United States
Department of
Agriculture
File Code:
Route To:
Subject:
To:
Forest
Service
1300
Washington
Office
1400 Independence Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20250
Date:
April 14, 2005
Incident Business Practices
Regional Foresters, Station Directors, Area Director, IITF Director
Last fall I commissioned an Incident Business Support Team to assess our capability to support incident
management in light of our new business organization environment. The first phase of this effort was to
examine the impact of the B&F and IRM reorganizations and our ability to manage incident business
support in CY 2005 and identify mitigating strategies for any shortfalls identified.
The result of this examination, known as the Incident Business Practices Analysis Calendar Year 2005
Report, provides the findings and recommendations. This report is posted on the Business Operations
Transformation Program website: http://fsweb.botp.fs.fed.us/. The Team will provide guidance for
implementing the recommendations in the coming week.
Key points in the report include:
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Staffing of Incident Management Team Finance Sections is minimally affected by the
reorganization occurring in business operations activities. Some staffing shortfalls may occur but
there are enough qualified individuals in the system to cover any such shortfalls if these
individuals are made available and respond when called. I encourage all red-carded
individuals to update their availability for CY 2005 incident season in the ROSS system.
For CY 2005, all fire related payments and accruals will be processed at one of the four existing
payment centers (Ogden, Camino, Boise NF, and NIFC). Additionally, each payment center will
host detailers who will be available to travel to incidents and assist incident units whose financial
personnel have already migrated off that unit.
The ISO organization will be able to support Type I and II Incident Management Teams and other
red-carded positions. The ISO will also be able to support local unit incidents but the time to
respond will vary depending on the location of the ISO staff in relation to the incident. The ISO
leadership is prepared to supplement the ISO capacity with contractor support when needed.
Acquisition Management will provide incident support as in the past. However, they have
undertaken a Strategic Analysis of Acquisition Management and as part of this, are looking at
acquisition management incident support in the future.
Human Resource Management will provide incident support as in the past. However, they will
be assessing future incident support in light of their anticipated centralization.
For 2006 and beyond, we are conducting a comprehensive review across all business operations activities
to identify opportunities and risks associated with staffing, processes, and technology. This is being done
in collaboration with the Interagency Incident Based Automation (IBA) Team. Our incident business
support team will capitalize on work being done by the IBA Team in order to ensure strategies adopted by
the Forest Service are in line with those of the interagency incident community.
Caring for the Land and Serving People
Printed on Recycled Paper
Regional Foresters, Station Directors, Area Director, IITF Director
2
Over the coming weeks we will issue policy guidance for implementing the identified CY 2005 strategies.
If you have any questions, contact Emmy Ibison, 406-329-3463, or Tina Ledger, 801-625-5468.
/s/ Irving W. Thomas for
CHRISTOPHER L. PYRON
Deputy Chief for Business Operations
cc: pdl wo ops directors, Peter J Roussopoulos, William R Dougan, Christopher Pyron, Tom
Harbour, Ronald Hooper, Tina Ledger, Emmy Ibison