Northern Rockies Coordinating Group
Spring Meeting
March 18-20, 2008
Coeur d’Alene, ID
Present: David Geyer, Biddy Simet, Cory Winnie, Dave Soleim, Dan Cassidy, Bob
Gilman, Ted Mead, Rick Seidlitz, Phil Gill, Brian Shiplett, Dan Ryan, Rita Chandler,
Eric Lepisto, Tom Corbin, George Weldon, Len Dems, Jim Kelton, Jim Reuter, Chuck
Stanich, Marianne Baumberger, Kitty Ortman, Nancy Gibson, Scott Waldron, Tracey
Nimlos.
Zone Reports:
N Idaho—struggling with staffing.
NW MT—next meeting is scheduled for March 25. Still have questions regarding the
zone MAC strategy. The NW zone is an FPA prototype FMU and they are in need of a
lead for the zone. They are in the process of trying to bring on a contractor out of Boise.
Charlie Webster is taking a leave of absence this summer. Dan Rose will be filling in
behind Charlie. Trying to do a review of the Kootenai Dispatch Center. There is concern
in the Rainy Creek area where there used to be asbestos mining. The suppression plan
for that area requires heavy aviation assets because of safety concerns.
Allen Chrisman is retiring and Craig Glazier will be filling in behind him on a detail.
The Flathead also plans to fill an assistant FMO position. Will be completing a review of
the Kalispell Dispatch Center. The FS, DNRC and 911 Dispatch center will be colocated this summer.
DNRC will be adding 5 engine crews in the NW land office.
Glacier NP is working to fill their fire ops positions. Blackfeet Agency has contracted
their fire program from the BIA.
SW MT—Board met Feb. 26, with 2 new board members, Mike Kopitzke and Bob
McCrea. Working on trying to pull together some zone efficiencies including pre-season
EERAs and streamlining business practices. The agencies within the zone met to develop
a template for interagency delegations of authority. The dispatchers had the opportunity
to meet with the radio liaison from Boise and expressed concerns for radio support for
Type 3 and long duration incidents. Boise has some requirements for accountability and
that will be passed on at the IMT meetings.
Central MT—staffing will be about the same as last year. The FAO on the Helena is in
selection process. A national Type 1 helicopter will be hosted in Helena again. The zone
MAC chair, Nancy Hall is pulling together a meeting with zone agency administrators.
South Central MT—hosting their spring engine academy again this year. Doing some
Type 3 logistics training this year.
Eastern MT—zone met in Feb with agency administrators and fire managers. They
produced an Eastern Zone Board Charter. They assigned a chair from the fire chiefs and
fire wardens associations. BLM SEAT capability this year is up in the air.
ND—a ND State and FS review was conducted from the FS Region. Have had a
dramatic increase in the number of volunteer fire departments asking for wildland fire
training. A prevention study has shown that 80% of the ND fires are started by farmers
and ranchers. Working with ND FFA program to put on prevention training. Fire season
has started in ND and have already had 4 large fires, with the largest being 2000 acres.
ND is working on a Great Plains contract with SD, WY, CO, KS, MN. Will be having
their first engine academy in April.
Ted has a DVD available for ranchers, farmers and local fire departments on fire
education, safety, ICS, communications, etc. in eastern MT and western ND.
Zone MAC Strategy—this strategy was sent out last fall asking each zone for their
capability to prioritize fires and allocate resources within their zone. We have permission
to use the software that the NR MAC tested last summer. We will ask some of the zones
to test the concept in fire season 2008. The zone would need to pick a dispatch center
where the electronic program is located. Tom Corbin will follow up with Colleen
Finneman regarding distribution of the software, training and information to the zones.
The software is Decision Criterion Plus and a training version can be downloaded from
the internet. NRCG will schedule a meeting to review and improve the decision criteria
and weighting. ACTION ITEM
NRCG will prepare a response to the questions posed by the NW MT zone in their
response to the zone strategy. ACTION ITEM
Do MAC members need a delegation of authority? Yes
How are decisions made if the group can’t reach consensus? Up to the zone
Does zone MAC have authority to move a resource assigned to an incident? That
should be in your delegation.
When a resource is released from an incident in the zone, will it be the zone’s
resource to reallocate? If it is released into the dispatch system the zone loses it.
Don’t release if there’s a need, reassign.
We will have the zones complete the prioritization worksheets, but the IC calls will still
be done at the Geographic Area Level.
Committee Reports:
Prevention—The NR/GB Prevention workshop will be held in Jackson Hole, May 5-8.
They are trying to decide about hosting a national prevention workshop next year.
Northern Rockies will be up to send out Prevention Teams 3 times this fire season and
our team leader is almost fully qualified. Keep Montana Green and the Ad Council have
produced a prevention poster for us. FireSafe MT is up and running with new board
members. A new P-101 class has been developed and we are hoping to bring it to the
Northern Rockies. A new website for restrictions is being developed and updates will be
able to occur at the zone level. There’s a possibility this could become a national
product. There is a training session in Missoula April 29-30 for working with the new
restrictions website. The committee is also working on better defining some of the
restrictions guidelines.
Equipment—inspection workshops will be held in Missoula and Billings this spring.
Filled some vacancies on the committees at the fall meeting. A new performance rating
form for contractors will be used this year.
Business—the Interagency Business Management Handbook supplements are almost
ready to go. Business committee meeting notes and business committee updates were
handed out. An issue paper was submitted regarding agency provided medical care.
There have been substantial changes regarding this in the NWCG IIBMH, section 15 of
Chapter 20. The committee is also putting out cost share methodologies.
The Business Committee needs people to work on standard rates for 2009. They have
asked for help from the other committees.
Idaho Dept. Lands would like the Chapter 20 supplements to say that Best Value
Contracting is optional for use on fires where IDL provides protection. Ken from IDL
will get the language to Jane Haker.
Training—310-1 is being revised and should be out the end of May along with the new
position task books. Forest Service is requiring IS-700 training for all redcard holders.
Handed out the draft schedule for the 2008/2009 training season.
S-420 in the field: NRCG will need to make a decision on the cadre overtime funding for
this course.
Aviation—the Forest Service has restrictions on the use of retardant on National Forest
lands in critical habitat for 67 wildlife and fish species due to a lawsuit.
Native American Crew—will be updating the NAC plan in about a month, but are not
anticipating any major changes. The number of NAC crews this year should be about the
same as last year.
Operations—meeting in Feb spent a good portion of time staffing the IMTs. We will
have fully staffed 2 Type 1, 5 Type 2, 1 FUMT and one Type 3 IMT (available in NR
only). We need to do a better job of tracking IMT assignments to ensure their
assignments are equitable as far as the number of days assigned. Would like to invite the
MT CAT team and the N ID Type 3 teams to our IMT meetings this year. ICs feel there
is no recognition and no reward for participating on IMTs.
Focused attention on the resource shortage areas. The Ops committee would like to make
another run to the IOS Working Team to drop the requirement for a Planning and Finance
Section Chiefs to have two unit leader qualifications. Operations and Business
committees will explore the possibility of centralizing Finance between IMTs.
The Ops committees also prioritized S-520 candidates for 2009.
AMR Communication Plan—George handed out a draft for agencies to take back. A
focus on roles, responsibilities, strategic direction of the agency and what makes sense on
the incident was well received by some groups. Comments need to be returned to Tracey
before April 11.
Contractor Meeting with MT Fire Subcommittee—MT Legislature assigned an interim
subcommittee in fire suppression in MT. The committee has held a series of meetings
with the latest focused on contractors and it was well attended by the contracting
community. The contractors voiced concerns regarding repetitive inspections and delays
caused by numerous inspections. The committee asked DNRC and NRCG if there are
any solutions to this. Ted will draft a response to the committee concerning the
inspection process. ACTION ITEM Another concern they had was with out of area
resources kept on the Jocko Lakes Fire longer than local resources. There is also an issue
regarding workers comp and some contractors not following all the rules. IMTs may see
inspectors from the State Workers Comp Office visiting incidents to check contractors.
There was some discussion about having a contractor’s rep to the NRCG Board. We
visited this issue numerous times in the past. There is opportunity for contractors to
participate with the NRCG committees.
This spring, the committee will be conducting field trips to several communities in MT.
They also may be visiting a couple of incidents and dispatch centers this summer.
Structure Protection Guidelines—discussion regarding including the 1999 guidelines in
the 2008 guidelines. The NRCG Structure Protection committee presented their version
of structure protection guidelines. Also introduced is the 5 State Foresters version of
structure protection guidelines. The main issues are consistency and capability. We need
a more realistic outline of expectations. We need to acknowledge the issue of the
growing WUI and our incapability of protecting those homes. We need to outline our
capabilities. We need to have some guidelines out by the IMT meetings and the Agency
Administrator Workshop.
The MT FireSafe Council can help with public education. In MT the legislature is
working on zoning and fire codes.
Critical Incident Stress Management Teams—training is May 20-22 in Missoula. We
only have 10 team members and the teams were utilized 7 times last year. Please
encourage anyone interested to attend the training. Dispatch of these teams will be
outlined in the NR Mob Guide this year.
Agency Administrator’s Workshop—April 10-11 at Fairmont Hot Springs, MT. Draft
agenda was handed out.
Long Term Implementation Plan Workshops—these workshops are for individuals who
will be building or implementing plans. There will be workshops held in Salt Lake City
April 30 – May 1 and Missoula May 6-7.
Fire Planning Analysis (FPA)—Jesse Duhnkrack presented an overview of where we are
currently with FPA (attached). The NRCG FPA task group submitted their charter and
operating plan for approval. They will be hosting a 2-day workshop in Bozeman May 15
and 16.
Aquatic Nuisance Species—Matt Fairchild, Fisheries Biologist from the Idaho Panhandle
National Forest made a presentation with a recommendation to seriously consider the
guidance adopted in the Great Basin regarding containment and spread prevention of
aquatic nuisance species.
The group continued work on the NRCG Structure Protection Guidelines.
EXECUTIVE SESSION
S-420 Instructor Overtime Costs
We will push this up to the national level for determination of whether we can charge
instructors’ overtime to the fire code. We want to charge this to the fire. If that is not
possible, we will go with Option #2, each cadre member’s employing agency pays
overtime for the cadre employee. We need to make sure the local agency administrator
and the IMT are comfortable hosting the training.
Annual Safety Refresher
The requirement in 310-1 and 5109.17 is what we will follow, in other words it is not
required for every single person that goes to camp.
Aquatic Invasives Policy Proposal
We need to talk to the Caches about this proposal; all agencies generally support it. We
will have the equipment, operations and aviation committees review the guidelines
presented to determine the feasibility of adopting them. ACTION ITEM We also need
training and education for cleaning equipment in the field. The committee reviews needs
to be completed by our May call.
Governor’s and Congressional Briefings
The MT Governor and all states congressional briefings will be invited to an NRCG
briefing to include: a seasonal outlook, structure protection. This will take place the first
week of June in Missoula. Ted will coordinate. ACTION ITEM
NR Buying Teams
Phil (BLM) will check with Mary Clark. Tom will check with Jay Windy Boy.
Fuel Tenders accepting credit cards
We want to pilot this for 2008.
APMC Issue
NRCG concurs with Option C and asks the Business Committee to ensure this task is
completed. ACTION ITEM
Interagency Billing Audit Procedures
The Business Committee is currently working on these guidelines. There are concerns
from some agencies that the requirements are too high and there are concerns from the
state agencies that required information cannot be provided.
Decision Support Criteria
We need to rework this document. Submit comments to Tracey by April 18. Tracey will
send the document out to everyone first.
Structure Protection Guidelines
We will take the NRCG Guidelines to the State Foresters and Agency Administrators for
adoption. NRCG members will send the document to their counterparts in the Great
Basin.
We will develop talking points to support these guidelines and update the responsibilities
matrix that we used last year. State Foresters and Regional Foresters talked of sending a
letter to private landowners letting people know what to expect. Talk to your agency
administrators about sending that letter.
Get comments back to Bob on the NR Strategic Operating Plan by the end of March.
Also submit any comments on the NRCG AMR Strategy.
AD/EFF guidelines—the letter is being updated. Do we want it to come out from the
agency administrators?
Next meeting is Nov. 18-20 in Bismarck.