Coos Forest Protective Association
CFPA Explore and Discover Zone
CFPA Home Page
Welcome to the CFPA - Explore and Discover Zone
Check out some of the activity links we have here for you. You can learn to operate a GPS, use a Compass, read a Map,
make Weather Instruments, and more.
This page was designed for people of all ages to have fun and learn a little bit
about the job of a Wildland Firefighter.
Play the game - Wildfire
Live and experience what the professionals have to do to contain a fire, manage the firefighters, manage equipment, order resources, order helicopter water drops, all while the wind is blowing and your fire is growing.
Experiment with this Wildfire Simulator
Experiment with this Forest Fire Simulator
Living with Fire (How would you handle wildland fire?)
Make a Sling Psychrometer
Make a Complete Weather Station
View Current National Lightning
Make Lightning Strike
Map Current Weather Conditions
Oregon Web Cameras
These cameras work much the same as the cameras Coos Forest Protective Association uses for detection of fires.
Study the Wildland Firefighter Dictionary
Firefighters use a different language than you while on the job. The firefighter language is learned and used by all firefighters. See if you can learn the firefighters terminology.
24 Hour Clock Time (Military Time)
Convert 12 Hour Clock to 24 Hour Time
See the Outfit of Firefighters
Firefighters by law and by regulation have to wear a special attire before they go into the fire zone. This outfit has been proven to be beneficial to the firefighters life.
View the Wildland Fire Apparatus
Firefighters have to have a special made vehicle to respond to the fires. These vehicles have to access many different type of terrain. Click on a photo to see images of the trucks up close.
Fire Fighting Tools
how to operate a GPS
(Global Positioning System)
Firefighters use this tool to pinpoint the exact size of the fire, they walk the perimeter of the fire and mark waypoints, the waypoints connect to form a shape and from that shape we calculate acres within the shape and this gives us the size of the fire.
Create a Map with GPS
Learn how to use
Firefighters use a compass to create a "triangulation" on a column of smoke in the forest to pinpoint the exact location of the column of smoke and to figure which direction a fire is spreading.
Make a Compass
Latitude and Longitude
Firefighters use Latitude and Longitude to find the exact location of a fire, but more importantly they use Latitude and Longitude to relay to the pilot of aircraft to have a specific location to drop water on a fire.
Improve Map Reading Skills
Firefighters use a variety of maps, they use topography (topo) maps, orthoimagery (ortho) maps, aerial maps, shaded relief map, street maps, to name a few. Every one of these maps ties together, however each map is read differently.
Learn how to Measure a Tree
Firefighters have learned through experience how to measure trees and to determine the threat of the "ladder fuels = forest litter, brush, small tree, timber within a fire perimeter that allow a fire to burn upwards" which can cause possible "crowning = a fire burning in tops of trees" which leads to an extreme fire situation.
Learn To Identify Trees
Tree Identification Guide
(for our friends at Goodwin Community Center :)