A Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) Team is designed to identify and assess post-fire risks to resources. This page describes the function and formation of Federal and non-Federal BAER Teams.
BAER assessments are often a cooperating and coordinated effort between many federal agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to assess burned areas on Federal lands.
Read more about Federal BAER assessment teams here.BAER team surveys are rapid assessments of the burned areas that evaluate imminent post-fire conditions of burned watersheds and determine the potential for increased post-fire flooding, debris flows, and rock slides and other potential threats to values at risk.
If you think your home or business is at risk for increased post-fire hazards, visit our Recovery Contacts page to get in touch with local staff that can offer technical assistance. For more information on the Federal BAER Program visit the US Forest Service BAER page or the National Interagency Fire Center BAER page. For summaries of recent BAER reports in Washington visit Central Washington Fire Recovery.
Interagency BAER Teams
Recent fires throughout the state have burned some combination of federal, state, tribal, and private lands.
Read more about how the post-fire assessment of these fires have demanded multi-jurisdictional teams.The Carlton Complex and Okanogan Complex Fires of 2014 and 2015 included burned areas on state and private lands. An interagency assessment team was assembled by Okanogan Conservation District with support and expertise from several federal, state, and local agencies. An Interagency BAER Report, like this one from 2015, was completed later that year by the team. A recap blog of how those iBAER teams formed can be seen on the Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network, which is also a great resource for wildfire resilience.
The triggers for, assembly of, and funding of multi-jurisdiction post-fire assessment teams for state and private lands remains a complex problem. The agencies participating in the PWFC continue to investigate paths forward for burn assessments outside of the National Forest System.
Incident Information System
For the best information of wildfires as they burn, visit the National Incident Information System.The InciWeb site will provide updates throughout the lifecycle of the fire, including the technical post-fire reports and burn severity maps when completed (though each fire’s page eventually expires). Searching by incident or state (in the dropdown menus at the upper right) can help you quickly navigate to Washington wildfire updates and reports.