NR Training Committee Meeting Notes
March 10-11, 2008 Butte, MT
Review of Fall Meeting Notes:
- Need lead instructor for D-310 class – Course cancelled.
- Please add remarks in fall nomination spreadsheet – quals for course, why course is needed, etc
- Extra L-381 will be held in May – tuition will need to be charged, approximate cost of $1170.
Aviation Committee
- Due to lack of available aviation personnel, the Aviation Committee is looking for alternative
ways of helping trainees become qualified.
- They would like a list of people with task books and a list of people with aviation
qualifications. They would like to match qualified people with trainees as mentors.
- North Idaho Zone has a lack of qualified aerial ignition personnel. Wanted to bring this to
regional attention and see if multiple zones can get together to host a PSD course.
Action Item – Please share aviation information and training with Kitty or Beth. They will get it
out to the regional training personnel.
- ACE/Mini ACE in Northern Rockies GACC - Two sessions currently scheduled in Boise for
2009. The biggest obstacle is finding a location with enough hotel rooms and meeting space.
Only place in Missoula is the Hilton and they are very expensive. Other possible locations –
Billings, Bismarck, a college during spring break?
Action Item - Kitty will check on full ACE for 2010.
Business Committee
- Fire procurement workshop for buying team members – May 13-14. Somewhere in Missoula.
Probably cost - $350.00 per person.
- Buying team people needed for blocks of time for fire availability.
- Notes from team meeting - no Finance workshop.
- A new template is available for I-Suite for Locals.
- Agency Administrator’s meeting - April 10th and 11th at Fairmont, MT. Topics to be covered
include long duration fire plans, structure protection, and cost share agreements.
- The business committee would like to see incident business management information put into
300 level and above courses. They are looking for a list of courses that would benefit from this
information – S300, D310, S330, etc.
- There was a suggestion at their meeting that DIVS have a COR course, due to all the
contractors that are now on fires. Is there a need to put on a Fire COR course?
- There was a suggestion that a Business for Operations Folks type workshop be put together and
held in the spring or fall. May be a refresher and update of things that have changed in the past
few years.
Equipment Committee
- Big Iron Workshop will include Dozer Boss course. They hope to work with different types of
logging equipment. They will also have a one day field day open to people who want to see
what the equipment is and what it can do. Would be good for center managers to attend as well
as ops people. Next year, the class will be in R-6. The dates are April 14-18.
- The course is in IQCS and is listed as a Dozer Boss class. The cost is $100.
- Two Equipment Inspection workshops will be held this spring - May 6-8 in Billings and May
20-22 in Missoula.
- Water handling equipment typing will change Type I water tender.
Fire Use
- No report
NAC
- Annual Operating Plan should be done by Friday, March 14.
- They are having their committee meeting in Missoula in 2 weeks.
Operations
- There is a lack of qualified, available folks in some operations and aviation positions.
- Too many pumps were committed to structure protection. NRCG will be discussing structure
protection and who will need to be responsible for what.
- The length of transition between teams is getting too long. Transition needs to be complete but
needs to be shortened. Teams should try for one to two days, max.
- Long term plans caused lots of confusion, especially for out of GACC teams. Some of the
confusion was terminology – management action points denote a requirement for action even if it
wasn’t warranted.
- Long term plan teams need to be there early in the process or be heavily involved with
Operations to come up with reasonable MAPs.
- This summer there will be 5 type II teams and 2 type I teams.
- Doug Turman will travel with Bennett if his team goes out before Larson.
- Proposal from the ICs to NWCG:
- Looking at different ways to obtain PSC2. There are not enough folks w/operations
quals getting SITL, which limits people who can move up to PSC2. Proposed quals
routes would include a combination of RESL and SITL, RESL and DEMB, or RESL and
DOCL. There is no anticipated date of approval. 310-1 is currently under revision so it
could happen as soon as next year.
- Currently, there are no open task books nationally for PSC2.
Prevention
- May 6 – 8 Prevention Workshop in Jackson WY.
- May 12 – 16 is Wildfire Awareness Week.
- Smokey hot air balloon will be on the east side of MT via DNRC and BLM.
SAC
- Moving along with solicitations.
IDL Nominations to NR Training Center
- Per Sally, IDL wants to be able to prioritize a student from southern ID over someone from
northern ID to attend NRTC as an in-GACC student. Lots of discussion among committee
members on whether or not it should/will happen only when Northern IDL cancels out of a
course. NRCG has agreed to this arrangement so it will be allowed.
Action Item - Beth will work with Brian Shiplett on verbiage to include in Idaho AOP.
L-380 – NRTC is working with a non-Mission Centered Solution cadre that has been used in the
Pacific Northwest to bring L380 to NRTC for a significantly reduced cost. NRTC is hoping to
have folks from the Northern Rockies shadow this cadre and be able to put on the course in the
future. Anticipated cost will be about $450/student, instead of about $880/student when using an
MCS cadre. Dates are April 28 to May 2.
Per Paul Fieldhouse – there is still room in the L380 class scheduled for 4/28 – 5/2.
- He would like to develop a cadre for L381 as well but that’s a few years out.
Field S420 - The final proposal for Field S-420 was presented to the NRCG Board last month.
No decision has been made. Paul thinks it will be passed but they are trying to solve some
funding issues. If it’s passed, Paul plans to re-advertise for students for S420 with an
explanation of how the new course will be run. The Ops Committee will prioritize the
nominations for the new course. Students will probably be ordered through the dispatch system
as Tech Specialists with S420 entered into the special needs section. This will allow them to be
paid by the fire. Instructors will be paid differently. Paul is working on that.
Grant, Seacrest and Heintz teams will host the first group of students. The session should take a
total of four days. Lead instructors will be Steve Frye, Sharon Sweeny, Rick Floch, and maybe
Tammy Clark.
Other geographic areas – GB, CA and SW are moving towards using Field S-420 with a possible
elimination of the classroom version.
There will be a S420 for Local Government April 30 through May 4 in Kalispell. Please send
nominations to Jim Blankenship. Students must meet course prerequisites.
Fireline Safety Officer Course – NR cadre shadowed the PNW cadre. They will tweak the
course somewhat to meet NR needs. The course will provide good skills but doesn’t count
towards any qualification.
Feasibility Study for Training - Feasibility Study for training has been completed. DOI decided
to wait to present results until after Dispatch feasibility study was completed and present the two
reports together. The USFS was presented with the study – all references to competitive
sourcing were removed. The study was forwarded as a “Management Study” to the USFS.
Contractors/ADs Attend Training at NRTC - Contractors wanting to be trained at NRTC – Can
we do it? A sample letter from another GACC was sent out but no one can find it. There have
been some calls from contractors asking for higher level classes that are not offered by MOU
training providers. A couple of potential problems with this:
- NRCG policy – An agency can pay for refreshers and other classes needed to keep
qualifications current but cannot pay for an AD to advance qualifications. The government
could be perceived as competing with the MOU training providers (private businesses) for
business.
- What are ADs supposed to do to advance in training when the MOU providers do not
offer that level of class?
- One suggestion – contractor/AD students be “sponsored” by an NRTC agency however
costs to attend will be bourn by the individual. This will give the person an “agency affiliation”,
defined as valuable to one of the NRCG agencies but they will pay their own travel and tuition.
Non-agency affiliation would be John Doe off the street who is looking for some training or it
could be someone we don’t want to hire or support due to previous problems.
- If the individual was to pay their own expenses, the nomination would have to be
flagged for Rosie so she doesn’t bill the affiliated agency. Will probably need to use a hard copy
nomination for this.
- A clear message is needed from the Training Committee to the Business Committee to
NRCG that we can no longer complete our fire mission without ADs and contractors. The
NRCG guideline is being interpreted as a rule and is hampering our ability to safely complete our
job.
Action Item: A working group will be put together to look at NRCG policy and figure out what
is legal. Lily Huskey to head up the group, to include Tim Murphy? Sally Estes, Kitty Ortman?
Jim Blankenship, Carol Bienhold.
WIMS class for Northern Rockies – Need to know the status of unit’s WIMS data before
committing to a class. Most people probably think they are doing it right when they might not
be.
Action Item – Sally to follow up, get data analyzed and results out to the group.
Action Item – The committee will determine if a class is needed based on people’s interest and
the results of the data analysis.
Burn Boss Refresher – USFS only - Not required for burn boss this year. IQCS did a mass entry
for RT300F for USFS qualified burn bosses. Everyone will need a refresher for 2009. We hope
to have some direction by then on what is required.
Recognition of Prior Learning - RPL – BLM is looking at this process to help give credit for
prior learning for equivalency to NWCG qualifications. The process is from Australia. Two test
areas – one was Gallatin County. Ten people from Montana went through the process in
January. Information looked at included formal courses, life experience, skills, etc. Findings
were presented at conference in Reno. The process took 8 days, at this time to looks successful.
The test pilot will continue. It is some what like the NFPA cross-walk process. RPL is
recognized by law in Australia and has been successfully used for over 20 years with very good
success. If experience and prior learning indicate that someone meets knowledge, skills and
abilities to meet a qualification, it can be granted. If someone meets most of the required skills
but needs one or two units of a course to make up for missing skills, they may be required to
only take those sections of that particular course. Field skills will still be tested – chainsaws, etc.
NRTC Budget – Currently, each agency puts in money to pay for the salaries at AFD. Per diem
for instructors, supplies, expenses, etc is paid out of the reimbursable account. Money for that
account comes from tuition charges. They are in the process of reworking the budget.
Hopefully, course costs will go down in the future.
IFPM and 401 Series Update – Read notes handed out at the meeting for full information.
Excerpts from the national meeting in Albuquerque on February 20-21:
- 1500 people retired last year and 5000 people are eligible this year.
- 401 series – “equivalent to a major” needs to be determined by a university. In this case,
Colorado State University (CSU) requires 42 upper division units. Notes stated later that only 24
units were required.
- DOI has different interpretation on what qualifies than USFS.
- TFM counts if units were purchased and a letter of completion or certificate was issued.
- NWCG courses will be accepted only if on a transcript from a “nationally accreditation
institute”.
- Lots of turmoil on this subject at the national level.
Zone Updates
All the classes are post on the NR web site. Most classes are in IQCS. State employees can send
nominations via email.
Late Nomination Process – After Rosie sends out an email stating that nominations have been
downloaded from IQCS, she does not continue to check the system for new nominations. Please
do not enter new nominations in IQCS after receiving her message. If you enter nominations
after her message, NRTC will not receive them. Please send a hard copy of the nomination via
either email or fax to Rosie.
Currently, she is not sure if there is a way for IQCS to be shut down and not accept new
nominations. There is no way to tell if a nomination is new. She will be requesting a date stamp
be placed on the nomination to help determine when a nomination was submitted.
Prework/Selection Information – Please make sure a winter email and mailing address is
included on the nomination. Prework and/or course selection information is sent to the address
on the nomination and some employees who are on leave are not receiving their
prework/selection letters. To help save mailing costs, NRTC is trying to email as much as
possible. If the employee is unsure of an address, use a supervisor’s address or the address of a
reliable person who will know how to contact the student.
Paul Chamberlain/Jeff Scussel’s Jobs – There is talk of combining those two jobs. These are
two full time jobs with many different topics under each. Is it a good idea to combine the two
full time jobs into one, especially with all of the controversy surrounding items like IFPM?
Please send comments up through your FMO to George Weldon and from the Line Officers to
Tom Tidwell.
FLAME Section of S290 – This is supposed to be an optional portion of the course. There are 19
questions on the final exam pertaining to FLAME.
- The national TWT knows about this and says the section is optional.
- http://training.nwcg.gov has a link for course updates and corrections.
The next meeting is October 21-22, 2008 in Missoula.