NRCG Fall Meeting Notes
Oct. 22-23, 2004
Missoula, MT
Present: Rick Grady, Joe Wulfekuhl, Tom Corbin, Brett Waters, Tom Brandsen, Mike
McMeekin, Jim Roessler, Sandy Evenson, Chris Shelton, Bret Ruby, Mark Stanley, Bill
Breedlove, Mike Plattes, Rodd Richardson, Tim Murphy, Howard Carlson, Lee Clark,
Mike Santucci, John Specht, Bob Cunningham, Bob Rebarchik, John Specht, Scott
Keuhn, Pat Mullaney, Greg Greenhoe, Paul Mock, Brian Shiplett, Mark Romey, Tracey
Nimlos.
COMMITTEE REPORTS:
Prevention: Lee Clark--Joint Prevention Workshop with the Great Basin was held this
past year. Updated the restrictions/closures plan for the geographic area. Will be
discussing how we will handle exemptions for railroads. Complimented the Restrictions
Coordinators on the success of restrictions this past fire season. Prevention Teams were
hosted this summer in North Idaho, SW MT, NW MT and Eastern MT.
Business: Roberta Whitlock--Janie Kurth is new chair. See handout for
accomplishments and FY 04 Program of Work. Vacancy announcement for Buying
Teams is out now.
Fire Use: Paul Mock--Issues of cross billing between agencies and interagency
contingency planning for Rx burning were attempted to tackle but died. Need reps from
ND, Idaho and S Cent MT. We had a very active fire use year and teams were busy all
summer. Goals for the coming year include working on interagency cross billing issues,
working with fire use to develop a common understanding, and improving the
collaborative approach to fuels treatment.
Training: Bob Cunningham—IQCS is the new qualification system the federal agencies
will begin using next year. Beta tested the software 3 weeks ago. National train the
trainer sessions are scheduled in the Northern Rockies and we will try to get out folks to
sessions in other areas earlier. Easy exchange of information between IQCS and other
systems should allow this system to talk to NIMS and other system. We will use the
existing software for this next field season.
Brian Shiplett has the idea of a governing board for qualifications, red cards, and tasks
books for contractors. The board would not be made up of government personnel, but
rather contractors or individuals who would do the policing of contractors qualifications.
Note out to zone training reps to identify candidates for S-420. Working with Ops
committee to build a good pool of candidates.
Have moved to a more sophisticated scheduling database nationally for training courses,
which allows you to view schedules in other geographic areas.
Encourage chairs from other committees to attend the training committee meeting next
week, 10/28-29 at NRTC.
Commends NRCG for taking on tough training issues. Self-certification of contractors
was one that was handled well and articulated well. We may still need to do a little work
to help them understand the process better. We also need to support our contracting
officers with inspecting training records when they are signing up contractors on EERAs.
Issue came up of contractors who have lapsed qualifications as squad boss, but still want
to teach Standards for Survival. NWCG is taking the stance that you must have someone
who is current in his or her qualifications as the lead instructor.
Equipment:
Rick Grady--The Equipment Committee was able to complete its work plan objectives
for 2003. See handout for accomplishments and program of work for FY 04.
Operations:
Mark Romey—feels there is a disconnect between the committees. Rather than ask the
BOD for approval of program of work the Ops committee will ask after this meeting
which issues are important to the BOD.
Handed out a draft of the NR IMT Recruitment Process, which was a project chartered by
NRCG and assigned to the ICs.
Passed out paper with 4 recommendations for the NRCG BOD.
Some issues talked about at Ops meeting included the AD issue for team members and
we need to treat them consistently.
MIFF Committee:
Tom Corbin—Committee is currently meeting and are still trying to bring in ND and N
Id for one operating plan for the whole GA.
Greg Greenhoe introduced Howard Carlson as the Northern Rockies Fire Equipment
Specialist along with Kevin Erickson who was not present. They will come up with
specs for commercial purchase of engines, work with NRCG Equipment and Business
committees, work with contractors, contracting officers,
LOCAL GOV’T RESPONSIBILITY:
Issue came about because of disagreement between federal, state and local agencies as far
as what should be paid for and what is the function of local gov’t and what is
reimbursable. Agreements differ between counties, agencies, etc. and in some locations
there are not agreements in place. Think over changing role with all risk incidents and do
we need a more long-term relationship with law enforcement? Current agreement is
Forest Service only and we don’t have an interagency agreement. Mike McMeeken
offered some recommendations. Decision Item
Martha Smith has developed a position description for the local gov’t liaison, which will
be distributed to the BOD. We need to take a look at a pool of liaisons and possibly
assigning them to IMTs and where will we recruit them.
COMMUNITY TRIAGE PROJECT:
Project started in 2000 and resumed work on in 2003. We now have data from all the
counties and reservations in MT. DES will agree to update this data every spring. What
format would NRCG like, database, GIS layers? Could be component of emergency ops
plans and PDMs.
ALL HAZARD IMTs IN MT:
$50,000 was set aside to DES by Homeland Security to explore all hazard IMTs in the
state. How do we want to do this and how will it fit with our existing IMTs? Several
groups have expressed interest. Problem is that these events occur so seldom that
individuals do not maintain their experience, so maybe to maintain quals individuals
could be available for fire as well. These teams could be used for incidents that do not
have a presidential declaration. John Specht will work with Jim Greene to help develop
the proposal. There are 4 Type 3 teams in MT already that are made up mostly of local
gov’t employees and may be good models to use. May just need to develop how federal
partners can participate without a presidential declaration.
National Response Plan, which incorporates the old federal response plan, is being
finalized.
MT MULTI-AGENCY FIRE HAZARD MITIGATION COMMITTEE:
Coordinating the fuels projects in MT at the federal level and soon incorporating the state
level as well. Statewide assessment by county is being done for prioritizing fuels project
grants and ranking counties by hazard level. Have developed a list of communities by
county that are at risk. NASF does not want a list but rather an assessment. The
committee will try to bring in the local Fire Chiefs as well as county fire wardens to
bridge any disconnects at the county level. County DES coordinators need to be included
as well.
FEMA and the counties are working on pre-disaster mitigation plans. Trying to combine
PDM plans, disaster plans and community fire hazard plans.
Prioritized grant applications for hazardous fuels mitigation projects and will submit to
Western States Foresters for award. Need to show there is an interagency effort to
prioritize these projects.
Shift of focus for NRCG from response to pre-disaster mitigation.
Are trying to develop a website showing where treatments are occurring on a county-bycounty basis. Will include a data table showing who received what dollars for mitigation
projects. Idea is to plan projects that are complimentary to one another.
REDEDICATION OF THE AFD:
The AFD is managed as an interagency facility even though the FS owns it. June 18-20,
2004, the National Smokejumper Association (NSA) is holding their reunion in Missoula.
NSA has asked the agencies to have a rededication of the AFD, which will be 50 years
old. Would like to have a ceremony on Sat. June 19, 2004. NSA has invited the
president to attend since Eisenhower dedicated the facility in 1954. Would like to have
the chair of NRCG play a significant role. Ask that agencies contribute people to work
on the rededication committee.
ZONE REPORTS:
ND—Mike Santucci
ND had a pretty active fire season in 2003 starting in April. Governor of ND issued a
proclamation, which is still in effect which makes fire restrictions mandatory. Still
experiencing hot temperatures and fires. Prevention committee put up 14 billboards
around the state funded by all the agencies. Restrictions process went pretty well. Will
be offering a separate NFDRS course in Fargo this year because of ways they determine
fire danger in ND and only use a small portion of NFDRS. Still developing a Type 3
IMT or at least a pool of individuals. Still working on an interagency annual operating
plan for the zone. ND dispatch center may be moving. Working on formalizing
interagency crew standards.
Issue: qualifying rural fire dept personnel especially ENGB qualifications.
Eastern MT—Chris Shelton
Put on an interagency rookie school with over 200 participants in Lame Deer. Training
schedule is now being finalized. Large fires this year were consolidated into a 7-8 week
period. Restrictions coordination is working and developing well. Eastern MT MAC
met on a regular basis and really worked well. BLM had a national review this year for
MT and the Dakotas. Two issues were east/west block exchange and 3 vs. 4-tier dispatch
system.
South Central MT—Bill Breedlove
Training program continues to be strong with a cornerstone being the engine academy.
Are there changes in billing process for county employees attending training at NRTC?
Signed off on a 5-year operating plan in the zone. Utilized a number of Type 3 teams.
Good overall coordination of restrictions. Found good support from NRCC for receiving
IA resources. New fire planning process at the federal level may give us the chance to
bring in other agencies. Major fuels project will be occurring in the Boulder River area
with a grant from the BLM.
Issues: one entity in the zone does not recognize the 6-party agreement. They would like
to broaden a separate agreement into all-risk response. Dual typing of equipment was an
issue with contractors and a conflict of interest with contractors going out as ADs.
Central MT—Bret Ruby
The interagency severity requests forced everyone to talk and coordinate and worked
quite well. The tie throughout the zone with DNRC and their contacts with the state of
Minnesota worked really well. Safety assistance teams were really beneficial and gave
good input. Good support from NRCC keeping IA resources staffed up. The
coordination between the 3 divisions within the zone continue to work well together, but
have no signed agreements and the chances of having a zone operating plan signed is
next to impossible. Question is can we allow division plans to substitute for the zone
plan when the 6-party agreement is done? Would like to keep the zone together.
Issue: conflict of interest with contractors being hired as ADs.
Southwest MT—Sandy Evenson
Quite a bit of Rx burning was done early in the season. Still having about 1 fire a day.
Equipment zone mob board is up and running. Took most of the winter to get the MIDC
operating plan put together. Hosted 25 IMTs in the zone and 2 area command teams. Set
up the armory and the fairgrounds in Missoula for staging. MIDC was the first dispatch
office in the GA to use ROSS. Have grown to like ROSS and thinks it will eventually
work really well. Hosted 2 California dispatch teams who were wonderful. They had to
learn ROSS but were very helpful. Closures and restrictions worked very well in the
zone. Prevention Team worked in the zone most of the season. Bill Swope will be
retiring this year, so we need to recruit a new Type 2 IC.
Issue: For MAC Group, Air Ops people at AFD were cramped when frequency people
were moved in.
Northwest MT—Mark Stanley
BN/Santa Fe railroad has asked to make a presentation to NRCG this spring on their
prevention procedures.
ENGB qualifications and task books is a concern for many contractors. Restrictions and
coordination worked well and would like to thank Cathy Scofield for all her help.
North Idaho—Ken Castro
Fire season took off in early August and is still going. A success was hiring a North
Idaho MAC zone coordinator. Very heavy aviation use and everything went very well.
The single engine airtankers at Grangeville were a big success. Restrictions went
smoothly. Work/rest was a problem for support personnel at the offices, i.e. Buying
teams, dispatchers. May be looking at doing a review of the dispatch system at
Grangeville. Continuing unavailability of contracting officers is a problem.
Issue: IMTs came into the geographic area short of critical positions including fire line
supervision and fire behavior analysts.
NORTHERN ROCKIES COST CONTAINMENT REVIEW:
Do we want to get ahead of the power curve and contract for an interagency review?
NMAC is asking for documentation re: cost effectiveness of team extensions. It is
important to document fires that were caught small and may have a high cost per acre but
would have been much more expensive if not caught. Also incorporate savings due to
severity resources.
Murphy, Swift and Richardson will work on a proposal and how to pay for it.
MANAGEMENT OF NR FUMTs:
Dick Bahr from the National Park Service National Office submitted a briefing paper on
recommendations for management of the 6 FUMTs within the nation. Both Rocky
Mountain and Great Basin were in favor of this proposal. There is potential for the SW
to sponsor teams as well. Recruitment would be nation wide, but each GACC would
have its own vacancy announcement. The 3 GACCs would have to get together for team
selections.
NR proposes recruitment and selections be done nationally and the GACCs will manage
dispatch and oversight. There needs to be standardization of support for the teams, i.e.,
supplies, computer equipment and who provides this support. There needs to be one set
of guidelines for teams in all the GA Mob Guides. Tom Corbin agrees to contact Dick
Bahr.
ENGINE BOSS QUALIFICATIONS/CONTRACTOR TASK BOOKS:
Boils down to these questions:
1. Who initiates task book
2. Who certifies task book
3. How do they document tasks completed before they obtained a task book
4. Who signs off on individual tasks
Ask governors to sanction an independent commission to certify, qualify and issue task
books and red cards.
Proposal is to charter a group to address these questions in a paper and also to work with
contractors this winter to work through the process.
Rodd and Training committee proposes one position to work with contractors and ADs
on training issues.
Need short-term, intermediate, and long-term answers.
Buying Teams and EERAs worked outside of the dispatch system and that caused
problems this summer. Roberta Whitlock will take this problem to the business
committee and the Buying Team Coordinator.
IS THERE AN AGE minimum for engines and tenders? The national contract has those
specifications but NO, they are not being considered for our EERAs.
NRCG INFORMATION TASK GROUP:
Tracey will begin work on a charter and directors will submit names for individuals to
serve on the task group. Names should be submitted to Tracey by Nov. 7 and the charter
should be complete by Jan 15. Main focus will be incident information at the geographic
area level.
CONTRACTOR’S COMMENTS/ISSUES:
Tracey and Roberta will organize all the comments from Tuesday afternoon’s meeting
and boil down the common issues. A response paper will be written and posted to the
NRCG website.
OLD BUSINESS:
Action Item
ACTION ITEM 2001-24 –
Review Training MOUs to clean
up issues and questions.
Assigned to
Training
Committee
Due Date
Fall 2002
Action Taken
COMPLETED.
ACTION ITEM 2002-2 –
Should contractors be in
leadership positions, i.e.,
Division Group Sup?
Business & Ops
Committees
Spring
2004
Ops Committee will draft a proposal
and have Business Committee review.
NRCG will elevate the proposal to
NWCG.
ACTION ITEM 2003-1 –
Contractor representation at
NRCG BOD & Committee
meetings
Business
Committe
Fall 2003
ACTION ITEM 2003-2 –
Interagency coordination of NFP
& communities at risk in
Montana
ACTION ITEM 2003-3 –
Complete a work/needs analysis
for the Northern Rockies
Predictive Services & Smoke
Monitoring Units
ACTION ITEM 2003-4 – Send
memo to Jim Stires to submit the
DNRC LACES vs. LCES issue
paper
ACTION ITEM 2003-5 – Have
all Native American crews in the
Northern Rockies covered by the
MIFF operating plan
Rodd
Richardson,
Tom Boatner,
Tim Murphy
John Specht
Will draft a white paper to post on the
NRCG website explaining our
expectations of contractors at the
meetings and the process for getting
items onto meeting agendas.
DONE
Tracey/Brian
Tom Corbin
The 2 groups are no longer working
together. The Smoke E-board is
working on their part.
March
2003
Done, no response received.
The MIFF committee is still working
on this issue.
ISSUES IDENTIFIED DURING MAC ACTIVATION:
Issue
IR flight requests and approvals
Team Configuration
(e.g. SE Type 1 IMT – 103 people,
Type 2 IMT – 72 people)
WFSA
ICS of the future
Review
Local Gov’t responsibility
Role of NMAC and GMAC w/national
resources, i.e. area command teams
Assigned to Lead
This has been assigned to FS R-4. Rodd will
draft letter to Mike Dudley re: our issues
Will present at NMAC/GEOMAC mtg in
Nov. Is there really a short Type 2 team?
IMTs arrived with critical positions unfilled.
We will wait to see what develops nationally.
Ask at NMAC/GEOMAC mtg.
Issues for NMAC/GEOMAC meeting: Type
2 IMTs managing Type 1 incidents, area
commands expanding or branching, MAC
coordination role to command role & no
standards nationally, help to other countries
to look at their ICS & standardizing position
titles, equivalency with NFPA quals.
We will use the safety assistance team
reviews, lessons learned meetings, and cost
reviews
McMeekin, Greene, Murphy, Scofield and
Whitlock
Take to NMAC/GEOMAC meeting.
EXECUTIVE BOARD SESSION:
•
Action Item: Send summaries of all lessons learned sessions to Tracey and we will
talk about on our Dec. Conf call.
•
Contractor/AD training issues position at NRTC: proposal to create a temporary
position to deal with these issues and set procedures for short-term, intermediate and
long-term solutions. This position would serve both disseminating information to
contractors as well as field offices. Forest Service could sponsor a NTE position.
Agrees to contribute: IDL, DNRC, BIA, FS, BLM, FWS, need to ask Bryan Swift.
Specht and Greenhoe will finalize position description. John Specht will supervise
the position and it will be located at the AFD.
•
Board agrees to try to establish a governing board for contractors for qualifications,
taskbooks, and redcards. It would be similar to the outfitter and guides board in
Idaho. The above position will work on this project. Murphy, Shiplett, and Santucci
will pursue permissions within the state agencies to pursue. Brian and Tim will get
together by Nov. 18th.
•
NMAC/GEO MAC meeting: Brian Shiplett, Bryan Swift and Rodd Richardson will
go. Will coordinate on all the lessons learned issues from the GA. Rodd will follow
up with Kevin Ryan to possibly present the products we used for risk rating in 2003.
•
Proposal is on the board to include a law enforcement liaison full-time on the NRCG
Board. The position will have a vote on law enforcement issues. Will make a formal
offer to Mike via a letter, which Brian will compose. Mike will need to get an
endorsement from the Sheriff’s and Peace Officers Association.
•
AFD Operating Plan: Need to have signatures much sooner this year so funds
transfers can take place in June or July. John will be getting final out as soon as
possible. If bill goes to states by the 1st of June that is better.
•
NRCG Committee Liaisons
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Business – Tim Murphy
Prevention – Jim Greene
Ops – Jim Kelton
Fire Use – Rodd Richardson
Training – Brian Shiplett
Aviation – BLM
Equipment – Brett Waters
MIFF – Tom Corbin
•
Spring Meeting Date: April 13-15, 2004 in Belgrade, MT.
•
Need to select a Deputy IC for Steve Frye’s team and confirm Bob Gilman is moving
on to area command. Rodd will talk to Bob Gilman and will call Stanich to see what
his plans are. Tim will talk to Wally, and Bryan will talk to Steve.
•
Decision Item: NRCG will now select Deputy ICs with the expectation that they will
become ICs.
•
Incident Aviation Specialist recommendation from Ops committee is approved.
•
Ops committee membership proposal is approved with 2 changes. Northern Rockies
Fire Operations Office (Specht) will represent USDI and Forest Service, and AFD rep
will be smokejumper unit rep. Also need to include the NRCG BOD liaison.
•
Eastern Area Participation on NR IMTs: Tracey will draft a letter to the EACG
thanking them for their participation and support; and John Specht will work with
Dave Boyd on a MOU between the two geographic areas.
•
IMT Management and Recruitment Process draft: Board members will submit
comments to Chrisman or Sandman.
•
Predictive Services Unit: how to fill or reorganize after Stoll retires. Need to see
where we stand with NMAC, is it still a mandate to fill these positions. Rodd and
Brian will talk to Alice. Then we will develop our needs and develop the staffing
from there.
•
We will write thank you letters to line officer and agency administrators that allowed
their employees to participate on teams.
•
The Missoula Airport has a grant for $700,000 to improve a runway if we can match
the funds. Rodd would like an NRCG letter endorsing the need.
•
Beginning Jan 2004 Tim Murphy will be the new chair and Jim Kelton will be the
vice-chair.