Northern Rockies
Coordinating Group
Notes from the Fall Meeting, 2011
Missoula Technology & Development Center
November 15-16, 2011
Attendees (some were via conference phone or video): Cory Winnie*- Chair, Ted
Mead*, Bill Colwell*, Jim Kelton*, Sarah Tunge*, Bill Avey**, Tim Reid**, Ken Schmid*,
Rick Seidlitz*, Dave Martin*, Robert LaPlant*, Jim Newton**, Vern Burdick*, Paul
Grimstad*-Vice-Chair, Bob Gilman, Kitty Ortman, Tim Murphy, Paul Fieldhouse, Lori Clark,
Pam Okon, Craig Campbell, Mike Almas, Judy Heintz, Eric Lepisto, Jim Reuter, Greg
Archie, Karla Luttrell, Aitor Bidaburu, Don Copple, Cobey Williamson, Mike Stapp, Marshall
Roth, John Thompson, Gary “Stan” Benes, Greg Poncin, Diane Hutton, Troy Kurth, Jeff
Gordon, Patrick Nooney & Curtis Phelps, note taker.
* Indicates a Board member, ** Indicates an acting Board member.
Zone Updates:
North Idaho: Mike Almas
Grangeville Dispatch Center Dispatch Zone
• The Nez Perce/ Clearwater fire zone had an average fire season like the rest of the
Northern Rockies. The forests had approximately 158 fires that were either suppression
events or managed for resource benefits for a total of 25,775 acres.
• The IDL’s Maggie Creek and Craigmont units had a total of 29 fires for approximately 591
acres.
• The Nez Perce Tribe had a total of 7 fires for 75 acres.
• The zone hosted one Type II IMT from Northern Idaho for the Granite Fire located near Lolo
Pass which was co-managed with the Lolo N.F. Three fires (Van Creek, Otter, East
Meadow) where managed with Type III zone organizations.
• The Tri-Region agreement worked very well this season and was utilized numerous times
across the boundary between the FS Regions 1, 4 and 6.
• The Grangeville Smokejumpers stayed busy into early October and the base was jumpedout over 12 times during the season.
• Our interagency partners worked well together sharing resources during the whole season.
• The FS Region 3 (Southwest Area) agreement provided a great start to the season
providing many opportunities for fire folks to gain experience after the last two slow fire
seasons. There was one point in June when we had 153 folks assigned from the
FS/IDL/BLM units supporting the Southwest Area fires.
• The Grangeville Dispatch Center had a fairly busy fire season between dispatching folks to
the Southwest and mobilizing resource around the zone/ Tri-Region area. The Nez Perce
Tribe formally entered into the interagency dispatch center this year in a new agreement
providing initial attack dispatching for the Tribe’s lands. The other agreement between the
Idaho Panhandle, Lolo, Payette, and Wallowa-Whitman NFs works very well in supporting
NRCG Fall 2011 Meeting Notes
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the needs of our adjacent partners. The dispatch center also was successful in a formal
search and rescue agreement with the Idaho County Sheriff's Office.
The Grangeville Air Center (GAC) entered into a formal agreement to lease additional
pieces of land on the Idaho County Airport property to prevent our helicopter operations
from becoming restricted due to other private individuals leasing the land.
The zone had a great prescribed fire program this year and worked well with the Air Quality
folks at the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), Nez Perce Tribe, MT DEQ,
Missoula County DEQ and others to successfully share the air shed. The zone burned
approximately 9000 + acres during the month of August, and another 2000 acres in
September.
Personnel Changes- The zone hired three new district FMO's this summer: Shawn Gaines is
the new Lochsa FMO after Scott Schrenk transferred to the Plains District on the Lolo N.F;
Tim Shaffer is the Moose Creek FMO after Stu Hoyt left for the Regional Fuels Planner job
in Missoula; Mike Goicoechea will be returning from the Flathead N.F. as the Powell FMO.
Randy Nelson will be retiring in December as the Grangeville Smoke Jumper Base Manager
and we’re planning to fill his position.
The Nez Perce and Clearwater National Forests are getting close to presenting the Forests
combination package to the Regional Forester and Washington Office. Once approved the
forests will be officially combined. This should happen sometime between January and the
spring. The Slate Creek Ranger District and the Clearwater Ranger District have been
combined into the Salmon River Ranger District. There will be one FMO running the
combined fire resources this year starting in January.
Coeur d’Alene Dispatch Center Dispatch Zone
2011 Fire Occurrence To-Date
Human Caused
Lightning Caused
Agency Totals
#
Acres
#
Acres
#
Acres
77
1277.55
FS*
29
5.75
48
1271.8
126
171.4
IDL
87
126
39
45.4
9
3.75
CDT
9
3.75
0
0
Total
125
135.5
87
1317.2
Year to date
212
1452.7
*Included in the above are the Idaho Panhandle NF Managed Fires; 8/460 acres
2011 Resources Committed
Crews: IPNF Interagency Hotshot Crew; 6 mobilizations to AK, NM, SD, 2-MT, CO
17 Type 2 IA /Type 2 interagency crews to TX, 7-NM, 6-ID, MT
Engines: 29 agency mobilizations with 30 crew member rotations to LA, NM, FL, GS, TX, WY, MT
Incident Management Teams
IMT2
Grant/Pearson,
Kusicko,
Kusicko/Pearson,
IMT3
Rod Weeks,
West Riverside
Granite Pass
Birthday
Silver Peak
Miscellaneous Overhead Mobilized
CDT
9
COD
6
IDL;
272
IPNF
671
Total
957
2011 NIZ Training 40 courses hosted within the zone with 1631 students attending
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RX Fire
Like everyone else, our spring prescribed fire activity was slow, however, we were able to get about
3500 acres burned in September
NIZ Prevention
• Visited 28 Elementary schools reaching 3000 kids
• Sponsored kids day at the park reaching 1500 kids
• Safety day at Kootenai County fairgrounds with Boy Scouts reaching 2500 kids
• Fire prevention night with Smokey and Spokane Indians Baseball team.
Issues
• There was inconsistency with the R1/R3 Agreement, project vs. P-code, and travel rules.
• IDL resources going out of the geographic area and having to prove they are agency
resources to the IMT finance.
Personnel moves
• New Hires: The Panhandle got a new Forest FMO, Mike Behrens;
• IPF Deputy FMO, Mike Almas;
• new helicopter manager, Heath Hand; and a
• New Forest Supervisor, Mary Farnsworth, who was the Deputy Forest Supervisor on the
Deschutes NF in Region 6. Her primary background is Fire Management.
Retirements: Dave Lux, Sandpoint and Bonners Ferry FMO and Dan Myers, Bonners Ferry AFMO
are both done at the end of the year.
Northwest Montana – Rick Connell
• We hosted an Agency Administrator workshop in the spring. This was scenario based to
engage all administrators, and it was well received.
• Met with SW zone to support the IMT organization
• Fire Season started out slow
• Lots of folks deployed to the SW and South Eastern US
• Never did activate our MAC
Southwest Montana – Cobey Williamson
• We had a moderate fire season.
• We hosted the West Riverside fire, which also has a session of S-420 in the Field
incorporated into it; the Saddle Complex; and the 41 Complex
• There is a new Dispatch Center Manager at Missoula Dispatch, Tim Bradley, who replaced
Kit Kemsley when she transferred to Colorado.
Central Montana – Don Copple
• Slow season to start - sent resources to SW, Alaska and Georgia
• Season picked up and was fairly busy toward the end
• Hosted the Stewart fire
• The Beaverhead-Deerlodge FMO position is vacant
• Currently designing a website to help with communication for the zone.
South Central Montana – Craig Campbell
• Not much of a fire season & did not host any teams
• Hosted the Bull Fire.
• Had a prescribed burn in the fall that was about 3000 acres
• We were able to get people experience and out on fires despite the slow season
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Eastern Montana – Eric Lepisto
• Eastern Zone sent out quite a few resources in the early summer to Texas, Alaska, Florida,
Georgia, and Virginia,
• Mobilized the BLM Type 3 team on two fires, and had successful assignments for the team.
• Hosted Tom Heintz’s Type 2 team on the Diamond Complex – in total, about 52,715 acres
involving BLM, Forest Service, State and private ownership.
• Stan Benes’ Type 2 team went to the Southwest early in the summer and took an
assignment on the Northern Cheyenne (Black Springs) and a short assignment outside of
Billings for 3 assignments this year.
• The local MAC Group was activated. We were able to prioritize and make good decisions
on resource movements and assignments. One of the critical needs was heavy air tankers.
• Overall, we had a safe successful year and we made effective decisions.
• Some new names in FMO positions in the Eastern Zone:
o Eastern Montana-Dakotas BLM– Eric Lepisto
o Central Montana BLM FMO- Pat Harty
o Regional FMO BIA – Robert LaPlant
• Upcoming changes to the Eastern Zone of the NRCG will be selecting a new Chair. Jim
Strain’s two years are up. We thank him for all his hard work and effort in the Chair position.
North Dakota – Sarah Tunge for Maure Sand
• Below average fire season.
• No type 1 or type 2 fires.
• Most activity has been in the last two weeks due to more hunters causing fires
• Most employees and resources deployed to Texas and the SW - out of area activity.
• They produced a new DVD-Understanding Fire Safety- which was distributed to high
schools and middle schools that teaches about fire. She handed out copies.
Committee Reports
Business - Pam Okon DNRC for Notes
Winter work for the Business Committee includes:
• Incident procurement course
• Incident cost course
• Incident refresher course at incident management team meetings
• Agency leads will take over selections for buying teams - open to all contract specialist with
warrants
• Made assignments for Interagency Incident Business Management Handbook NR
geographic area supplements. Hope to have them completed and available in April
IC or Team session bring up not enough Finance Section Chiefs - need to get more people trained
Equipment – Jim Reuter
• Fall meeting held October 18th via video conference.
• HEQB (Heavy Equipment Boss) Course: 2 courses held this fall. There were 40 attendees at
the first course and 30 at the second. There was lots of interest in this course with folks from
Canada, Alaska, Texas, San Dimas and MTDC. First HEQB course held since the position
was converted from DOZB to HEQB.
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2012 Program of work:
o Develop some attributes for excavators and operators: There were some issues this
past fire season with hiring either equipment not designed for working on steeper
ground or operators that did not have the experience of working steeper ground. A
NRCG Fall 2011 Meeting Notes
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working group will develop some attributes prior to our spring meeting. Once
approved by the committee, Bill can present to the BOD.
There will be 2 Inspector workshops this spring. First workshop will be in Billings the
week of April 23rd and the second workshop will be in Missoula the week of April
30th.
Spring meeting scheduled for March 5th and 6th. Location TBD.
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Fire Program Analysis - Lori Clark
• Starting an Analysis for the 2012 budget cycle.
• Fire Planning Units (FPU) were not required to do any work in FPA during the FY11
process---because the FPA system was undergoing some changes (referred to as the
"improvement process"); however there is now a re-engagement process underway in order
to calibrate the FPU information for the 2012 analysis
• October 2011 - all Bureau Chiefs and the Chief of the FS signed an FPU Engagement plan
and timeline for the 2012 analysis, which spells out the expectations for the FPUs to
participate.
• Support Working Team (SWT) members are the only people with editor access to the FPA
system, and FPUs will only have viewer access, which makes it important for our people to
work with the SWTs.
• Coordination will be important, and is needed for the calibration exercise so that all agencies
are adequately represented
• There are deadlines for budget submission from the FPU/SWTs
• The FPA outputs are for preparedness funding only
Native American Crew - Robert LaPlant
• The number of crews we can make available continues to diminish.
• Self sufficiency issues have impacted the availability for Type 2 IA crews (credit cards,
vehicles, static crews instead of different crewmembers for each assignment, etc.)
• Kevin Weaver probably be the new chair of the committee
Operations - Greg Archie
• Recommend dropping the Fire Use Committee and incorporating the information into the
Operations Committee. The board agreed, so it will be done.
• During the Fall Operation Committee meeting, we reviewed the past fire season and
Lack of opportunities for the teams, but was time well spent talking about team success
• Wayne Williams spoke to the group about safety - mostly driving safety issues- good
refresher on work rest guidelines - need to ensure our people know the guidelines
• Lack of briefings on border issues particularly in the SW US & Mexico.
• Suggest that Mobe Centers, such as the one in Albuquerque would be a good place to have
SW Geographic Area specific issues such as fuel models, borders, etc.
o Gilman was assigned take this forward to see if it can be incorporated in the future.
• Team Meeting Dates - 13th and 14th March - 13th for Command and General staff - most
likely at the Missoula National Guard Armory. Some teams may have the full team attend
this.
• The NRCG board accepted the proposal to take on Brad McBratney’s team and host it in the
NR instead of the SW, where it had been previously hosted. Brad will apply to be the IC for
the team, but they want the option of using Roy Hall to supplement the team when Brad is
not available. The team members from the Southwest Area will now apply to the Northern
Rockies to be on it
• Action Item: The Ops Committee feels we need to have the wildland fire teams come up
with a white paper explaining the unique nature of their kind of team: what they do and what
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they don’t do. Brad McBratney, Diane Hutton and Jess Secrest were assigned to do this
and present it to the NRCG Board at the Spring Meeting.
In need of team chiefs - Finance, Logistics etc.
Team application process this year will be online. They will use the Lessons Learned
website to apply to any team for any position they are qualified for. It will be available in
December for the recruitment period through Jan 30, 2012. It can be found here:
http://imtcenter.net/main/default.aspx. The supervisor and the qualifications coordinator
(Training Officer) for each person will get a message that the employee has applied to be on
a team, and the supervisor and qualifications coordinator will respond to support the
application (or not).
Tim Murphy –
• NWCG does not require transportation for type 2 IA crews, but some geographic areas
request that crews come with their own transportation. School busses don’t work well for
Type 2 IA crews, and some crews don’t have other vehicles available.
• Type 2 IA contract crews must have their own transportation
• Talked to some vehicle contractors - not much interest in providing more vehicles due to
liability.
Prevention & Interface – Karly Krausz (via email)
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In April, we hosted the Northern Rockies/Great Basin Fire Education & Prevention
Conference in West Yellowstone. We had excellent participation from both the Northern
Rockies and Great Basin areas. We covered a variety of topics including: the Cost of Fire;
Social Aspects of Wildfire; Economic Benefits of Wildfire Prevention Education; Fire
Prevention 101; Fire & Aspen Ecology; After the Fire; Fire-adapted communities; various
wildfire school programs; earning bridges; Ready, Set, Go; Forest management; Grassland
WUI; Be ember prepared; Mountain pine beetle; Blackfeet Fire Carrier; and many more
topics.
Over the fire season, several counties in Montana entered into fire restrictions. I think the
process in the individual areas went well, but we did have some technology glitches with the
Fire Restrictions website. We will be discussing this issue tomorrow and working to fix the
issues.
Our meeting will be tomorrow and Thursday in Missoula at the MT DNRC.
Please feel free to direct questions to me. My office phone is 406-538-1086 and email
kkrausz@blm.gov.
Training - Karla Luttrell
• Paul Fieldhouse is our current Geographic Area Training Representative GATR), and he will
be retiring at the end of December. The other GATRs from around the country wanted the
NRCG to realize that the duties of the GATR should remain with one person instead of
having that be a responsibility that is put on a rotation basis with several people. They sent
a handout that Karla distributed, but it is not an issue in the Northern Rockies because the
NRTC Manager is the GATR.
• The Training Committee may change the way they allocate seats for classes. They want
names and career goals before nominating and assigning students to course slots - trying to
get the right people to the right courses.
• If Task Books expire - Certifying Officials have the flexibility to apply the experience from an
old task book to a new one.
• 310-1 revisions will now come out every October instead of June.
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Montana Disaster and Emergency Services Mobile Command Post - Mike Stapp,
Marshall Roth and Paul Grimstad
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Can be used for Command and Control, and has connectivity through the Department of
Defense’s Military Affiliated Radio Support (MARS)
MARS radio support -2 radios - 1 voice over radio and 1 video and pictures
Trying to get 32 radio technicians trained as Communications Unit Leader and
Communications Tech
All radios in truck are Bendix-Kings (BK)
Capability - 147k upgrades - 52 new BKs cache of radios, 20k Raytheon patch unit for all
communications,
Request to use it through DES
IT is set up for amateur HAMM radio operators
Technology is latest and greatest - Wi-Fi for use in the truck. There is a printer, a camera on
a 30 ft mast, and a 60” Smart Board,
The Mobile Command Post is large, and cannot be used in back woods on one lane roads.
Available for all to use
Will display it at the Ops meeting in February
Built to work with military so we can work with National Guard and have compatible features
with those military units such Air National Guard and Army National Guard
Command post could be used if your local units can not provide this capability.
Solar power
Wave software will be added in the future so we can control and program via
network/internet
Policies for use are being written for this vehicle any input is greatly appreciated
Can staff for 24 hours for up to 30 days.
Can handle up to 12 cell phones at a time.
6 computer workstations
End of year stats - Judy Heintz
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Judy shared an 11 page document with statistical use of resources this year and compared
to other years.
It’s an NRCC statistical document
We’re getting better at manifesting crews for statistics using ROSS
Resources were used in the Northern Rockies and outside of the geographic area
Yearly stats - current as of 11-7-2011, broken down by fire start, size
9500 requests processed by NRCC in 2011 compared to 27000 requests in 2007.
Fair Share of Cost - based on 10 year rolling average
National Cohesive Strategy Updates - Bill Avey
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Good Communication plan was created that had strict time frames.
There were travel cap issues and Time Constraints
Outreach and collaboration - got stakeholder ideas
CRAFT - Blog site with 24 questions didn’t work so well because as more entries were
made, they over-wrote earlier entries into the blog.
Collaboration was good - Northern Rockies was well represented
In this case, Webinars worked better for reaching folks than face to face meetings
Barriers : Need for better communication between agencies and between agencies and the
public
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Concerns about wildland-urban interface growth and fuels management
National Goals:
• Risk based fire management.
• Presented scenarios for implementation
1. Emphasize Landscape Resiliency
2. Emphasize Fuels Treatments to Create Fire-adapted Communities
3. Emphasize the Creation of Fire-adapted Communities through Collaboration and
Self-Sufficiency
4. Emphasize Effectiveness in Wildfire Response
Fuels Committee Proposal - Ken Schmid
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Draft Charter for Fuels Committee handed out at meeting for discussion
Ken looking for advice on how to get committee started
Federal members think it would be a great idea
This is out of Ted’s jurisdiction, but Ted thought this committee would be beneficial as far
fuels treatment go.
Ken- How do we establish this committee? - Bin item for 11-16-2011
December Conference Call- Cancel call on 12-20-2011 - resume in January.
Wednesday November 16, 2011
Incident Management Teams (IMT) Discussion
Stan Benes:
• Good Successes this past year
o Succession planning going well, getting people trained
o Equipment upgrades
• Future plan for Succession
o Get 2 people from each district from 13 Forests to IMT organizational support train
up
o Incentives should be for District and Forests to allow support for their people to
participate in IMTs
• Need to eventually stop relying on ADs
Diane Hutton:
• Used new technology - Google Earth
• Need new technology - Smart Phones on the line, maybe also used to brief and record
briefing
• Matt Jolly joined the team a couple times in 2011. Research is progressing, We need to get
this information out maybe with the help of the board
• Hutton had 2 qualified ICs and enough people to sustain the 30 day deployment for
Beaverhead Deerlodge NF Fire
Greg Poncin:
• Past season big success - finally got out after sitting for 2 years
• Mobilized to Wallow and sent to Monument fire. Support is critical to be successful,
Communication was down and had to wait for computer trailer but the assignment went well.
NRCG Fall 2011 Meeting Notes
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Not many incidents or accidents with just a few minor injuries
Success requires us to be responsive to the need of agencies and come prepared even if
we deploy short
Ability to deploy short and be successful is key to showing the agencies we are committed
to service
Success - got to play with new technology courtesy of the US Army Ft Huachuca
Challengeso Keeping a team together
o Need to plan backup – we need laptops and air cards to get communication up and
running quickly
o Politics when we get fire on the landscape, be aware of social networking and
internet such as Facebook and YouTube - public postings and Government postings
o Slow and clunky reporting in WFDSS
o Keep investing in local capacity to produce the WFDSS documents
Poncin’s whole team will need to reapply for FY 2012, please helps Greg recruit the best
Warn about Warm Body syndrome - we need to be at our very best and use best people.
Don’t just grab anybody to fill a position-make sure we strive for the very best team possible.
How do we or do we want to wrap the Wildland fire teams in to the rotation?
These teams take commitment and sacrifice on part of the agencies and the people on IMTs
AD issue - talked about for years, we will continue to have shortage positions
7 ICs across the nation leaving the service
Discussion:
• Warm Body Syndrome- bad idea to just plug people in to the team rosters just to fill a slot,
best if team members are familiar with one another.
• Why can’t you fill positions?
o Maybe guilty of just picking who you know and maybe we don’t have the time to train
new people and maybe new people will not be good enough to perform in team
environment.
o Teams can be intimidating. We need to get word out to people and do some
recruiting and also talk to supervisors about willingness to support the IMT
Organization
• Engage supervisors and also the employees
• People think teams are exclusive groups; we need to encourage and recruit people to apply
to the teams, and we need to also recruit from local agencies
• Northern Rockies teams- Teams continue to support initial attack efforts
• Successful numbers of trainees signed off on in 2011
• Encourage members to step up and apply for IC Positions
• Several successes in several zones
• Need to figure out complexity level and what resources are really needed to manage an
incident - can’t base management on costs or how to save costs
• Ops committee - feel strong about typing
• Shortage of LTANS and SOPALs
• Short season but thanks to the teams it went well
• ADs -When you get an AD, get a trainee.
o Time and technology is passing them (some ADs) by and they don’t say current
IC point of view, what is the biggest obstacle?
o When we try to recruit specific people, supervisors are not willing to cooperate
o Vacancies are related to day jobs and people want something different
o Work at day job won’t allow it because of the critical nature of the job
o Target employee group of ages 35 and below,
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Personal commitments won’t allow people to commit to the requirements of a team for a 3 year
commitment
Action Item: Send thank you letters from NRCG to the RF, State Director and Supervisors
Also send recruiting letters to RFs and State Directors: assigned to Bob Gilman.
o This will be discussed on the January conference call.
Maybe Northern Rockies could build a glide path - where do we want to be in 5 years?
Action Item for the Operations Committee and Bob Gilman:
A “Futuring” paper was created a few years ago. Gilman will dust it off and get working on it. Ted
Mead suggested Board involvement, and he volunteered to work with the Ops committee Board
Liaisons.
Contractor Summary - Tim Murphy
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Solicitation plan had 900 companies through various solicitations
All solicitations combined, we have more than enough equipment to support the Northern
Rockies during a fire season
• Instead of sending veteran owned business, under-represented groups or Historically
Underutilized Business (HUB Zones) to the top of list, looking at giving set asides of
5% or 10 % price reduction.
• Water Handlers - fire departments versus contracted resources continues to be a topic of
discussion
• New solicitation for Type 3 catering unit courtesy of the BLM
• Tim would like to see USFS 3 year Mobile laundry solicitation for 2012
• Contractors request changing priorities at dispatch - contractors feel competed resources
get dispatched first due to less cost for contracted services - Tim is looking at real
costs (from IDL) for contracted services versus local fire department costs.
Action Item Once the report is finalized (around January 2012), Gilman, Koppenol and Mead will make up a
subgroup of NRCG to look at Tim’s final analysis on Contractor versus Fire department and make
recommendations to the board for the January Conference Call.
Action Item: Type 2 IA crew transportation is still an issue - Tim suggests Type 2 IA crews come
with their own transportation. This will be taken forward to the NMAC/GMAC meeting.
National Issues: Incident Management Organization Succession Planning (IMOSP) Aitor Bidaburu
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Nov and Dec are agency briefing months so the agencies will be discussing the IMOSP
After the discussions, present the findings at the All Chairs meeting with NWCG in Boise
Cannot discuss details right now because the feedback process is not complete
Big part is how do we implement over the next 3-5 years
ICS standards need to be met :
FEMA is constructing baseline requirements. All participants will meet the baseline
requirements
NFPA is establishing a wildfire division. It would look at programs such as Firewise, ReadySet-Go, and Vegetation for Fire Adapted Communities, etc.
o The Operation Division would look at apparatus, personal protective equipment, etc.
NRCG Fall 2011 Meeting Notes
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Leslie Anderson of Missoula Technology and Development Center (MTDC) will be
the chair of the equipment committee.
All hazard IMTs Type 3- several hundred people are attending the national meeting in
December in California
o These teams are recognized nationally
Implementation 3-5 yrs will that drive any changes for the 2012 season?
Aitor - Continue business as usual operationally for now; IMOSP could take a while to
implement.
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NRCG representative going to - NMAC/GMAC Meeting in Boise during
December: Judy, Tim, Paul and Cory.
Judy Heintz: IMT Meetings
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Team Meetings in Missoula: March 13 and 14
o Judy is working the National Guard to come up with a no cost meeting location
NRCG Board Meeting o Wednesday March 14 - 1230 at DNRC Missoula - Ted Mead will host
Northern Rockies Operations Program of Work
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Bob Gilman is a BLM employee and his job is to work the NRCG Board.
His duties and responsibilities: originally setup to diversify the board, Bob’s direct
supervision comes from the board and he supervises Tim Murphy and the NRCC, with
shared supervision of cache and jumper program.
He represents all the agencies on the board.
Involved with most of the committees and other geographic area coordination.
Helps with incident prioritization, IT groups to support the teams.
Work issues from the group members.
Coordinates with NMAC via Aitor.
Attends meetings to be sure issues are addressed.
Ken will try to get input from board members for his review.
Possible Scenarios/Implications of Cost Savings/Efficiencies by Unit - Bill Avey
The Board decided that a small group should discuss some of the options listed on the handout that
Bill gave out, and come back with recommendations to the NRCG Board for the spring meeting.
Ken Schmid will coordinate with Patti to get this moving forward. March deadline.
Revised List of representatives:
USFS- Patti Koppenol – Leader
BLM- Ken Schmid - Leader
DNRC- John Monzie
IDLJim Newton (possibly someone else)
FWS- Jim Kelton
NPS- Tim Reid
BIA- Cory Winnie and Robert LaPlant
Ted suggested pay per tuition instead of cost share
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NRCG CACHE UPDATE - Patrick Nooney:
Please see Cache System document handed out in meeting
Also see Website: http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/fire/nrk/index.htm
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There have been several studies done to centralize the cache system
Seven components to the plan
Need to come up with a plan to marry up the components
Feedback period for is six week which is far too short
Plan is not final, yet making adjustments already
Numbers are not adding up
According to the plan it would take 129 years to recover costs
Plan contradicts final recommendations by the contractor
Plan is based on typing of caches and eliminates geographic boundaries
Plan is too ambiguous to make any recommendations
Proposal- Pat would like to represent the NRCG during national calls and to provide
feedback to National Cache Managers Meeting in December on plan proposal; Patrick
needs to have more time to formulate feedback. National Cache Managers meet in
December to implement plan of action. Bottom line we need more time.
•
•
Patrick will write up recommendations which will be sent to the board.
Suggestion - bring up at the NMAC meeting, and also brief Aitor on document. Done.
Agency Administrator Workshop – Cory Winnie
Do we need this meeting?
Ted Mead mentioned Rick Connell’s comment about the meetings the IMT organization had in
Kalispell in the spring 2011 where they discussed expectations for 2011 season. Need to get to
know our neighbors; this could be a good forum
Action Items: Bob Gilman and Kitty Ortman will write letters to zones chairs to encourage zones to
have their own agency administrator/zone meetings. The objectives are to get them thinking about
fire, know their own policy, get to know the partners/neighbors policies, and get to know their
neighbors. This will be discussed on the January Conference Call.
NMAC / GMAC December meeting input for Cory, Paul Grimstad, and Tim Murphy
•
Type 2 IA crews are currently not required to have own transportation. Do we need to
create a national standard for all crews, Agency and contractor crews alike, to have it? This
becomes an issue when a unit can’t get a Type 1 crew they will order a Type 2 IA crew.
•
Where are we at with billing between the Federal agencies and the States? Any updated
information?
•
Cache Study – Do we need to follow the recommendations? (Note: since the NRCG
meeting the implementation plan has been put on hold, so this may be a moot point.)
Individual overhead who are not sponsored by a federal or state agency do not have source
record of qualifications and certification, so they are not showing up in ROSS as available
when someone queries the database. This is applicable to retirees or other ADs that are not
currently working for an agency or sponsored by one. Is there are way around this for these
individuals?
•
NRCG Fall 2011 Meeting Notes
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Managing Fires for Resource Benefit (or the current terminology is for this is something like
“wildfire managed for multiple objectives”)—they are mentioned once on the national
situation report, and then they go off the radar. This is not indicative of the workload of a
geographic area or the resource needs by the incident. Can this be adjusted?
Transition from Cory Winnie to Paul Grimstad as Chair of the Board of Directors
•
•
•
Patti Koppenol will be the new vice-chair.
New positions take effect January 1.
Thanks, Cory, for your leadership the last years as the vice-chair and then as the chair.
BIN Items/Action Items summary
Road Grader Solicitation - No need for solicitation
Action Item: Operations Committee - Cory asked the group to review the revised Operations
Committee Charter and send comments to Kitty. This will be discussed in January.
Action Item: Fuels Committee - New Charter proposal - Ted will go back to the appropriate division
for the state of Montana and ask if they want to participate. Jim Newton suggested all members get
in touch with their fuels folks and ask for feedback. Get names to Ken and he will report back to
group in January.
Action Item: The Ops Committee feels we need to have the wildland fire teams come up with a
white paper explaining the unique nature of their kind of team: what they do and what they don’t do.
Brad McBratney, Diane Hutton and Jess Secrest were assigned to do this and present it to the
NRCG Board at the Spring Meeting.
Action Item: Send thank you letters from NRCG to the RF, State Director and Supervisors
Also send recruiting letters to RFs and State Directors: assigned to Bob Gilman.
Action Item Once the report is finalized (around January 2012), Gilman, Koppenol and Mead will make up a
subgroup of NRCG to look at Tim’s final analysis on Contractor versus Fire department and make
recommendations to the board for the January Conference Call.
Action Item: Type 2 IA crew transportation is still an issue - Tim suggests Type 2 IA crews come
with their own transportation. This will be taken forward to the NMAC/GMAC meeting.
Action Items: Bob Gilman and Kitty Ortman will write letters to zones chairs to encourage zones to
have their own agency administrator/zone meetings. The objectives are to get them thinking about
fire, know their own policy, get to know the partners/neighbors policies, and get to know their
neighbors. This will be discussed this on the January Conference Call.
The NRCG Board of Directions Spring Meeting will be March 14-15, 2012 beginning at 1230 at
Montana DNRC building, 2701 Spurgin Rd, Missoula MT 59804
December Conference Call canceled for 12-20-2011
Next Conference Call will be January 17 at 10:00 MST.
NRCG Fall 2011 Meeting Notes
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