Northern Rockies
Coordinating Group
Notes from the Spring Meeting, 2012
Montana Department of Natural Resources & Conservation
March 14-15, 2012
Attendees (some were via conference phone or video): Paul Grimstad* Chair, Cory
Winnie*, Ted Mead*, Bill Colwell*, Jim Kelton*, Sarah Tunge*, Tim Reid**, Ken Schmid*,
Rick Seidlitz*, Dave Hall*, Robert LaPlant*, Jim Newton**, Vern Burdick*, Bob Gilman, Kitty
Ortman, Tim Murphy, Pam Okon, Karly DeMers, Mike Almas, Judy Heintz, Eric Fransted,
Jim Reuter, Greg Archie, Karla Luttrell, Aitor Bidaburu, Don Copple, Kevin Weaver, Rick
Connell & Curtis Phelps, note taker.
* Indicates a Board member, ** Indicates an acting Board member.
Welcome and introductions by Paul Grimstad, Chair, and Ted Mead, host.
Zone Updates:
North Idaho: Mike Almas
New IDL FMO: Ken Ockfen
Zone:
Fire or other
incident activity to
date:
Outlook for the
coming fire season
or other incident
outlook:
Vacancies
North Idaho Zone IPNF and BLM – Coeur D’ Alene & Cottonwood
None
Hard to say. Much milder winter than last year. Started the year
off with little precipitation but has caught up in late February and
early March.
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New employees
Any issues you are
concerned with that
you would like to
We have about 10 vacancies on the Forest at all grade levels.
We are only filling an AFMO at Bonners Ferry and the Assistant
Helicopter Manager.
We are interviewing people for the AFMO and will be getting a
referral list soon for the Assistant Helicopter Manager.
A big decision for us was not to fill the FMO job for our North
Zone. This was a budget driven. Other positions we are not
filling include an IA dispatcher, Senior Firefighters, and Engine
Assistants.
The IPNF has a new Forest Supervisor as of October, Mary
Farnesworth. Cottonwood BLM has a new Fuels Tech in place,
Dan Fogleman.
The budget reduction has also affected our temporary workforce.
We will be down a few bodies but the biggest effect is we have
reduced the amount of days funded. We are losing some of our
NRCG Spring 2012 Meeting Notes
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share with the
board?
more experienced temporaries that give our modules depth
because of this.
The budget for the Cottonwood and CDA BLM is in pretty good
shape with increase in fuels money.
Other significant
events or topics
you would like to
share?
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The CDA Tanker Base will be approved and reopened this year
to fill heavy airtankers.
The IPNF will stand up its Exclusive Use Helicopter program this
year and will have a 10 person crew.
We are sharing a ship with the Kaibab from R3.
Northwest Montana – Rick Connell
• Bob Sandman retired and Steve Frye will take his place as Area Manager for the
Northwest Land Office.
• Head of the DES in Flathead County is leaving.
• Spring Administrators workshop planned- will go deeper into last year’s topics
o Scenario based workshop – Mini MAC operations will be the focus
o Rainy Creek discussion either a topic or a scenario – Asbestos in Rainy
Creek how do we fight fire in that type of environment? We are looking at
safety, risks and tradeoffs.
• Have already had several fires, valley bottoms are dry, and mountains have good
snow pack
Southwest Montana –
• No fires to date
• Outlook too earlier
• No new employees
• No significant vacancies
• We met as a board to discuss future of team
Central Montana – Don Copple
• Quite a bit of fire activity: 18,000 acres to date
• Roll-over of a county water tender on a fire occurred
• Dry in the valley
• B-D has 11 vacancies, and they will re-advertise Forest FMO position
• There is an Assistant Center Manager position open at Helena Dispatch (Note: filled
with Alyssa Stewart)
• Looking at reorganizing the zone to be more operative as a zone
• Have a new website to integrate more information:
https://sites.google.com/site/centralmontanazone/home
South Central Montana –
• Park and Gallatin Counties have implemented the E-Burn Permit program, using the
internet & it’s working well.
• Gallatin NF will have 15-20 fewer people due to budget
• The Gallatin will have a K-Max helicopter (Type 2) stationed at Shenango Helibase
for the Rappel program this summer.
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Big Timber will have a Single Engine Airtanker (SEAT) base
Yellowstone NP will have a new helicopter program in June
Several units are transitioning to narrow band frequencies throughout the next
couple of months
New medevac company in area: Summit Air
Ashley Sites from the Gallatin will be the NRCG zone rep as of next fall.
Eastern Montana – Eric Fransted
• Slow fire season so far
• Hard to predict fire season
• Personnel Changes –
o Kevin Weaver – new Assistant FMO for Rocky Mountain Area
o Matt Wolcot- new Southern Area Manager
o Bryce Rogers – new FMO at Crow Agency
North Dakota – Sarah Tunge for Maure Sand
• There are a few retirements, resignations, and transfers to other positions
• Seasonal gear-up
• Early Fire Season: Red Flag Warnings across the state and fire activity is picking up.
Committee Reports
Aviation – No report, see action items
Business – Ted Mead for Pam Okon
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They are a very active committee. The Incident Business Management Supplements
are on the NRCG website for 2012. The ICs feel pretty good about their finance
related positions on the teams.
State billing: the State of Colorado wants to bill other states directly instead of going
through the Forest Service for reimbursement. The process for the Montana DNRC
will not change this year, but there may be a different process in the future.
Updated cost decision document that ICs use. Information that ICs provided on this
form in the past was really good for cost review. The ICs suggested that another
similar form be made available for agency administrators.
Equipment – Tim Murphy for Jim Reuter
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We are looking at operator specs for operating in the field. This would be for
excavators and other heavy equipment. They need to show they are proficient.
NWCG has created a new position called an Incident Contracting Project Inspector
(ICPI). This will be a person who will work with the contractors and the agencies in
the Finance Section or be assigned by Fire Operations / MAC. Tim and Kevin
Erickson will be putting on BETA training for this in May 8-10 in Missoula.
Inspector Workshops to be held in Billings (4/24-26) & Missoula (5/1-3).
Planning new solicitations this spring for graders, feller-bunchers, skidders, coaches
& short buses.
Fire Program Analysis - Shari Miller for Shane DelGrasso
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Calibration reviews are ongoing. We are running several options – goal this year is
to understand fuel model changes.
Final Review Process consists of 5 questions
Other efforts- working on a localized FPA – no time line yet
SWT are done, FPUs have been taken care of, unsure if SWTs will continue in to the
future
Fuels (proposed committee) - Ken Schmid for Karen Michaud
• Recent conference call to set up the proposed committee had good participation.
• Discussed if we need a committee, interagency agreements, operating plan.
• Karen Michaud (BLM Montana State Office) will be the Chair & Stu Hoyt (FS
Regional Office) will be the Vice-chair. Ken is NRCG rep to the group.
• Pass all information to Ken to get to the group
Native American Crew - Robert LaPlant & Kevin Weaver
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The final draft of the Native American Crew Plan is almost done and they are still
receiving feedback. It will be ready for signature soon.
Continuing to see a declining use of Type 2 crews
Most reservations have a Type 2 Initial Attack (T2IA) crew
o We have built the crews let’s start using them
o Look at long term strategy how do we keep them trained and ready to deploy
Kevin Weber will be new chair vice Robert LaPlant.
Operations - Greg Archie
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Working on process in general to capture knowledge and help keep operations
moving forward
Team member selection was different this year, i.e. it wasn’t a draft process like past
years-rosters are completed by the time the meeting opens.
Going through succession planning
A push this year to look at ADs and if they have trainees, pretty healthy and well
aligned
Only 19 people not selected to a team and 16 were not selected, those 16 are
trainees, working to get those 16 trainees assigned
AD issue will continue to be an issue
People assigned to multiple rosters will share the person based on an agreed
rotation
People participation has gone up but teams numbers have gone down
We are supporting
o 5 Type 2 teams
o 2 Wildland teams
o 2 Type 1 teams
Prevention & Interface – Karly DeMars
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Working on the prevention campaign
Sub committees – have products for information sharing for education and
prevention
Committed to working with Fire Safe and Fire Wise efforts
They are starting Fire Safe Councils that are more home owner led.
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Homeowners and agency folks put on Communities and Wildfire Information
Sessions
The Communities and Wildfire Info Sessions have been very successful so far
Firesafemontana.org website for information sessions and other information.
Fire Restrictions should be similar to last year.
There were a few bugs with the fire restrictions website last season, but the
webserver has moved to Kansas City, so it should work better..
We want to sponsor a prevention team this summer.
The committee will be replacing Karly – Looking at ND for Chair but may not be able
to provide a body
Training – Kitty Ortman for Karla Luttrell
• Training needs analysis is being gathered
• NRTC is busy right now and the zones are either putting on courses, or preparing to
put them on.
Other Related Topics
Contracting Update – Tim Murphy
• As a result of 2011 fire season, USFS is in 2 law suits regarding tents and crew
busses. The USFS cancelled these solicitations.
• Evaluations for contractors. We need to make sure they are accurate. There is
concern that if someone says something negative, they will get sued. We need to
ensure that people in the field know giving an accurate evaluation is part of their job
and the government will back them if it does come up for litigation. Issues during the
incident don’t match the glowing evaluation reports. This causes issues when we
terminate contracts for cause.
• Could see fewer water tender contractors so we may have to rely on commercial
agreements or the National Guard if commercial agreements are not in place or not
available. Many contractors &/or their equipment have move to the oil & coal fields of
E. Mt. & ND. 2012 Solicitation Time Line on NRCG Website
Mobilization of Government Forces 2012 Update – Ted Mead
• Ted Mead and his staff –keepers of the document.
• Take Idaho off.
• Gilman and Judy will help out getting a NRCG Version.
Predictive Services Update - Mike Kreyenhagen & Bryan Henry
• 32,000 acres so far in 2012
• Good snow pack in the mountains
• Cool Dry Spring – El Nino
• Could be an early start to the fire season
• Not a typical La Nina Winter
• Should see some wet storms this summer
• Lower elevations have cleared the snow early, snowpack severely normal
• 2012 should be a 223,000 acre year
• Already started the 3 daily weather briefings – feedback from Board is that the
morning briefings on the website are extremely beneficial to the field
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Predictive Services Area (PSA) Review – Brian Henry
• Looking at PSA boundaries and they may change. Also looking at Fire Danger
Rating Areas.
• Working with FMOs to get feedback
• Fuel Moisture status page – need to get more participation from the field. Encourage
field people to give feedback to predictive services on what is burning. The Fuels
Committee could help gather some data.
• Use weather briefing to solicit updates to fuels status page
http://72.32.186.224/nfmd/add_data/add_site_data_index.php and
http://199.141.1.20/fuels/nrcc/public/index.php
Remote Automate Weather (RAW) Stations- Bryan Henry and Ken Schmid
• BLM asked if all agencies could reduce 65 RAW Stations. After further study, now
looking to reduce only 20 nationally. This originated when BLM looked at cutting it
20% of their $7 million RAWS cost.
• There are currently 13 BLM stations in Montana with a possible reduction of 3.
• Forest Service has no plans to reduce the numbers of its stations
Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) Discussion on Fires and Highway
Closures Or Restrictions- Cheryl Richman
• What to do when we have a large fire and need to close roads? We also need to
open them again as soon as safely possible.
• MT DoT has a lot of expertise in traffic control and try to limit the time closures will
block travel.
• Our MOU states guidelines for signage and how to get help from MDT with road
closure signage
• Road closures are necessary, if we have issues that can’t get resolved, Cheryl can
help.
• If a closure is necessary, let MDT know immediately so they can assist us
• When you have an incident plan that requires closures, include MDT in plan
• MOU is posted on NRCG website (on the Equipment Committee page
http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/fire/nrcg/Committees/equipment_committee.htm )
• Put MDT on our checklist for road closures. MDT had portable signs available to
warn travelers about closures and rerouting. These remote signs are available upon
request
• 511 and road map systems can also be used to report fire activity
• Annual notification to our people on MDT partnership
• Should this be in our annual letter?
Board Member Updates
Paul Grimstad/MT DES:
Not much to report. Some potential flooding
Ken Schmid/BLM:
• BLM still has large Airtanker contract, same amount of equipment, and helicopters
NRCG Spring 2012 Meeting Notes
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State Aviation Officer, Allen Edmonds, is retiring.
Possible 5% reduction from last year. Looking at cutting more personnel
Nationally as an agency we are going to be tightening up procedures surrounding
incidents - the BLM fire program has gone through an audit where they found waste,
fraud and abuse with gift cards, credit cards and timekeeping. This will cause more
audits and reviews to prevent abuse of funds during incidents in the future
Eric Fransted is Ken’s new Assistant FMO
Bill Colwell/Fire Chiefs: working on legislation to get consistent workers compensation for
employees across the state.
Vern Burdick/Peace Officers: If you need law enforcement, just call.
Rick Seidlitz/Fire Wardens: T3 All hazard team training will be occurring. Paul Fieldhouse
was hired as the training coordinator.
Tim Reid/NPS:
• No big changes in either Yellowstone or Glacier National Parks.
• Partnering more with out of area partners where we share borders: Grand Teton NP
& Shoshone National Forest.
• Fire Budget is down but should be Ops normal
Jim Newton/IDL:
• Offsetting Issues – Northern Rockies support business as usual
• Response Boundaries may be looked at but not a priority or may be a long range
plan
• State of Idaho is looking internally to resolve issues with response and cooperative
agreements.
Ted Mead/MT DNRC:
• New faces: Steve Frye, Area Manager at Northwest Land Office; Matt Wolcot, Area
Manager at Southern Land Office; Paul Fieldhouse working out of Fire Bureau on all
hazard team credentialing and training, Jackson O’Brien Assistant Rural Fire
Specialist.
• Hosting Protection exchange agreement meeting. No changes in 2012 fire season
• Budget/staffing: status quo due to 2 year budget cycle of legislature.
• FS aviation: pilots and aircraft have been carded and inspected. Should also be
approved by the Office of Aircraft Services(OAS) (formerly known as the AMD)
• 2003 Ryan Gulch fire: giving testimony over damage to private property.
Patti Koppenol/USFS:
• We are flying the vacant Deputy Fire Direction position as a GS-301-13/14
• NRCC Manager vacancy announcement is on the street, so we are hoping for many
quality applicants.
NRCG Spring 2012 Meeting Notes
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Cathy Scofield is Patti’s Acting Deputy Director for the next 6 weeks; Frank Preite
will be Acting Deputy Director for May and June
USFS Regional Forester position is vacant - Detailer in that position is from
Washington Office fire organization (Note: it has been filled with Faye Krueger)
Looking forward to the Offset Meeting
Budget is down 5%
Have met with the Environmental Protection Agency on Rainy Creek near the
Kootenai NF and Northwest Land Office – planning if we have a fire in asbestos
filled areas, we need more information to formulate a plan - we did get money for
special hazardous material equipment. We need to consider what is safe, and
consider public health when fires create columns that blow across the affected area.
Robert LaPlant/RM BIA:
• Have 3 new agency administrators
• Budget is also down
• No agency is equipped to handle all fires by themselves, so we need to promote
partnerships
• Kevin Weaver – Robert’s new assistant and was formerly from fuels specialist
Jim Kelton/FWS
• Concerned about fire danger – pre-season green up and having red flag warnings
already
• Budget is being cut: preparedness down 3%, but 9% increase in fuels program
• Reducing our fire zones from 10 to 5
• Building a new workforce analysis for the agency
• In our Regional office we are losing our storage, there are many copies of the
brochure on Living with Wildland Fire in the Prairie.
o This is based on the Fire wise program.
o Ken Schmid will take them, so contact Ken if you would like some copies of it.
Dave Hall/GP BIA
• Activity is picking up in North Dakota and we are at Very High to Extreme
• Bolstering Initial attack, have a SEAT available if needed.
• Severity request is in in for South Dakota agencies.
Sarah Tunge/ND Forest Service
• Staffing changes have a retirement and a resignation, so short staffed.
• Catching up with the seasonal hiring
• 80 degrees in Bismarck, red flag, extreme fire danger.
Thursday March 15, 2011
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Incident Management Teams (IMT) Use Discussion – Jess Secrest
A letter was written with the intent to educate the agency administrators about what the
different teams can do. Discussion suggested adding a paragraph on complexity analysis.
It will come from the Board when completed with edits.
Incident Management Organization Succession Planning (IMOSP) – Bob Gilman
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Discussion about the IMOSP.
How does this board want us to respond?
How do we respond to the 40 teams with no typing managed from Boise?
Bob stated “Write down your thoughts and concerns to formulate a response and
work with our own individual agencies to come up with a response. Send comments
to Bob by March 29th and discuss\finalize at April Conference Call. He will then send
a response to NWCG before May Implementation date.
Patti – Question – What do we do about Liaison for out GACC?
Tim Reid – Almost need a Liaison Task Force
Bob – Liaison addressed in document, if we have an out of GACC assign a Liaison so they
understand the Northern Rockies and ensure that team has the best chance to be
successful
Robert – Talking 2-3 day assignment to get team acclimated to the environment, then the
team Liaison takes over, Local Liaison works with team liaison to get them familiar with
Northern Rockies, case by case depending on familiarity with the Northern Rockies
Most agreed using the above would reduce lawsuits.
Multiple topics - Judy Heintz:
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Update on national dispatch issues and studies.
o Several Dispatcher studies are occurring, but none of the results are published.
This has been an ongoing project since 2008.
o The team that is working on it is made up of fire employees, but there are also a
lot of law enforcement employees also on the evaluation team.
o They are looking at combining some dispatch centers to be more efficient and
cost effective.
o Dispatch Efficiency workgroup is look at better tools to evaluate dispatch centers
efficiencies. The Dispatch Centers are doing a lot of administrative work such as
hiring and tracking qualifications of ADs, keeping all the qualification records
updated for the employees working there, etc.
o Judy will bring more information to the fall NRCG Meeting
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Update on team selection process using the new electronic format.
o Thought this process went well because we worked directly with ICs
o Could read the applications and determine the applicants qualifications
immediately due to electronic format
o In the future we will limit the number of positions a person could apply for
because some people applied for many positions on several teams. There were
over 500 applications, but far fewer people than that.
NRCG Spring 2012 Meeting Notes
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o Entire team will be solicited every 3 years or when there is a new Incident
Commander.
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Need for high quality IARR's
o We currently have 3 Interagency Resource Representatives (IARRs) that we use
when we send resources to other geographic areas. Two are agency employees
and one is an AD
o They assist all crews that are in an area including engine crews, T2IA, agency,
AD’s, miscellaneous overhead, etc.
o We will be working on an IARR workshop in May or June
o looking for people to interested in being an IARR, so send any names to Judy.
o IARRs need to be self-sufficient because it’s hard to help others if you can’t help
yourself
Roles of the teams with the NRCG and the Zone boards – Ken Schmid
o Historically, NRC is the umbrella for the geographic area. The Type 2 teams were
encouraged to be recommended by the zone boards, but as teams have down
sized, there is less participation by zone boards, so NRCG has filled the void. In
some zones, e.g. Eastern Montana, the team is made up of people from all zones.
Need to be able to manage teams effectively
o Shared management seemed to work best
o Some zone boards don’t meet very often
o Tim– Disconnect – Geo Zone versus team zone
o Greg – Boards and Zones are working where managed correctly.
o Bob – we can fix the issue by putting info in Mob Guide. We will have a map that
shows the 3 Team zones.
o Jess- Keep teams together when dispatching
o Ken – Who sees the Team Evaluation? The Board will see them at fall meeting.
Last year there were no critical problems. If any critical issues come up before the
fall meeting, then Bob or Judy will alert the Board.
o Ken – maybe we can sit down with ICs and debrief on their assignments
o Bob – we used to meet with the ICs, we can start that practice again
o Kitty – Will put ICs on the Fall Agenda
o Ted – We need to work with Agency Administrator to ensure team evaluations are
done correctly and accurately
o Judy – complications when working with AAs, the line officers don’t come up through
the organization like they used to, they don’t have fire experience and have no frame
of reference when it comes to fighting wild fire.
IC's for 2012 and IC trainees-Do they have NRCG Support?
Board decision is that the trainee Incident Commanders have the NRCG Board of Directors
support.
ICs
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East side Zone
Sam Benes
Tom Heintz
Western Mt
Bob Frey
North Idaho teams
Shawn – New IC using Mark Grant as a deputy
Jim Nichols can’t be principle IC, would be a backup
Other Teams
Brad McBratney
Diane Hutton
Trainees
John Thompson – potential IC
Mark Giacoletto – Tom Heintz’s trainee
Rick – Bob Frey’s trainee
Irv Leach – future candidate for Poncin or Turman
Lippincott is a potential
Greg will have more information for Bob to present at the April Conference Call
A poll of the board shows no objections to the candidates listed above.
A poll of the board shows Tom Heintz is granted permission to continue IC role base on 7
year renewal policy.
Who will manage the Wildland Fire Management Teams – Managed at the Geo Level,
NRCG Board members agree to continue business as usual. Greg will discuss in Fall Ops
Meeting and bring to the NRCG Fall Mtg.
BIN Items/Action Items summary
Aviation Committee
• Ted Mead will talk to the chair of the Aviation committee
o All agencies give the names of their aviation committee representatives’ to
Ted and he will pass them on to the chair.
o Ted will let the Aviation Committee Chair know that Jim Kelton is the NRCG
Board Liaison to that committee
o Send your aviation related issues to Ted, and he will forward them to the
aviation committee chair.
The NRCG Board of Directions Fall Meeting will be after November 5. Doodle poll will go out
to determine the best dates.
Fall Topics:
o Dispatcher studies updates,
o Financial Support of interagency resources,
o discuss assignments with ICs and Board,
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Next Conference Call will be April 17 at 10:00 MDT.
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