AMARILLO, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) – The Texas Panhandle saw the ignition of at least 10 named wildfires across the region in February and March 2024, including the largest in the state’s history, scorching more than 1 million acres in the process of destroying hundreds of buildings and killing thousands of cattle.
Firefighters from local, regional, state and federal agencies have coordinated to respond to and manage the fires, with most except the two largest considered contained by the third week of the ongoing disaster.
However, not all fires burn the same. While the “Smokehouse Creek” fire spread from Hutchinson County into western Oklahoma and was designated as the largest wildfire in Texas state history, one-acre fires like “Skunk Hollow” in Randall County were also given official names.
With such a variation in size and impact, why have so many of the recent Texas Panhandle wildfires been named? Who decides when, how and why to name a wildfire?
The answers, like the causes of the wildfires themselves, depend on region, timing and circumstance.
Who names a wildfire?
Unlike tropical storms and hurricanes, wildfires in the United States do not have a pre-selected list of names nor a set-in-stone list of naming rules for officials to use. According to the Texas A&M Forest Service, wildfires are named by first responders, incident commanders and dispatchers who are working to manage them.
Because fire departments report wildfires to the TFS, and those fires can grow and change drastically, they’re most often tracked by name instead of a registered physical address. However, the TFS also noted that in areas with frequent wildfires, the fires usually aren’t given a name until they reach a certain size. Even then, smaller fires tend to be named according to their county name and an auto-generated number.
However, there are times when small fires are given more unique names; that just depends on the official who files the report. Those unique names can also pop up more often during times when there are more fires to respond to, such as in recent weeks in the Texas Panhandle when there are multiple fires to track and numerous agencies managing a region.
For example, the Texas Panhandle recently saw the 40-acre “Gray 0375” fire in Gray County as well as the 1.2-acre “Skunk Hollow” fire in Randall County. The “Skunk Hollow” fire was much smaller but may have gotten a more unique name for a number of reasons, like a landmark noted by a nearby property owner or a critter noticed by one of the first crewmembers on the scene.
As noted in a 2011 report from The Abilene Reporter-News, the first name given to a fire tends to stick around in the official report. Because the fires are named by the people who respond to them first, at the end of the day they can end up with more notable names even despite size or general naming conventions.
What’s in a name?
Because there is no pre-selected list of names for wildfires, first responders and other fire management officials are free to choose how to name each fire they report to the TFS.
As noted by the TFS, fires are frequently named based on the geographic locations or landmarks near their origin. However, wildfire names in the TFS records have a broad range of themes, from the “Muddy Mess” fire to the “Lonely,” “Marshmallow,” “Angry Beaver,” and “Fonzie” fires. One can imagine some fires might have been named according to inside jokes, the possible cause of the fires, or even just a favorite snack of a crew member.
But, while many of the names have stuck due to a lack of opposition, that doesn’t mean they strictly align with suggested fire naming conventions.
The National Wildfire Coordinating Group works to set standards for national interagency wildland fire operations, such as regarding best practices, qualifications requirements, processes and techniques. While each member agency independently decides whether to adopt the NWCG standards and use them, they are made to be used broadly and to support efficient communication and coordination.
Those NWCG standards extend to naming guidelines for wildfires, with recommendations including:
- In the absence of another naming protocol, fire names should reference the area or location of the incident.
- Fires should be named after geographic locations or nearby landmarks.
- When fires are named after highways or streets, consider including the nearest mile marker number or cross-street in the fire name.
- Fire names should be relatively unique.
- Avoid re-using the same fire name on a given jurisdiction in a given year, adding a number to the name if needed.
- Avoid naming a new fire the same as another currently reported in the national Incident Management Situation Report or other significant, active fires in the area.
- Fire names should be concise.
- Don’t include classifications like “Fire” or “Wildfire” in the name, and unless needed for clarity, avoid generic descriptor words; for example, using “Kincaid” instead of “Kincaid Peak” or “Little Blue” might be preferred instead of “Little Blue Creek.”
- Fire names should reflect professionalism, sensitivity, good taste, and common sense.
- Avoid offensive names or words considered slang.
- Avoid naming fires with potentially prophetic, hyperbolic or distasteful, such as “Deadman” or “Firestorm.”
- Avoid re-using a fire name already associated with a historic, catastrophic fire, such as those where deaths or significant property losses occurred.
- Fire names should not include words associated with personal or protected information.
- A fire should not be named after a person, aside from a historical figure’s name used for a location or feature.
- Fires should not be named after private property, a business or commercial entity, organization, brand, product, or words protected by trademark or copyright.
- Fire names should not identify responsible parties or otherwise imply culpability or liability.
- Fires should not be named after a suspected party, person or event that caused them, nor their suspected ignition source.
- If the incident type is a Complex – such as the 2006 “East Amarillo Complex” fire – then “Complex” must be used in the incident name, and must not share the name of any of its combined fires.
However, in practice, wildfire names tend to be granted leeway with many of those recommendations. Fire names in recent years have remained on the books that technically don’t follow all of these rules, including the “Smokehouse Creek” fire or “Slim Jim” and “Beaver Nugget” fires, but have not generally been considered offensive or harmful enough to raise concerns.
Altogether, despite their many differences, wildfires in Texas and across the US do share at least one notable commonality: They are named by those who fight them, to help keep the record, minimize harm and make the most of the efforts to respond and recover.