To:
Fire Program Analysis Stakeholders
From:
Federal Fire Policy Council
Subject: Fiscal Year 2012 Fire Program Analysis Status, Direction, and Timelines
Fire Program Analysis (FPA) is a national strategic budget model that will be used within the
wildland fire budget formulation process to substantiate and defend Departmental preparedness
requests. Based on data provided by the field, FPA has accomplished the intent and has
produced results that can be used in the FY 2013 wildland fire budgeting process.
During Fiscal Year 2012, the Support Working Team (SWT) will be assisting all 136 Fire
Planning Units (FPUs) in assessing and processing information to be included in the next FPA
analysis. The SWT representative responsible for your FPU will work with your local team to
calibrate the application, verify fuels treatments, and assure that an accurate analysis is
submitted. The resulting FPU analysis will then be provided by the SWT to the Interagency
Analysis Team (IAT) for further analysis by agency budget leads. While the SWT will be
working to assure minimal impact to the field, updates such as Fire Workload Area or FPU
Boundaries and user inputs remain and therefore, your involvement will still be needed. This
may require some travel for FPU personnel during FY 2012 to facilitate the coordination
process. There will be no need to update your FPA budget and costs because it will be held
constant for the 2012 submission.
In order to deliver a stable application that is capable of consistent, repeatable results that meet
the needs of a national strategic analysis as outlined in this document, please refer to Oversight
Group (OG) approved 2012 timeline:
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November 3, 2011: the FPA application will be ready to use for the FY 2012 analyses
(Note: The SWT representative for your FPU will provide specific direction on what
may need to be added or changed for your FPU);
December 15, 2011: final independent technical and business review is completed and
delivered;
April 1, 2012: SWT submits national analyses for all 136 FPUs to the IAT;
May 15, 2012: IAT completes and submits analysis to budget leads;
May 29, 2012: 2012 FPU analyses and data archived;
June 2012:
 FPA Phase 2 close out - no further development other than what was previously
approved by the OG
 Transition to the Operations and Maintenance (O&M) phase complete
Fire Planning Unit (FPU) Engagement Plan for the 2012 Fire Program Analysis (FPA)
Submission
Issue: Because the FPA application has undergone several system upgrades, the individual
FPUs need to review and update the data that will be used for the 2012 submission.
Background: During the 2011 improvement year, the FPUs were not involved in using the FPA
application to complete the analysis used for the 2011 submission. The changes made to the
application in 2011 were focused on improvements and enhancements to the programming for
the Initial Response Simulation (IRS) and Large Fire (LF) models. With the exception of a few
minor adjustments to correct obvious errors, the FPU’s input and enterprise data from the 2010
database were held constant. In March 2011, the FPA staff completed the analysis used for the
2011 submission and provided the data extract needed for National Goal Programming. The
model outputs were used to complete a national strategic budget analysis that helped support the
Fiscal Year 2013 budget request.
There are still some known issues with the input and output data, such as the inconsistent use of
cooperator resources and with the calculation of some performance metrics that Goal
Programming relies upon, that will need to be corrected for the 2012 submission. In addition to
improvements and enhancements made to the IRS and LF models, there have been extensive
updates to two of the enterprise data layers (the FPA Fire Behavior Fuels Model layer and the
Ignition File). These updates change how the models are responding to the user inputs and
require model re-calibration. The FPA Project Team has developed an improved process for an
end-to-end application calibration, tying the calibration of the IRS model to the LF model.
While the FPA Project Team can complete the calibration of the LF model, it requires FPU level
knowledge to adjust data inputs (use of cooperators, delays, diurnal coefficients, for example) to
leverage the improvements made to the IRS model. The 11 members of the FPA Support
Working Team (SWT) Technical Analysts are expecting to help the field work through this
effort, but do not have the firsthand knowledge of how each FPU manages their individual fire
programs. Thus, the SWT will require involvement from the FPU to adjust certain inputs and
accurately calibrate the application for each FPU.
Discussion: The intent of the FPA analysis for the 2012 submission is to make the necessary
adjustments to FPU inputs and capitalize on the improvements and enhancements made to the
FPA application in 2011. The outputs from the 2012 submission are intended for use in the
national strategic analysis to support the FY 2014 budget request. In designing the engagement
plan for the field, the principle consideration is the due date for the 2012 submission which is
April 1, 2012. Working back from that date, we can set milestones for tasks that need to be
completed to successfully meet the April 1, 2012 due date. The assumptions that are used in
developing this plan are:
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Attachment 1
The objective of the FPA Submission is to provide the data needed for the Goal
Programming Application to complete a national strategic budget analysis to
support the FY 2014 budget request. Accordingly, the FPU submissions are
needed by April 1, 2012, to allow sufficient time to process the data in Goal
Programming and assemble the resultant budget information.
The national strategic budget analysis is not intended to analyze just the
preparedness or hazardous fuels budget the federal agencies receive. The purpose
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of the analysis is to demonstrate the potential impact a fluctuation in either of
those budgets might have on the effectiveness of the Federal Interagency
Wildland Fire agencies in the context of how we are currently organized to get the
work done.
The baseline budget and cost information used in the 2010 will be rolled over and
used as the baseline for 2012. The basic tenets of the 2010 Interagency Guidance
for completing the FPU budget analysis remains the same. This includes the
following direction:
o Build preparedness options for current, minus 20%, and plus 20% budget
levels.
o Build fuels options for current, minus 20%, plus 20%, and plus 60%
budget levels.
o Account for the contributions of cooperator, neighbor, and national
resources in the modeling of all budget options.
Modify user access privileges to account for the SWT’s role in assisting with the
2012 submissions:
o Grant SWT Technical Analysts Editor access to the application.
o Limit field users to Reader access to the application, since the SWT will
provide the necessary assistance in modifying inputs and structuring
options while working with the FPUs.
Engagement Plan for 2012 Planning Cycle: The main goal of the 2012 planning effort is to
focus on the calibration of the FPA application to fully implement the improvements and
enhancements made to the application while holding the budget information constant.
Key Points:
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The previously used budget and cost information is sufficient to complete a
national strategic planning exercise to inform the FY 2014 budget request.
Reuse, and hold constant to the extent possible for 2012, the budget options and
alternatives used in 2010.
Focusing on calibration will implement the improvement and enhancements made
to the application as well as lessons learned in the use of the models.
Required Actions:
Timeline for completing the analysis for the 2012 submission:
October 24, 2011
November 3, 2011
January 31, 2012
February 29, 2012
March 17, 2012
March 29, 2012
April 1, 2012
Attachment 1
SWT begins briefing the Geographic Area (GA) leads and their partners.
Engage the field. SWT and FPUs begin work on calibration.
Finalize calibration. SWT and FPUs begin review of budget options and
alternatives.
SWT and FPUs finalize Budget Analysis.
Review draft submissions.
Enact recommendations from reviews and finalize analysis for
submission.
Submission due date.
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Description: Beginning October 24, the GA level FPA Committees will be briefed on the status
of the FPUs in their GA by the SWT member assigned to be their GA Point of Contact (POC).
This action needs to be completed before contacting the FPUs.
Starting November 3, 2011 the SWT Technical Analysts will provide their assigned FPUs
information based on their findings and recommendations stemming from the review of existing
analysis datasets and initial calibration model runs.
Information will include:
1. Results from an initial run for calibration analysis.
2. A worksheet of local information (data) needed to continue the calibration process for
their FPU.
3. Identification of input values that may need to be edited due to the improvements and
enhancements to the system.
The week of October 17 – 21, 2011, the SWT technical analysts will have a work session to
continue calibration. This work session is aimed at ensuring a consistency in process and input
values for calibrating the application. Information and inputs that will be reviewed and, as
necessary, edited to calibrate the model include:
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Fire Behavior Attributes
Fire Workload Area Attributes (ESL time and size, walk-in %, etc.,)
Delays
Dispatch Logic
Fire Resources
Dispatch Locations/Associations
Prior to finalizing calibration, the SWT Technical Analyst should confer with the FPU regarding
any input changes and obtain their concurrence. One or more GA FPA Committee members
should participate in this Calibration Review process.
Calibration for all the FPUs will be completed by January 31, 2012 allowing sufficient time in
February 2012 to finalize corrections and make edits as needed for the existing budget options
and alternatives to be used for the 2012 submission. The intent is to reuse the budget options
and alternatives used for the 2010 and 2011 submissions with minimal edits. One input error
that will be worked on is the inconsistent modeling of contributions of cooperator, neighbor, and
national resources in the budget analysis. This problem surfaced during the review of the 2010
budget analysis, but was not corrected for 2011.
Another input that will require review and possible editing, is the fuels treatments used in the
fuels budget options. The intent is to reuse the 2010 fuels options and their associated fuels
treatments to the extent possible, but because the FPA Fire Behavior Fuel Model layer was
updated, the mix of fuel models, and their acreage, available to be used in the treatments has
changed. Therefore, the existing fuels treatments need to be checked against the new landscape
to ensure that the “From” fuel model, and the acres to be treated, are appropriate. The extent of
the edits required will depend on the degree of change in the landscape from the previous layer.
Attachment 1
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March 2012 will be used for final reviews and corrections by local FPUs and SWT Technical
Analysts of the analysis to be submitted. Prior to finalizing the analysis, the SWT Technical
Analyst should confer with the FPU regarding any input changes and obtain their concurrence.
One or more GA FPA Committee members should participate in this Final Analysis Review
process. The SWT member working with the FPU will submit the finished analysis for the FPU
once all processes have been properly completed. The need for a Line Officer Briefing has been
recognized. There has not been a decision made as to what level of the organization the briefing
will be conducted, at what point of the process they should be conducted, and who will be
responsible for carrying them out. The SWT will be prepared to support those briefing to help
answer questions concerning the modeling effort.
These tasks and the timeline are based on the majority of the technical work being done by the
SWT working directly with the FPUs. Field involvement is required to finalize data updates to
their dataset, which the SWT will then enter into the application. The GA level FPA Committees
will be kept in the information loop and regularly updated on the status of their FPUs by the
SWT member identified as their Point of Contact.
Attachment 1
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