of February 3, 2023, an eastbound Norfolk Southern Railway freight train derailed 38 railcars in East Palestine, Ohio. The incident received national media attention due to public health concerns about the hazardous materials release, which included vinyl chloride, a liquified compressed gas that is flammable, highly toxic, and a known carcinogen.

The incident also drew attention to the importance of getting real-time information to first responders about the hazards at the scene. About 300 firefighters from 50 departments initially responded to the scene of the derailment in East Palestine on the night of February 3. Many of them were volunteers.

The National Transportation Safety Board thoroughly investigated the accident in East Palestine, and their final report is forthcoming.

In this Roundtable Talk, participants will hear from panelists Keith Drabick of the East Palestine Fire Department, Dan Seidberg of IamResponding, and John Fleps of Norfolk Southern. The conversation will be moderated by the NVFC’s Ryan Woodward.

This Roundtable Talk will be streamed live on Facebook and Zoom. To join, visit the Facebook Live page for this event at the scheduled time, or register to attend via Zoom.

(Source: NVFC)

Cyber Incident Assistance

MS-ISAC
SOC@cisecurity.org
1-866-787-4722

IdentityTheft.gov

IC3

Cybercrime Support Network

General Information

StopRansomware.gov

CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog

FTC scam list

CISA alerts

Law Enforcement Cyber Center

TLP Information

FBI FLASH: Identification and disruption of the Warzone Remote Access Trojan (RAT)

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is releasing this FLASH to disseminate indicators of compromise (IOCs) and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) associated with the Warzone Remote Access Trojan (RAT), also identified as “Ave Maria” through open source reporting and FBI investigation. On February 7, 2024, the FBI and international partners executed a coordinated operation to disrupt Warzone RAT infrastructure worldwide.

Beginning in October 2018, the Warzone service offered a malware-as-a-service (MaaS) remote access trojan, along with other malware products and attracted a customer base of over 7,000 users. The products were used by cyber criminals and nation state actors to engage in remote control, keylogging, data theft, or other methods of discovering and collecting victim system information.

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has established a dedicated page for organizations or victims of Warzone RAT to report key findings at https://wzvictims.ic3.gov.

(Source: FBI IC3)

Priorities of the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative for 2024

On Feb. 12, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)—on behalf of the collective group of industry and government partners that comprise the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC)—released JCDC’s 2024 Priorities. Similar to the 2023 JCDC Planning Agenda, JCDC’s 2024 Priorities will help focus the collective group on developing high-impact and collaborative solutions to the most pressing cybersecurity challenges.

CISA encourages organizations to review JCDC’s 2024 Priorities and the related blog post.

(Source: CISA)

NIST publishes Final SP 800-66r2, Implementing the HIPAA Security Rule: A Cybersecurity Resource Guide

On Feb. 14, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published the final version of Special Publication (SP) 800-66r2 (Revision 2), Implementing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Security Rule: A Cybersecurity Resource Guide. This publication, revised in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights, provides guidance for regulated entities (i.e., HIPAA-covered entities and business associates) on assessing and managing risks to electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI), identifies typical activities that a regulated entity might consider implementing as part of an information security program, and presents guidance that regulated entities can utilize in whole or in part to help improve their cybersecurity posture and assist with achieving compliance with the HIPAA Security Rule.

(Source: NIST)

Volt Typhoon targeted emergency management services, per report

Volt Typhoon, the China-sponsored hacking group that has been the focus of grim warnings from U.S. security agencies, has been targeting satellite and emergency management services in addition to electric utilities, according to a new report.

The industrial cybersecurity firm Dragos’s Tuesday report outlines how the notorious hacking group is positioning themselves to have disruptive or destructive impacts on critical infrastructure in the U.S.

Last month, Dragos observed Volt Typhoon — which Dragos tracks as Voltzite — target a large U.S. city’s emergency management services geographic information system, which is used for emergency dispatch operations like law enforcement or ambulance services and is used to assist in disaster recovery efforts. And in June 2023, Volt Typhoon infiltrated a U.S. emergency management organization, Dragos found. The firm has seen Volt Typhoon target electric utilities, satellite and telecommunications services, and the defense industrial base.

The targeting of disaster recovery services underscores the recent warnings from security officials about Volt Typhoon’s strategic targeting against U.S. infrastructure, particularly in the event of a conflict with China over an invasion of Taiwan — although it is not clear if emergency services targeting is for information gathering or to pre-position for additional disruption.

(Source: Cyberscoop)

The InfoGram is distributed weekly to provide members of the Emergency Services Sector with information concerning the protection of their critical infrastructures.

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