For wildfire firefighters knowing exactly how long it takes for them to reach safety is critical, and new research provides more precise information about the time to cross different terrains and different slopes. "If you’re in the fire crew and you’re on the fire line and you need to evacuate the fire line to get to a safer area, then it is really valuable to understand exactly how long that’s going to take because understanding the difference between taking three minutes or taking four minutes could be the difference between injury or even fatality," said Mickey Campbell, a professor in the department of geosciences at Fort Lewis College in Colorado. Campbell and his collaborators at the University of Utah and the US Forest Service found that current information about travel rates were outdated and relied on information based on only a few individuals.