While Photoshop and Fireworks aren't essential for creating layouts in itself, they serve as a drafting software I guess you could say. Kinda like how you would use the good ol' pen&paper (I still use that sometimes ).

So ... in a sense, yeah ... you need photoshop or fireworks ... especially with the amount of detail a design like that one has.

Total Tutorial has some great tutorials. In the search box just enter "layout" and you should get what you are looking for.

A little heads up tho ... I would start by becoming VERY good with HTML and CSS before you start creating layout like this. That way you can better visualize what/how you'll be slicing it because, believe me, YOU DO NOT WANT TO USE THE SLICE TOOL IN PS or FW