Wildfire containment does not mean a fire is out — and understanding the difference can help all of us understand fire updates during an active emergency.
Michael Alforque, wildland coordinator of the Utah Fire and Rescue Academy at Utah Valley University, said containment refers to how much of a fire perimeter has been secured.
"When we talk about fire containment, we're talking about the percentage of the perimeter, the outside of the fire line that is secured by a line or a control objective, such as we may cut out a line, we may use an existing feature such as a road, a rock quarry, and that is in place to slow the progression of the fire," Alforque said.
"Containment doesn't mean that the fire's out," he continued. "It means we have a good, secure area where we could start reinforcing it and start bringing it into that control objective. And if anything happens, that containment, we can lose that if the conditions are right and the fire jumps that or finds a way to escape."
Firefighters can also be reassigned from one fire to another even before full containment is reached, particularly when other areas face more immediate threats to structures or life.
For a visual version of what this all means, the video above uses the original 1926 map of Winnie the Pooh's 100 Acre Wood as an example. No Pooh bears or other plushies were harmed in the creation of the story.
