Adversity is all too common in the wildland fire profession.  Death and destruction are too frequent and far too poignant outcomes of a millennial ecologic process.  Deriving organisational learning from a wildfire disaster is a challenge but extraordinarily important.  Establishing an organisational culture which values learning is difficult; and too often, a short-sighted “name, blame, and shame” perspective—popular for many reasons, overwhelms and complicates the difficult process of learning from adversity. 

Learning from adversity involves preparation, sharing, discovering, and introducing doctrine, then, sustaining new approaches.  The global nature of our work brings new opportunities but also many challenges.  Aligning interagency interests to sustain an organisational approach is complex.  As we face a near-term future of more wildfire and more risk, the need to utilise our experience to chart a better path forward is significant.