Post-Wildfire Season: Top Tips When Preparing for Next Year

Every fall, once the last crews come off the line, there's a stretch of a few weeks where nobody wants to talk about fire. I understand why.  

That said, this window is also the most important time for decisions that determine how ready your organization will be for next season. While the season is still fresh, and before budgets close, now is the perfect time to focus your energy on how your next season can be more efficient and effective.  

Here's what I'd put on the list between now and the end of the year. 

1. Review the season while the details are still fresh 

Before anything else, ask your field teams two questions: 

1. Where were decisions made using incomplete information? 
2. Where did data arrive too late to influence the outcome? 

The answers are usually specific and highly informative. Maybe there was a block that couldn't be assessed because it was too steep or still too hot to access safely. Maybe a fuel-load estimate turned out to be inaccurate once the fire reached it.  

Document these roadblocks now while the information is still fresh. By January, they often get reduced to "it was a hard year," which is much harder to plan around. 

2. Assess what burned, and what's still burning 

The period between the end of the fire season and the first snowfall is short, so it’s important to prioritize key tasks and move quickly.  

The priorities I see most often are: 

Hotspot detection. Thermal imaging can identify residual heat beneath the surface of a burned area in a fraction of the time it takes to inspect it on foot, without sending crews onto potentially unstable ground. That’s valuable for mop-up efforts and for determining when an area is safe to re-enter. 

Salvage and damage assessment. Aerial imagery provides planners with a clear picture of what's standing, what's salvageable, and where access has been compromised before the salvage plan is written. 

Regeneration obligations. Fire can change the status of blocks being monitored for free-growing or establishment surveys. Identifying stands that may no longer meet regeneration targets is a fall priority, as assessment windows are closing in many provinces. 

It’s important to note that none of this replaces a forester's judgement. It simply gives them better information to support it. 

3. Plan your spring flights now 

Some of the most valuable fuel-load and stand-health data for next season is collected in the spring. Teams flying in May and June are planning those missions now: which blocks to cover, which sensors to use, and who will process the data. 

A single aircraft can carry both a LiDAR sensor for timber metrics and a multispectral sensor for stand health and fuel conditions, allowing you to collect two datasets in one flight. That, however only works if the GIS team has validated the workflow before mobilization, and that validation takes time. 

If the decision isn’t made until April, the work may not happen until July. 

4. Get crews certified while there's time to do it properly 

The best training window is now. Most crews begin mobilizing by late April or May, and nobody wants to pull people out of an active field program for training. 

For wildfire operations specifically, that means ensuring pilots hold the certifications required for your operational needs. For teams working in more complex environments or near infrastructure, that may mean pursuing the Level 1 Complex pathway. 

Training budgets also tend to be easier to access before year-end than after. 

One more point, because it comes up every year: operating anywhere near active fire operations requires coordination with the incident management team and the appropriate airspace authorization. That’s a regulatory and safety requirement, not an operational preference, and it should be built into program planning from the start. 

5. Build the budget case with this season's costs in mind

You already spent money on aerial data this year, whether through helicopter time, contracted flights, or crew days spent collecting information on the ground that could have been gathered from the air. 

Those numbers are in front of you now. By February, they'll often be just another budget line with little context attached. 

The strongest budget cases don’t focus on buying a drone. They show what this season's decisions cost, what information was missing when those decisions were made, and what it would take to have that information next time. 

Aerial data doesn’t replace your existing program; it strengthens it. Frame the conversation that way, and the discussions with finance become much easier. 

Your post-wildfire timeline, at a glance: 

• October to December: Review the season, assess what burned, and determine what next year's program needs. 
• January to March: Procure equipment, train staff, and complete certifications. 
• April to May: Validate the workflow on a representative block before the season begins. 
• June onward: Fly with certified crews, tested workflows, and data your team knows how to use. 

The organizations that follow that sequence aren't necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets. They're the ones that used October well.

If you want to discuss what this season revealed and what next year's program should look like, I'd be glad to help. You can easilybook a call with me by clicking the button below this article.