NRCG Fall Meeting Notes
November 3-4, 2004
Missoula, MT
Present: Bryan Swift, Mike McMeekin, Beth Card, Brett Waters, Cindy Christopherson,
Kathy Elzig, Mike Plattes, Tom Corbin, Cory Winnie, Jim Kelton, Bob Rebarchik, Ted
Mead, Bret Ruby, Ken Stump, John Specht, Mark Romey, Phil Gill, Kevin Erickson, Dan
McGowan, Chris Accetturo, Brian Shiplett.
East MT Zone Update: Billings is becoming an initial attack dispatch center based on
readiness reviews. BIA will still go thru Billings for their support dispatch center.
Billings will no longer consolidate E MT orders; Lewistown and Miles City will go
directly to NRCC. BLM National Readiness Team felt there were too many dispatch
layers. Will remain the E MT zone and have 3 dispatch centers within the zone. Have
discussed how to put in a mob board and will have one board with reps from each of the
dispatch centers. Murphy is working on getting contractors to represent the private sector
on the board with one rep from each area.
DNRC is doing a boundary adjustment between Eastern and Northeastern Land Offices,
which will be finalized Jan 1, 2005.
N Idaho (Ken Stump): Average to below average season. Started out thinking they
would be burning, but ended up getting above average precip. Idaho Panhandle NF used
the IDL SEATS this year and that worked really well. GAC managed the IDL SEATS
for the FS and IDL at Grangeville. N Idaho IMTs had only one assignment to Alaska.
NMAC helicopter at GAC stayed busy. Deputy FMO on IPF vacant, both Aviation
Officers vacant for FS. Fire Staff on Clr/Nez is still vacant. New dispatch coordinator on
the Clr/Nez. A zone review was conducted and decided to keep zone in place and will
centralize dispatch. Will fill a 2nd Deputy FMO position to be located at Orofino. When
Ken retires his position at Grangeville will not be filled. IDL fire program review is due
out Dec. 1. North Idaho team meetings took place last week and felt they may not be
able to field 2 IMTs next year.
NW MT (Bob Rebarchik): A lot of transition of positions in the zone. Fire activity was
slow last season. Zone wanted to let NRCG know that interagency communication
regarding FPA has been sketchy and information transfer has been lacking. Charlie
Webster will be the new zone rep with Dan Cassidy as vice-chair. Flathead and Kootenai
Aviation Officers are also vacant. Aviation committee may need to provide more
oversight in the GAC next year with all these new Aviation Officers. Don’t seem to be
doing a good job of moving fire-funded people from one area to another during lower
prepraredness levels rather than hiring contractors. The NW zone feels this could be a
major cost-containment issue.
SW MT (Chris Accetturo): Bitterroot had 2 large fires with Type 2 teams assigned this
past summer. SW zone may have to combine Type 2 teams into one with retirements of
both ICs. Overall it was a pretty quiet summer. Jumpers had a below average year.
MIDC Center Manager position is open. The Lolo NF is reevaluating this p.d. as well as
the aviation organization. Fielding teams is their biggest issue.
Central MT (Bret Ruby): Greg Archie is new Fire Program Manager at Central Land
Office. Three-division concept seems to be working well for the first time this year.
Restrictions are the one weakness in the zone with the 3 divisions and all the counties.
Will be looking at division boundaries this winter. There seems to be some confusion as
to dispatch zone boundaries. Annual Operating Plans for Dillon and Helena were signed
late in the year. Great Falls may not be signed yet. This is a concern to the zone. Grants
and agreements people are trying to design a template for the same plan for each division.
Zone was very quiet last summer, with largest fire being 70 acres on the Helena NF.
Utilized 2 NMAC ships, SEATS, CL-215s and CWN ships last summer.
South Central MT (Brett Waters): Extensive training in the zone is being put together.
Have a pool of individuals for a Type III team in the zone. Have some local fire
departments that would like a mutual aid agreement with the Gallatin NF. Forced the
contractors in the zone to choose one rep to the mob board and it worked. There are lots
of vacancies coming up in the zone. Community protection plans are being worked on
and some are complete. Will put on zone engine academy again this year. The Great
Basin and NR Prevention workshop is in April 2005. Brett is the new chair for the South
Central Zone.
North Dakota (Beth Card): Mike Santucci is leaving Nov. 10 and that will be a huge loss
for the zone. The State Forester is still deciding what to do about the position. NRCG
may want to send a letter supporting filling the position. There was major political
activity going on in ND this year involving a variety of agencies and the public. ND had
a busy season this year and would like to thank everyone for their help. It was a very dry
season and surprising that there weren’t more fires or bigger fires. Brought
smokejumpers to ND for the first time this year. Lots of aviation use was another new
thing in ND this year. Have been trying to put together a Type III team in the zone and
utilized those people quite a bit this year. Coordination of restrictions went very well this
year. North Dakota dispatch center is moving to Bismarck hopefully by next winter.
NPS is filling a GS-12/13 FMO position.
NIMO: Met in Oct for the last time and put together the final proposal, which
recommends 7 full-time IMTs consisting of 7 command and general staff positions. The
report recommends looking at non-traditional resources to help fund and staff this
organization. Proposal will go to NWCG in Jan. for a decision.
Interagency Fire Program Qualifications:
Interior agencies will follow the rules as they are written.
What can NRCG do?
Increase number of required training courses
Bring to next meeting how your agency is standing with individuals qualifying under
these standards and what help you need from NRCG committees
Increase training budgets
Lobby against having these quals apply to the militia
Concern about interpretation between agencies or Fire and HR
Ask HR to help us go through employees’ qualification records
Committees are going to have to prioritize training candidates who need courses to
keep their jobs.
Need lists from agencies for people who need this training/quals to estimate impact
Find out what educational opportunities might be available
Utilize local gov’t incidents to get experience for IMT qualifications
Target individuals for shortage command and general staff positions
Identify trainees by priority at lower level positions
Ensure agency administrator involvement
FPA Update (Pat Mullaney/Don Black): The top 5 FPUs: Dillon, Great Falls,
Lewistown, N Idaho and SW Montana have received their training (all agencies).
National group has really been working with us to get our people in. There have been
some FPU boundary changes. All of Northern Idaho in Region 1 is going in as one FPU.
All managers will have to come together to do the weighting in the FPU. There is still
some discussion around GYA and Custer NF with Crazy Mountains. FY07 analysis for
priority FPUs has to be done by Feb 2005 and must be approved. The next round of
training for the other 10 FPUs will begin March 1. Everyone must have an analysis
completed for FY08. Geographic Area charters—have been working within each FPU to
get a charter done and signed by all the agencies in the FPU. Also need to put together a
charter for the geographic area. The line officers are signing the FPU charters and
agency administrators should sign the geographic area charter. Charters need to spell out
who does what in each FPU. NRCG will remind FPU leads that it is their responsibility
to disseminate information that comes from the geographic area to the other members of
their FPU.
Interagency Hazardous Fuels Mitigation Committee: The group seems to be moving
ahead well. Their charter states they will identify the WUI in MT and have GIS layers
and hope to have a report from the GIS group in January. NRCG may need to provide
some direction to the committee. Where can all this data be stored?
May be able to glean some ideas from the IDL website. Western MT is probably in
better shape than Eastern MT.
Cost Containment Report Response: Ted will work with Tracey to get this completed by
Dec. 1.
Items to take to the NMAC/GMAC meeting:
Field units felt additional helicopters and SEATS may have been more successful in
initial attack than heavy airtankers
Need to know sooner what resources units will have in order to get staffing on board.
Would like some sort of decision by Feb.
NR has 2 contracted heavy reload bases where contracts could be dropped if we don’t
have airtankers
Some teams are carrying and traveling with more than one qualified individual in
command and general staff positions
Business Committee (Cindy Christopherson):
Issues to look at—
EFFs going out of the GA and how to pay them
Moving beyond the inspector’s course to an advanced course
Contractors want multi-year agreements
Adjustment to agreements for fuel rates
Cost UL position—would like as standard member of teams
People who receive training but then aren’t allowed to go on fire
EERAs
Smokechasing
Prepositioning
Best-value contracting
Budget and Finance folks from the FS are being centralized
Planning a Finance/Logistics Workshop
Putting on IBA training
Hoping to have new Chapter 20 out by March 1
Operations Committee (Mark Romey):
Put out a draft charter and would like comments by Jan 30.
DECISION ITEMS: Type 2 IMT Core Season Recommendation
How many Teams in the NR?
Recruiting for teams
AD management
IHC topics
Equipment Committee (Kevin Erickson):
Plan to host 2 equipment inspector workshops this next year.
Will host another Big Iron Workshop in May 2005, would like agencies to help promote
the workshop to agency people
Will submit changes to Business Mgmt HB by Jan 14
What role will contractors play in the future in our workload analysis?
Training Committee (Neil Nelson):
Need standards for training for crash/rescue equipment for aviation operations. Is the
aviation committee working on this? Try to find out what is happening nationally on this
issue.
IQCS is in progress but the migration from FS redcard system is not going well. SACS
migrated over nicely.
MIFF Committee (Dale Glenmore): Still in process of developing a GA Operating Plan.
Name of committee needs to change to Native American Crew Committee. Hoping to
get review done by Dakotas and the Nez Perce by Jan. Still working on establishing
Type 2 IA crews. Will develop tool to educate on Native American uses of cedar and
sweetgrass. BIA National office stated only required courses can be delivered to AD
EFF crews, i.e. cannot deliver saw course unless it is a Type 2 IA crew. Would like
NRCG to help with guidance or assistance on this issue. BIA chainsaw certification
process will not accept FS standards and certification. Need help and direction on this
issue also.
NIMS (Dan McGowan): A teamwork approach between state, local, tribal and federal.
Components are preparedness, training, incident management and resources. Homeland
Security requires compliance by 2007. State is responsible for ensuring local and tribal
governments are in compliance. Send Dan your concerns and comments regarding
NIMS.
Type 2 Team Situation: 10-year average use of teams for all teams—there were 337
assignments, which equals 33 assignments per year. North Idaho is planning to have
everyone reapply for their teams this year whether they are on a team or not in order to
see the entire candidate pool. If we do this in the entire GA we may be able to field all of
our teams by sharing across the zones.
Ground Safety (Paul Chamberlain):
Did a couple of investigations this summer including the Knuckle Fire that was a
deployment. Hope to use this as a training tool in the future.
Northern Rockies Strategic Plan for the Private Fire Service (Tim Murphy):
NRCG Strategic Action committee will be made up of reps from Equipment, Training,
Ops, and Business Committees and Dispatch. Attended a meeting in the PNW with
national representation. Neal Hitchcock stated the national model would probably follow
PNW and NR. Tim is asking for endorsement for this committee to develop the strategic
plan and work on 10 task orders that have been identified. It is important to start using
performance ratings this summer so we have some sort of past performance to use when
letting the best value contracts. Need to put a process in place to get these. Home unit
needs to get performance evaluations to the contracting officers. Tim will flesh out the
process for getting them done and getting them where they need to go. NRCG needs to
know if there will be costs associated with this group—APPROVED
Public Information Policy or Open Meeting Law: MT law states a meeting can only be
closed if litigation or personnel issues are involved. DNRC attorneys will talk with
Forest Service Attorney to get a federal opinion. Must post meeting announcement and
agenda and must have a public input period.
Contractor Issues: When a contractor has ICS quals they feel some people are being
discriminated against. Some are carded and assigned to incidents while others cannot get
carded or assigned. Forest Service is working on an AD policy about this issue. We will
wait and see what comes out of NMAC.
Draft of Training MOU Certification, Re-certification and De-certification: Needs to be
distributed within agencies and give comments to Tim by Dec. 1.
Type I Teams:
Mike will ask for an indication of the known vacancies on command and general staff.
John will talk with the zones about having the zones require applications for all positions
for the Type 2 teams.
Bob Sandman will take over as a Type I IC for the Northern Rockies and we will recruit
for a team for Bob. We will offer Jim Gray the Deputy IC position. We will recruit for 2
Type I teams and 6 Type 2 teams. Tom and Ted will relay the Board’s expectations to
Bob.
Board members need to go to their agency administrators to get them to stress the
importance of making individuals available to apply for IMTs. After we receive all the
team applications we will revisit the priority for number of teams at what levels and set
priorities if needed. Feb. 1-2 at Valu Inn in Missoula team selection meeting will take
place. Application deadline for teams is Dec. 15.
Northern Rockies Board of Directors expresses great appreciation to Steve Frye for his
years of service as a Type I IC.
AFD Operating Plan: Have not gotten resolution about what we will do with the FBAN
position we agreed to hire to fill out our Predictive Services Unit. We need an agency to
sponsor the FTE. BIA will pursue the FTE to fill the position. NPS will ask the question
as well. BLM will try for an FTE also.
Jim Kelton will extend as chair through 2005. Tom Maloney will serve as vice-chair.
Tracey will mail charter to BOD members for review and revision.
Trainees from non-wildland agencies: Okay to continue to send county employees as
trainees on our IMTs. NRCG encourages this.
Type 2 IMT Core Season – May 1-October 15. Will let it be known that this is the core
season for NR Type 2 teams.
NRCG approves a dispatcher/coordinator as a technical specialist on each of the NRCG
committees.
MT Protection Exchange: Should we put together a meeting for the line officers to
revisit the exchange and educate them on how’s it done and why? Board members
should take this to their agency administrators and we will decide on the December or
January call if there is the interest. Get Brett to invite some E MT Firewardens.
NRCG Spring meeting will be held March 14-17 in conjunction with the IMT meetings.
Will allow BOD to spend more time with the IMTs.
Conference call Dec. 21 at 1000 mst.