How LACES helps offset uncertainty - and keeps “Yesterday” at bay
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Remember to always follow your organizations policies and processes.
Did you know the Beatles' classic "Yesterday" has over 4,000 versions? That’s 4,000 ways to sing, present, and cover it. It's considered one of the most copied songs in the world, as well as being one of their greatest.
What’s even more fascinating is how Paul McCartney created it. He called this piece “the most instinctive song” he’d ever written. He simply woke up one morning with the full melody in his head. He used “Scrambled Eggs” as a placeholder where "Yesterday" now sits in the lyrics.
Despite the song's brilliance, McCartney worried he might have accidentally copied it. He held on to the song for years, playing it for others in the industry. All the while wondering if it was truly an original. It was like something didn’t feel right, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it.
One of the biggest songs by one of the biggest bands, and yet, McCartney was uncertain?
Similarly to McCartney, uncertainty can impact firefighters on the line. But unlike him, we don’t have the gift of time to sit on a song and to consult with others around us for weeks or months at a time. We need to be able to quickly process information and make a decision that impacts not only ourselves but others.
Thankfully, LACES provides the solution.
What is L.A.C.E.S.?
LACES is a widely used acronym in the wildland fire community and stands for
Lookout
Anchor Points
Communication
Escape Routes and
Safety Zones.
The importance of LACES can’t be understated. This concept is emphasized so much that it is drilled into every new firefighter who arrives on the line. While a new recruit may not fully understand it, they know enough about it to start using it right away.
What is important to know is that LACES is actually the culmination of over 40 pieces of information taken from the following:
10 Standard Fire Orders,
18 WATCHOUT Situations,
the Indirect Fireline Checklist, and
the Common Denominators on Tragic Fires.
I mention this because, quite often on the fireline, you’ll hear people from different locations or generations refer to these documents or training aids with the caveat, "Yeah, but you still need to know them." In your mind, you should respond with, "But I do!"
While LACES is presented as this simple and elegant training aid, it was designed to take into account firefighter safety during high-stress situations. In the moments that you need this acronym, there’s no time for pausing or uncertainty. Your actions and those of your crew have to be instinctual.
Why is LACES important to know and remember?
If understood and performed, LACES becomes important because it feeds into your situational awareness while on the fireline. Together with your crew, you should be cycling through these five letters over and over again.
Now, if you're responsible for others' safety, then LACES helps support your fireline decisions. Which is good. Sometimes it’s easy to focus on the fire and forget to check in with yourself and others. LACES becomes that tiny moment where you can say, Yeah, I think we’re good.
How is LACES practically used on the fireline?
As I mentioned above, by running through your LACES acronym, you’re both accounting for the safety of yourself and others. Also, what many people or new recruits may not fully understand is that building LACES into your ongoing thinking helps solidify your situational awareness.
Let’s take an example, shall we?
You’ve been asked to construct a fireguard that’s 2300 feet from the pump. As you move along from the pump to the fire's edge, there's a change in forest composition, and as you get closer, visibility is reduced, both from trees and smoke. So using LACES, this is what you should be thinking:
Do we have a lookout posted to watch for any changes to fire behaviour?
Moving up the line, have I passed any safety zones? Do I know where they are? And are they clearly marked?
Do I know where my escape routes are? Can I physically get to one or both escape routes in reasonable time?
Do I have communication links established with my crew? Either through radio or using an established form of comms with my crew (i.e., applying the hose strangler to the line in short bursts?)
While we haven’t covered all of the letters inside of LACES, it should be enough to get the point. That as you move through time and space, you’re always working to reestablish your situational awareness.
When should LACES become the default?
This should be easy—ALWAYS!
I don’t say that to be flippant, but more so to stress that it is a proven system. Currently it is used throughout Canada and the US, albeit with some variations.
LACES is but one of the many ways wildfire agencies have worked to standardize our approach to safety in the field. Given the current state of affairs and the fire behaviour we encounter in the field, we are faced with a lack of time and uncertainty regarding our own safety.
Addressing Common Concerns About LACES
Some firefighters, particularly those with extensive experience, might question whether LACES oversimplifies complex decision-making when it comes to safety. They might argue that experienced crews can assess risks intuitively without relying on acronyms or checklists.
This perspective, while understandable, overlooks several key factors. First, even experienced firefighters can become focused on immediate tactical activities and lose sight of an evolving situation. Regardless of experience level, LACES offers a systematic approach that guarantees no detail goes unnoticed.
Second, fire behaviour has evolved significantly due to climate change, fuel loading, and other factors. Conditions that seemed manageable based on past experience can quickly become life-threatening. LACES provides a consistent framework for evaluating these changing conditions objectively rather than relying solely on intuition or past experience.
Making LACES Second Nature
The goal isn't just to understand LACES—it's to internalize it so completely that it becomes an automatic part of your firefighting mindset. This requires practice, repetition, and conscious application until the system becomes instinctive.
Start by incorporating LACES into your daily training activities. Run through the checklist during training, simulations, and non-emergency situations. Practice identifying the five different components of LACES in different terrain types and conditions.
Encourage crew discussions about LACES and its applications during training and debriefing sessions. Share experiences about how the system helped identify potential problems or guided decision-making during actual incidents. The more you talk about LACES and its applications, the more natural it becomes to use during high-stress situations.
Remember that LACES isn't just the responsibility of crew leaders or senior firefighters. Every crew member can contribute by identifying potential anchor points or suggesting possible escape routes and safety zones. This collaborative approach helps strengthen the entire crew's safety mindset and ensures that important safety elements don't get overlooked.
So, let's recap.
We started by defining what LACES is and followed up with its importance, how the acronym was created, and what other training information served as the foundation for shaping LACES.
We then briefly touched on its practicality while on the fireline and how using it repeatedly supports your overall situational awareness. All good things—right?!
Finally, we discussed some of the concerns people may have. And from experience in the field, we know that different organizations rely on different factors that go into LACES. As in, some organizations may use LACES but prefer to rely more so on the 18 WATCHOUT situations rather than just LACES alone. Regardless, LACES presents an elegant training aid, but like all aids, it needs to be used—and used some more.
Using LACES more frequently increases our ability to rely on it, and the more we rely on it, the better it becomes for decision-making, situational awareness, and our overall safety.
But bringing it back to our dear friend McCartney, our continued use of LACES helps to offset any uncertainty we may have about a situation faced on the line. There's no time for us to second-guess. We don't have the luxury of time, like McCartney did, to inquire with others in the field. We need to act, and to act now.
And remember that "Yesterday" IS a great song, but what we all want is tomorrow.