Collaboration is important when fighting wildfires. On Thursday, dozens of firefighters practiced working together with a Sand Table exercise.
Each table represented a different emergency scenario. Battalion Chief Scott Fraser says through communication and strategy, incident commanders worked towards a solution.
"They treat it just like it's real life, they're stressed, they're trying to make quick decisions," says Fraser. “People might joke about us playing in Sand Tables, but it is as realistic as we can do it without actually having a legit fire."
At one of Thursday’s mock emergency situations was an incident within an incident. Firefighters had to come up with a solution about how to tend to an injury while continuing to fight the fire.
In addition to firefighters honing their skills today, public information officers did as well. John Schuler, public information officer trainee with Sierra Front, practiced when and what information to get from the incident commander and how to pass that knowledge onto the public.
"This kind of gives you a look at two different things going on and how we're going to manage both of those and make sure we get all the right information out," says Schuler. "What I’m going to give you is the basic who, what, where, when, why and how, so that way everything that's coming out, people know exactly what's going on and they have the proper information."
Officials at Thursday’s exercise also want to remind the public that fire season has begun. People need to be extra vigilant in where and how they recreate, because a lot of vegetation is already dry enough to burn.
