AGENCY ADMINISTRATOR/NORTHERN ROCKIES
COORDINATING GROUP MEETING
June 1, 2001
Missoula County Airport Meeting Room
Mike Paterni (R1/R4 National Fire Plan Coordinator) and Tom Boatner (NRCG
Chairman) opened the meeting with a brief overview of the issues to be discussed today.
Participants:
Kathy McAllister, Forest Service
Bill Boettcher, Forest Service
Tom Lonnie, Bureau of Land Management
MG John E. Prendergast, Department of Military Affairs
Jim Greene, DES
Clay Gregory, Bureau of Indian Affairs
Tom Corbin, Bureau of Indian Affairs
Anita Grends, National Park Service
DC Haas, Montana DNRC
Barry Hicks, Forest Service
Bob Gilman, Forest Service
Greg Greenhoe, Forest Service
Suzanne Lewis, National Park Service
Rick Hafenfeld, Bureau of Land Management
Cathy Scofield, Forest Service
Ed Mathews, Montana DNRC
Phil Street, Fish and Wildlife Service
Ken McDermond, Fish and Wildlife Service
Tim Murphy, Montana DNRC
Tom Boatner, Bureau of Land Management
Mike Paterni, Forest Service
Sandy Evenson, Forest Service
NATIONAL FIRE PLAN – Mike Paterni
Mike discussed the five points in the National Fire Plan (NFP):
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firefighting resources
burned area restoration
hazardous fuel reduction
community assistance
accountability and reporting
A round robin session followed for each agency present to discuss accomplishments,
concerns, issues, etc.
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Forest Service:
Firefighting -- will be talked about specifically later in the agenda. The Forest Service
will be very close to MEL
Burned area rehab –The Forest Service received a large allocation for rehab--85 percent
of the funding will be focused on areas burned next to communities. Lots of emphasis on
noxious weeds and evasive plant control. Mike Paterni is not aware of any coordination
issues.
Hazardous fuel program: Our hope was to accomplish about 94,000 acres of fuels
treatment this year. We may fall short. The burning window has about come and gone
this spring. Issue: Need to come to a mutual understanding of where the greatest risks
are so we can compliment each other’s efforts.
Community assistance: State and Private Forestry has been working hard in this area for
states and private landowners. Bill Boettcher mentioned his group has been working with
communities and the Department of Commerce to help develop job potentials for small
diameter fuels.
BLM: Focusing on the same things as the Forest Service. Hazardous fuels reduction
program has expanded greatly and fuels treatment has doubled this year. Should make
the target. Anticipate doubling the fuels target for the next couple of years. Will probably
level out on treatment at 40,000 acres a year. Community assistance: for the first time
got legal authority for funding to pass to rural fire departments (working with State to
distribute the money).
Fish and Wildlife: Bulk of effort has been trying to identify what the work is out there as
far as fuel treatment. Doing lots of coordination with eight states. Have new coordinator
position dedicated to National Fire Plan. Have a zone fire management officer position
located here in Missoula who will take over coordination of National Fire Planning issues
with state and federal agencies. Have identified quite a few acres of treatment. Trying
to get agreements in place to assist North Dakota and Montana under the rural fire
assistance program..
BIA: Have a couple of long-term fire rehab projects which will be going on for a
number of years. Exceeded the number or acres targeted for wildland urban interface.
Have about 1/3 of target done on hazardous fuels. Because of drought, shifting over the
mechanical treatments. It will be a difficult target to meet. Received rural fire assistance
money and working with the State to distribute. Have a fuels specialist in the RO and
targeting fuels specialists for five of the seven reservations.
National Park Service -- Hired two new coordinators in the RO to help with the fire plan
and will be getting another one in the Boise Office. Will be falling short on targets for
hazardous fuels. Glacier has given rural fire assistance to two small communities and it
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is going well Issue: Hiring firefighters—is there any wisdom in going to OPM and
asking for hiring assistance or relief or a better way of doing the hiring?
Montana DNRC – State of Montana updated fire management analysis and it identified
they were below MEL. Did receive some additional money and were able to go to
legislature and justify a pay plan exception for firefighters. Hope to hire one crew boss to
manage an inmate fire crew from Deerlodge. Also got some additional radios.
Long term burned area rehab--biggest area impacted was Sula State Forest--most rehab
completed and salvage logged. Have identified projects around Big Mountain, Jette
Lake, Virginia City, Augusta/Choteau and South Helena. Working with homeowners to
create defensible space around their homes. Community assistance (RFA/VFA)--since
1975 the State has administered $1.1 million for fire departments. The year all 56
counties have applied for assistance (300+ applications) for over $3 million.
Accountability: this spring we received award letters on most of the grants. Once we get
the award letter, we have to go through the legislature to get authority to spend it -bottom line is State cannot spend the money until July 1.
DES -- DES had no direct impacts as far as the National Fire Plan. A large number of
fire departments have applied for FEMA dollars, but the criteria are different from the
National Fire Plan money.
Summary of Round robin issues:
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Understanding where the communities at risk are
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Community assistance (need coordinated approach)
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Hiring firefighters
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Intense pressure to meet targets -- concern that people are tired and haven't had a
break.
Phil Street mentioned that folks from the consultation part of the Fish and Wildlife
Service should be included in coordination meetings. The rest of the group agreed.
COMMUNITIES AT RISK – DC Haas
DC Haas talked about the short time frames and the varied degrees of request for
information and reports they have received. County Commissioners have reacted very
differently to requests for information. “Communities” were identified they no one could
find. DC says it is a run away train and now there is another request for information by
June 15. The NRCG Prevention Committee has been working to create the list and has
put months of work into it so far. NRCG asked the Prevention Committee to develop a
set of guidelines and ask the zones to sit down and rank the communities within their
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zones to at least a low, medium, and high. Hopefully the money will filter into the
highest communities.
Mike Paterni said the work the Prevention Committee has done is a tremendous start. He
wondered if there was a way to beef up the Prevention Committee to help with the work.
Also, is there information already generated that could be used—something from
Research or satellite imagery?
Tim Murphy’s concern is that the Prevention Committee needs to start getting on with
fire season. They can't afford to spend a lot more time on this.
The group agreed it is better to go slower and try to get the list done this fall and do it
right. The challenge is to get approval from the National Office.
Cathy recommends we not get hung up on the list right now -- there will be refinement
later on. She thinks the list to be published will be the one that has 23,000 communities
nationally.
Kathy McAllister reiterated that if the Prevention Committee needs additional help or
skills, they should not hesitate to ask. Help the agency administrators understand what
needs to be done and we can go from there.
Bill Boettcher mentioned that his unit works with a lot of state departments which may be
a tremendous asset to help on these issues.
Fire Preparedness
BLM -- Billings air tanker base is ready to go. There have been some large fires already
this year.
Forest Service -- While we have increased the number of resources in firefighters, the
leadership is still in training.
DES -- Working with Montana Power and Quest so they can be better prepared to
protect their lines. They are a major provider of power to the west coast.
Working on how power companies can be better prepared to send their crews in -- such
as inside the fire area they would have a safety officer with them. Outside their fire area
we would give them a written recommendation that they have PPE and standards for
survival.
MPC will have maps showing their critical areas. If we get into an extended MAC
situation like last year, they would send a representative to the planning section.
General Prendergast asked about where we are with use of military assets.
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Tom Boatner said he asked at NIFC about 6 weeks ago about guidelines for using
military aviation assets and was told at that time they plan to publish a set of guidelines
for us to use. Tom Boatner will follow up on that.
The question will be: there are assets available, the problem is the managers. Are
National Guard crew chiefs qualified to do the job? On the military side they say yes, on
the federal side they say no.
Tom Boatner will call his national aviation office and Barry Hicks will call the Forest
Service national office to see where we stand.
Reminder: DNRC makes the call to activate the National Guard; the same with EMAC.
There are some changes in the FEMA fire suppression rules this year which may
complicate some things.
The question came up with physical fitness standards. NRCG does accept National
Guard physical fitness standards and it will be documented in the NG
agreement/operating plan.
General Prendergast stated Fort Harrison is available as a training facility if we should
need it this year.
There are some assets at Malmstrom which may be available to use. How do we get
access to them? General Prendergast will research if it is doable from DOD side.
Media
The group discussed the wisdom of beginning to work with our public affairs offices
early to start laying foundations for issues that bit us last year, such as:
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Hiring
Contracting for local resources
Why we can’s use every individual to fight fire
Normal firefighting tactics may not be followed as we are seeing extreme fire
behavior already—different tactics because of drought
Developing a set of talking point about why we are having fires when we got all
the National Fire Plan money
If fires are occurring in multiple Geographic Areas, could be huge demand for
resources and we may not see as many as we saw last year
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RESTRICTIONS AND CLOSURES
An area which caused a lot of concern last year was restrictions and closures. Following
the fire season, NRCG asked the Prevention Committee to look at the process. The
Prevention Committee completed the assignment from NRCG but since the “boundaries”
became such an emotional issues, agency administrators are going to have to make the
final decision.
DC Haas and Cathy Scofield presented different alternatives and ideas for boundaries to
the agency administrators. After considerable discussion, the agency administrators
agreed to adopt the prevention committee proposal. This proposal will be posted on the
NRCG web page. In addition, the agency administrators adopted the boundary proposal
recommended by the Prevention Committee.
Agreement was also reached that we will get away from the term “zone” and use “area.”
Hopefully this will be less confusing for those areas that do not fall within established
NRCG Zones.
The Prevention Committee will also draft a letter to go out from agency administrators
that talks about local agency coordination and the need to appoint a coordinator and get
an operating plan developed.
The Prevention Committee will be meeting next week and they will discuss a marketing
strategy for the revised policy. There was a suggestion to use a chart or some sort of
illustration to try to demonstrate to the public what we are trying to do.
ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
A roles and responsibilities matrix and resource allocation document were developed by
an NRCG committee this winter. The charts were presented to the agency administrators
for approval. The agency administrators approved the charts and they will be posted on
the NRCG web page and included in mob guides and MAC plans.
AGENCY ADMINISTRATOR CONFERENCE CALLS
Kathy McAllister asked the group about the value of the agency administrator conference
calls. Agency administrators agreed they were beneficial and should continue. Kathy
proposes to start a little earlier this year (when the MAC group starts meeting would be a
good time). Kathy pretty much spearheaded the calls last year, and even if she is unable
for a call this year, they should take place.
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