Earlier this week, a coordinating group of state and federal public land managers moved to raise the nation’s wild land firefighting suppression posture to what’s known as “Preparedness Level 5” — the most severe level on a scale that indicates the number of major wildfires in progress, the need to mobilize agencies’ firefighting resources and the competition for those resources among different regions of the country. Preparedness Level 5 has only been reached five times in the last decade. Roberta D’Amico, branch chief of communication and education at the National Interagency Fire Center based in Boise, Idaho, explains how federal land management agencies coordinate their resources during these intense periods.