Glossary of Wildfire Terms

Hand crew: A number of individuals that have been organized and trained and are supervised principally for operational assignments on an incident, typically using hand tools. In the United States, an ordinary hand crew is 20 in number, including supervisors.
Hazard Reduction: Precautionary controlled and managed fire lit during cooler and/or wetter weather in order to reduce the available fuel load. Sometimes incorrectly called a backburn.
Head of a fire: The most rapidly spreading portion of a fire’s perimeter, usually to the leeward or up slope; may have multiple heads if there are separated flanking fires.
Heavy fuels: Fuels of large diameter such as snags, logs, large limb wood, which ignite and are consumed more slowly than flash fuels.
Helispot: A natural or improved takeoff and landing area intended for temporary or occasional helicopter use, typically in remote areas without other access.
Helitack: A fire crew trained to use helicopters for initial attack, and to support large fires through bucket drops and the movement of personnel, equipment and supplies. Another primarily function of helitack is jumper support and retrieval.
Hose Pack: A general term covering all types of hose configurations a person would carry to deploy.
Hose Vacuum: A small pneumatic vacuum generator that removes air from the inside of a fire hose making it smaller and firm, it is therefore easier to pack and takes up less space.
Hot spot: A particularly active part of a fire.
Hotshot crew: Intensively trained fire crew used primarily in hand line construction, and organized primarily to travel long distances from fire to fire as needed rather than serving only one geographic location.