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Safety Zone:
An area cleared of flammable materials used for escape in the event the line is outflanked or in case a spot fire causes fuels outside the control line to render the line unsafe. In firing operations, crews maintain a safety zone close at hand. Safety zones may also be constructed as integral parts of fuel breaks; they are greatly enlarged areas which can be used with relative safety by firefighters and their equipment in the event of a blow-up in the vicinity.
Scratch Line:
An unfinished preliminary fireline hastily established or built as an emergency measure to slow or halt the spread of fire.
Severity Funding:
Funds provided to increase suppression response capability necessitated by abnormal weather patterns, extended drought, or other events causing abnormal increase in the fire potential and/or danger.
Single Resource:
An individual, a piece of equipment (such as an engine) and its staff, or a crew or team of persons with an identified work supervisor.
Size Up:
To evaluate a fire to determine a course of action for suppression.
Slash:
Debris left after logging, pruning, thinning, or brush cutting; can include logs, chips, bark, branches, stumps and broken understory trees or brush.
Sling Load:
Cargo carried beneath a helicopter and attached by a lead line and swivel.
Slop-over:
A fire edge that crosses a control line or natural barrier intended to contain the fire.
Smoke Management:
Application of fire intensities and meteorological processes to minimize degradation of air quality during prescribed fires.
Smokejumper:
A firefighter who travels to fires by aircraft and parachutes in to the fire area.
Smoldering Fire:
A fire burning without flame and barely spreading.
Snag:
A standing dead tree or part of a dead tree from which at least the smaller branches have fallen.
Spark Arrester:
A device installed in a chimney, flue, or exhaust pipe to stop the emission of sparks and burning fragments.
Spot Fire:
A fire ignited outside the perimeter of the main fire by flying sparks or embers.
Spot Weather Forecast:
A special forecast issued to fit the time, topography, and weather of a specific fire. These forecasts are issued upon request of the user agency and are more detailed, timely, and specific than regular zone forecasts.
Spotter:
In smokejumping, the person responsible for selecting drop targets and supervising all aspects of dropping smokejumpers.
Spotting:
Behavior of a fire producing sparks or embers that are carried by the wind and start new fires beyond the zone of direct ignition by the main fire.
Staging Area:
Locations set up at an incident where resources can be placed while awaiting a tactical assignment on an available basis. Staging areas are managed by the operations section.
Strategy:
The science and art of command as applied to the overall planning and conduct of an incident.
Strike Team:
Specified combinations of the same kind and type of resources -- such as a group of staffed engines -- with common communications and a leader.
Strike Team Leader:
Person responsible to a division or group supervisor for performing tactical assignments given to the strike team.
Structure Fire:
Fire burning any part or all of any building or structure.
Suppressant:
An agent, such as water or foam, used to extinguish the flaming and glowing phases of combustion when directly applied to burning fuels.
Suppression:
All the work of extinguishing or containing a fire, beginning with its discovery.
Surface Fuels:
Loose litter on the soil surface, normally consisting of fallen leaves or needles, twigs, bark, cones, and small branches that have not yet decayed; also grasses, forbs, low and medium shrubs, tree seedlings, heavier branchwood, downed logs, and stumps interspersed with or partially replacing the litter.
Swamper:
(1) A worker who helps fallers and/or sawyers by clearing away brush, limbs, and small trees. Carries chainsaw gas, oil, and tools and watches for dangerous situations. (2) A worker on a dozer crew who pulls winch line, helps maintain equipment, etc., to speed suppression work on a fire.
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