NORTHWEST WILDLAND FIRE FIGHTING COMPACT
Northwest COMPACT
The Northwest Compact
The Northwest Fire Fighting Compact (NW Compact) is one of eight forest fire fighting Compacts operating across North America. Compact members include wildland fire agencies in the U.S. States and Canadian Provinces. Within each compact, fire fighting resources and personnel can be deployed efficiently and quickly to suppress wildfires.
The NW Compact was created to facilitate assistance in wildland fire pre-suppression and suppression between the member agencies in the northwestern region of North America. Member agencies include the U.S. States of Alaska, California, Idaho, Montana, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, as well as the Canadian Provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and the Yukon and Northwest Territories. In 2024, the NW Compact welcomed Hawaii as a new member. In 2025, California and Nevada became our newest members of the NW Compact.
1998
NW Compact
Established
28
Years of NW Compact
Support through 2025
13
NW Compact Member
States and Provinces
8
Firefighting Compacts
in North America
Agency Contacts
Member-agency contact addresses, emails, and phone numbers..
Archive
Document archive including founding laws, current operating plans and administrative procedures. Access to the member-agency collaborative document workspace.
Briefings
Links to agency briefings and orientations for incoming firefighters. Includes links to fire environment information like fire danger rating systems and other intel.
Featured Website
Established in 2002 to promote learning in the wildland fire service by providing useful and relevant products and services that help to reveal the complexity and risk in the wildland fire environment. The Center strives to enhance safe work performance and organizational learning for all wildland firefighters.
Both states have a long history with several compact members already through separate mutual aid agreements, making this a great opportunity for them to build on old relationships and create new ones as well.
Building content as it is made available for sharing on this website.
Maximizing wildfire response capabilities
“During a late season fire in October of 2022, an east wind event in southwestern Washington caused a fire to grow from 156 to 1500 acres in a 24 hour period, forcing the evacuations affecting over thirty six thousand (36,000) homes.
Because of our partnership with Oregon Department of Forestry formalized in the NW Fire Protection Agreement, we were able to rapidly receive ODF IMT 2 (IC Howard) to help manage the incident, when the other Type 2 and 1 IMTs typically relied upon were listed as unavailable at the NW Geographic Area Coordination Center.
The ability to surge resources between U.S. States and Canadian Provinces in the Northwest maximizes our suppression response capabilities collectively.”
— David Way
Assistant Division Manager for Operations
Wildland Fire Management Division
Washington State Department of Natural Resources
Photo courtesy Brian Looper.