Glossary of Wildfire Terms

Dead Man Zone: Unburnt areas around edges of brush fire.
Demob: Demobilization, or a crew being removed from working a fire.
Direct Attack: Any treatment applied directly to burning fuel such as wetting, smothering, or chemically quenching the fire or by physically separating the burning from unburned fuel.
Dozer line: Fireline constructed by the front blade of a bulldozer or any tracked vehicle with a front mounted blade used for exposing mineral soil. Also "catline."
Drafting: using a suction pump to lift water from below the pump, using a semi-rigid suction hose, typically to fill a portable reservoir that has other suction pumps (to relay) or siphon hoses running downhill to their nozzles.
Drip torch: hand-carried fire-starting device filled with flammable liquid that is poured across a flaming wick, dropping flaming liquid onto the fuels to be burned.
Duff: Layer of decaying forest litter consisting of organics such as needles, leaves, plant and tree materials covering the mineral soil. Duff can smolder for days after a fire. Extinguishing smoldering duff is key to successful mopup operations.
Dead Out: When a fire is completely out, with no smoldering or burning areas. (This is different from contained.)