NRCG Fall Meeting Notes
Nov. 5-7, 2007
Present: Mike McMeekin, David Geyer, Beth Card, Oscar Knudtsen, Jim Reuter, Dave
Solem, Dan Cassidy, Chuck Stanich, Phil Gill, Kathy Elzig, Dave Overcast, Nancy
Gibson, Rita Chandler, Mike Gagen, Pat Garbutt, Tom Corbin, Doug Martin, Ted Mead,
Bob Lippincott, Jim Kelton, Brian Shiplett, Cory Winnie, Jamie Kirby, Pam Okon, Len
Dems, Tracey Nimlos.
Long Term Implementation Plan Workshops:
Pat Garbutt—working on a PowerPoint on Long Term Implementation Plans for use by
NRCG members as well as an 8-hour workshop. Pat outlined the course objectives,
target audience, and key points of the workshop. Feb. 20-21 is planned for a large
workshop and then a cadre will be developed to take the workshop to smaller audiences
at the zone level.
The Operations Committee came up with some recommendations for Long Term Plans
and the workshop:
• If a long term assessment has been built, and an IMT is later assigned the IMT
needs to be involved in a revalidation of the long term assessment.
• MAPs need to be specific to the assignment, not the 209. We will talk about the
impact, not the point.
• Need to be called Long Term Assessments
• NR MAC set priorities by fire, not by MAP. The IMTs deal with MAPs, not the
MAC
• Education needs to include the MAPs are not necessarily in stone, use common
sense. Management Action Point is not a good name; maybe call them
Management Evaluation Points.
• IMT spring meeting includes a topic on the use of MAPs and long term
assessments.
• Less effort needs to go into resource needs for each MAP.
• Same LTP team needs to be involved in revalidation as in development.
• Involve ICs in the Long Term Workshop development
• Involve Type 1 and Type 2 IMT members with the Fire Use teams so they can
learn to develop Stage 3 and long term plans.
• If getting more acres treated is an objective, then that needs to be put on the table
up front.
NRCG will discuss and return recommendations to Pat. Agencies need to give names to
Pat of people who would be available to help develop the workshop and serve as
instructors. Send names to Tracey. Members need to get names of instructors to Pat by
Dec. 15 (pgarbutt@fs.fed.us).
Zone Reports:
ND (Oscar Knudtsen)—ND’s fire season got going late in the year in 2007. Oscar gave a
synopsis of resources used, severity and interagency cooperation. The tribes saw a large
increase in the number of fire starts and size of fires. Issues included conflicts with fire
restrictions.
NW MT (Dan Cassidy)—Dave Solem is the vice-chair for NW MT zone and will take
over as chair in 2009. Pretty busy season in the NW. Initial attack was very successful
with good interagency cooperation. Entered into a severity action plan with the
traditional partners and Flathead County fire departments. The plan was updated on a
daily basis for response actions. Used a Canadian airtanker on one of their fires and are
trying to work on some sort of border agreement with Alberta.
Eastern MT (Dave Overcast)—2007 was an average season. Completed an AAR in
each division and brought it together for the zone. Safety record was excellent.
Highlights included flying in command and general staff for an out of area IMT was
successful, need to continue to educate users on BVC and limitations of users, press
releases for BVC would be helpful, rehab and inability to use EERAs (need to be
proactive in contracting for rehab), some would like to be able to staff tactical water
tender with only one operator, payment tickets from other geographic areas were
confusing, need for engines to be self-sufficient for 3 days, consistency for duty officers,
mop-up standards, attempt to detail FMOs into Dispatch, and continue to find ways to
engage local landowners.
Central MT (Rita Chandler)—zone completed new charter which describes how they
will operate with their 3 divisions. The zone implemented several long term plans last
fire season. Restrictions coordination worked well going in, but not as smooth coming
out.
South Central MT (Mike Gagen)—Joe Krish is the new zone chair. The zone
experienced an average season in 2007 even though they were expecting more due to an
early snow melt. The first large fire, Madison Arm, experienced an entrapment, but the
rest of the season the safety record was really good. A temporary SEAT base was
activated at Big Timber. All agencies had really good interagency cooperation,
especially when evacuations occurred. Utilized the zone Type 3 organization on the
Wicked Creek Fire. The zone is trying to figure out how to put on some local logistics
and finance training. Fire restrictions worked well. The zone experienced a higher than
usual number of human caused fires. They will be working on the zone operating plan
this winter.
Southwest MT (Nancy Gibson)—managed 12 incidents with Type 3 organizations. The
zone MAC developed a new conference call format which helped with organization.
They will have a zone meeting in Dec. to revise the charter. The zone hosted an area
command team last summer which helped manage all the incidents in the zone. A
Prevention Team was utilized and they were very busy and very active. The zone utilized
the National Guard for security around camps and for road closures. Implemented a large
equipment inspection site in Missoula which inspected over 1000 pieces of equipment
going to and from incidents. Challenges included finding people for Type 3
organizations especially for Planning functions, communications (especially for Type 3
incidents which national cache will not support), differences between agency finance and
procurement procedures, demob of best value resources and understanding of IMTs,
contract administration, transportation (especially rental vehicles).
North Idaho (Bob Lippincott)—2007 was a very active year with 2 million acres burned
in the state starting in late June through mid-September. There will be a meeting next
week on management of the Hells Canyon NRA between the Nez Perce Forest and the
Wallowa-Whitman Forest. Good safety year other than an incident which resulted in
radiant burns to 3 hotshot crew members. Just completed an interagency AAR which
identified some local and national issues. The zone is formalizing an additional Type 3
team that was utilized in 2007 and will be available again for 2008.
Zone MAC Strategy:
The draft strategy was distributed (attached). This strategy has flexibility as far as the
number of zones that feel they could implement next year. We could implement with
some of the zones and not others. Some zones have already implemented this strategy to
some extent. Zones need to take this back to their boards and respond to NRCG as to
their capability to implement this strategy.
Best Value Contracting Season Summary:
Tim Murphy provided a handout with an update and statistics from the 2007 season. An
issue has come up that USDA Office of General Counsel in the Washington Office does
not believe outsourcing inspections in a legal process. The Forest Service region is trying
to fight this. Tim also passed out minutes from 2 Contractor Association AARs. A big
issue is we only have one contracting officer for water handling equipment and only 2
CORs. Tim would like endorsement of the updated NR Solicitation Plan for Competitive
EERAs—APPROVED. The SAC will try to come up with a number of people we need
for contract administration.
An idea to keep out of area IMTs from bringing in out of area contract resources is to
take our NR Demob Guidelines to the agency administrator hosting the IMT and make
sure they enforce those guidelines with the IMT.
Committee Reports:
Training (Beth Card)—updated operations guide at last meeting. Martha Smith is
interested in putting on a liaison officer course. The training and ops committees support
this and they will work with NRTC to move forward. Paul Fieldhouse brought forth the
idea of full time training officers in each zone. If you have opinions please get them to
Paul. A line safety officer course was discussed and is supported by the Ops committee.
The class would be geared toward line safety and Type 3 safety officers. Paul Fieldhouse
is also working on re-working S-339 to make it more interactive. This was also approved
by training and ops committees. A proposal was brought forward to make trainee
assignments a priority over assignments you are already qualified for, especially in
shortage categories. The training committee will work on a paper for NRCG to get out
on this topic.
Field S-420 course was brought forward by the training committee and is supported by
the Ops committee. The course is presented on an incident with classroom training in the
morning and simulations with the IMT in the afternoons. Paul is working on adapting
this course from the Pacific NW GA which has been putting this on for several years.
You do not need a full team of students in every position, and you can send more than
one student in any individual position.
Fire Use (Dave Solem)—A subgroup of the committee is working on a response to the
MT DEQ smoke checklist. The Fire Use Workshop hosted last year was very successful,
but it has been decided not to hold that workshop next spring because the long term plan
workshops will be held. They are asking that 2007 Stage I analyses that ended up being
suppressed be sent to NRCC. Still working on national recognition for the Northern
Rockies version of S-580. We need to submit another request to the national level for
determination.
Equipment (Jim Reuter)—the committee coordinated an equipment inspection workshop
this spring and about 70 people attended. Their fall meeting is scheduled for Belgrade in
early Dec. They will work on filling holes on the committee and setting up inspection
workshops for next spring. The committee will be working on the issues brought up at
the contractor AARs that happened this fall.
Operations (Bob Lippincott)—Chuck Stanich will be taking over as the chair in 2008.
The Ops committee and ICs did an AAR of the 2007 fire season, did a review and
selection of the candidates for 2008 S-420 course, updated their IMT futuring
recommendations and IMT configuration report, and responded to recommendations for
LTIP, AMR, and Closeout Template.
The IMT Working Group presented an updated white paper on recommendations for the
future of Northern Rockies IMTs. A suggestion was made that at the spring IMT
meetings each functional area would sit down and make a list of up and coming people in
the area that could be mentored into IMT positions.
The Ops committee recommends that we do not have co-ICs again in the future. They
also recommend doing away with short team and long team configurations and let
negotiations take place between the IC and the agency administrator.
Joint Fire Science Project proposal was brought forward by Anne Black from the Rocky
Mountain Research Station and is supported by the Operations committee with a
recommendation for NRCG to support the proposal. A suggestion was made that the
study group attend the spring IMT meetings. The NRCG will submit a letter of support
for this project proposal.
Chuck Stanich announced he will be stepping down as a Type 1 IC. NRCG Ops
committee will collect applications for IC positions and make selections prior to the IMT
nomination process.
Ops Committee provided a list of recommendations outlined in the attached report.
Prevention and Education (Jamie Kirby)—a successful prevention conference was held
in Coeur d’Alene last spring and the next conference will be held May 5-7, 2008, in
Jackson Hole. The NR is considering holding a national conference in 2009.
Restrictions went pretty well this year. There will be a couple of small changes for next
year to address some of the issues that came up this year. The restrictions coordinators
met and made some recommendations to the Prevention committee. The committee is
working on a guidance document for exemptions. There was a lot of discussion on
enforcement this past summer and the committee will discuss that at their meeting next
week. Fire Safe MT is planning a conference in Bozeman in Feb.
Business (Pam Okon)—passed out the 2008 plan of work. The committee hopes to get
the handbook supplements out earlier next year. Working on briefing packets for out of
area IMTs, cost-share methodologies.
Native American Crew (Tom Corbin)—met this winter and will begin updating the
operating plan for 2008.
Aviation (Eddie Morris)—passed out the notes from their meeting and the response to
the tasks assigned by NRCG.
DNRC would like a program review of their aviation program. The committee is
targeting Jan or Feb to complete this review.
There is a concern that we transferred risk from ground resources to air resources and did
not provide any backup on the ground.
Cost Share Agreements:
A group is working on a different methodology for sharing costs other than the
conventional acre split. They developed various options including miles of line
constructed factoring in difficulty of the type of construction, acres burned, miles of
perimeter, and resources assigned. The paper also will look at flexibility for the local
agency administrators to negotiate options at the local level. The current language in our
statewide agreement is probably outdated. All our line officers need to be hearing the
same message regarding cost share agreements. It is recommended we have these
discussions prior to fire season. We are also still struggling with payments being made
between agencies. The Idaho agreement has specific dates identified for when bills must
be completed. These dates are not being met by the federal cooperators. Maybe the
agreements need to be reviewed and revised. This issue needs to be pushed up to the
agency administrators at the geographic area level.
AMR and Impact on Local Gov’t:
The long duration events we had this summer impacted local state agency offices and
local fire chiefs because of the lack of staff to attend planning meetings week after week.
One solution may be more reliance on our team liaisons. We also need to look at getting
help from other parts of the state or country.
MT Legislative Subcommittee:
A special interim committee was appointed to look at fire suppression in MT. They are
looking at a broad scope of wildland fire suppression, with most of their energy spent on
DNRC and how they interact with their partners. They have 5 public meetings set up and
will also be talking with a lot of fire managers in state, local and federal gov’t.
EXECUTIVE SESSION
Tracey will compile all the agencies’ severity expenditures from 2007 and provide a
summary to the board.
The list of winter work items from the NRCG AAR was reviewed and progress reported.
Fire 101 for the Fire Legislative Committee is Nov. 26 in Helena—Ted is asking for help
from the NRCG with this presentation. A brief overview of each agency’s organization
and role should be given. Ted will send us the list of meetings they have planned.
We need to give feedback to other geographic areas regarding the performance of their
IMTs, both positive and negative.
FPA Task Group—Ken Schmid (BLM), John Barbarinos (BIA), Jesse Duhnkrack (NPS),
Rich Sterry (FWS), Lori Clark (USFS), Will Wood (DNRC) and Don Wagner (IDL) are
the task group. They will need to elect a new chair since Lori will be stepping down.
Ordering Short Team vs. Long Team:
This is the agency administrators’ discretion and discussion needs to occur between the
AA and the IC. IMTs need to be available to mobilize in a short team configuration.
IMT Computer Issue:
We will get Steve Simon on a conference call to discuss computer support for our IMTs.
AFD Cost Share Agreement:
The 2008 funds exchange and agreement was agreed upon.
Incident Billing:
NRCG would like the Business Committee to come up with a standard for documentation
needed for billing between state and federal agencies for incident billing. Ted will talk
with the Business Committee Chair regarding this assignment. We need a list of
minimum documentation required to reconcile bills. It is very important for IDL to have
an estimate of their bill by the end of November each year.
Proposal for Fuels Mitigation Group:
A proposal was made for an NRCG committee to prioritize and coordinate fuels,
NFPORS, National Fire Plan, etc. This falls somewhat in line with the MT Fuels
Mitigation Committee. Coordination and prioritization of fuels treatments and
coordination of resource sharing is the main priority NRCG is interested in. Idaho has an
excellent model for this with the Idaho Fire Plan Working Group. Karen Michaud from
the BLM will take the lead on this and work with the committee that has existed in the
past.
IDL Employees Attending NRTC:
IDL employees will be treated as in GA students whether they reside in northern or
southern Idaho.
David Geyer, North Dakota Forest Service, will become NRCG Chair in 2008 and Len
Dems, National Park Service, will be vice-Chair. Spring meeting is March 18-20, 2008,
in Coeur d’Alene.