Communication, Prevention and Investigation (CPI) Working Team 3/27/12 mtg notes
Place/Time: Gifford Pinchot National Forest Headquarters – Mt. Adams Room 09:30-12:30
In Attendance
Lauren Maloney, Chair, BLM/USFS
Tom Knappenberger, USDA Forest Service
Claire McGrew, Oregon Office of the State Fire Marshal (OSFM)
Esther Hernandez, Washington State Patrol (WSP) via telephone
Len Diaz, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)
TrishHogervorst, Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
Rod Nichols, Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF)
The meeting was called to order at 09:40.
Notetaker for Meeting
Claire
Review and Approval of December 2011 Meeting Notes
The minutes from the December meeting were approved. Lauren will have these updated to the web.
CPI WT charter Review and discussion of member roles
The group reviewed the charter in order to meet the requirement for the steering committee. Lauren
provided some background on how the working teams were developed. Approximately three years ago,
the original subcommittees were restructured. There were originally 13 working teams, however, some
were not active. In an effort to ensure that the teams were adequately functioning, the three previous
working teams for communication, prevention and investigation was reformed into the working team
we have today.
Lauren had the group read through the goals and objectives. The group had some questions regarding
the goals and objectives concerning some overlap of programs and the challenges of having these three
working teams work in unison.
Len is on the WUI team for PNWCG. What does NIMO have to do with this? Tom explained how the
NIMO teams were focusing their efforts on the so-called “dirty 30” Forests. Len asked whether the
group should be including some of these in the goals and objectives. Len isn’t wanting to redo the lists
either, but we are wanting to ensure that we are communicating what we know. Len had some
concerns with the 30 and whether the fuels management committee is taking care of this.
2012 Program of Work - Recap recent task orders and agree on 2012
The PNWCG steering committee had sent out a note asking for each of the working teams to review
their strategic plan and review their proposal of work and affirm or deny it.
Lauren will send this out this afternoon, we need to provide input back by 4/2/12. Lauren reviewed the
intent of the strategic plan. Basically are looking to empower work teams, directions are
1) Empower working teams.
2) Establish a government structure.
3) Developing an incident response structure.
4) Provide oversight of agency policy changes.
5) Support efforts to understand the wildfire environment.
Lauren will send out a note this afternoon, please read this and send any comments back by noon on
Monday.
Essentially, they have linked to the strategic plan to the PNWCG plan of work. Under the strategic plan,
there are tasks. Under empowering working teams, the direction was for all teams to review their
charters. This has been completed.
As part of the strategic plan, the CPI WT will be tasked to do an annual report. Previously, Rod has done
the role of taking the task and Lauren has helped. Pat Kelly is the facilitator for the PNWCG and the
report goes to him.
Under Strategy D, the teams have identified a task order assigned to us. Our task will be to determine
how to make it most beneficial . Lauren will make a first run at writing the communication plan for
sharing the 2011 annual accomplishment report. Rod, Trish, Tom and Claire have offered to help.
This concludes what relates to our group. Lauren would like to come back and touch on this again once
we go through the agenda, if time allows.
PNWCG Annual Workshop
Tom attended the February meeting which took place February 14-15th, 2012. He provided them with a
report out on our key tasks which included the currency of the working team website. Here are other
key points from Tom’s briefing:
 Dale Gunther is our web go-to person
 Talked about the annual report
 Maintain communication with the organizers with the conference.
 Submitted Smokey Bear Awards in February.
 PIO listing/Training updates more of less have been taken care of.- Tom is helping to organize
the PIO community. (Side notes still have to have S203).
 Goal is to have a S-203 each year.
 Supporting the Fire Restrictions Website
 Most significant barrier to supporting our mission is declining budgets
 Keeping web up to date will be important
 Old Fire Prevention Co-Ops may need a revival
 On the larger two-day discussion, large scale strategies and tactics
 Reorganizing the incident management teams
 Cohesive Strategy
Smokey Bear AwardsEach year, the US Forest Service each year sponsors the Smokey Bear Awards. The deadline is in midFebruary and is broken down into three awards.
 Gold Smokey is national or multi-State prevention
 Silver Smokey is more regional prevention
 Bronze is more local level prevention.
This year, there were no gold or silver Smokey nominations. After reviewing the applications, it
appears that the projects currently being submitted do not meet the traditional definition of prevention
which are required for the award. The end result this year was that they ended up giving a number of
certificates out for local prevention efforts. This may result in a review of what the requirements for the
Smokey Award criteria considers. The criteria may need to change.
PNWCG Annual Accomplishment ReportSo far Rod has heard from 4 of the 12 entities that we need to hear back from for the annual report
 Incident Commander Council
 Northwest Center manager council.
 Fire Program analysis council
 Fuels advisory council.
Thanks to Rod for his time and effort in working on this project!
Training Issues – Options, Plan
This continues to be an important topic. The group tried to see how it can have some say in the classes
that we sponsor. The 100/200 level courses are offered at the local units. We really want to see S203
and FI210 courses offered. Lauren spoke to Renee’ Beams and they are changing the way that they do
business and they are looking to do the training communications. In November, they are doing a
conference and have invited Lauren to talk about what some our challenges are. The GAC training
coordinators get together once a year and share their lists. They do some trading to ensure that there
are no holes in the training. It has been a work in progress. There is now recognition that they need to
do this on a regional level. If our group is recognizing some holes in training, then Len feels like we need
a needs assessment.
Lauren indicated that our role is just to bring this to their attention and their role is to do the needs
assessment. She also indicated that our goal is for us to build capacity in this.
There was some discussion on whether the CPI WT should be involved in making these
recommendations. Discussion is whether the gap is in the training or is in the availability of the person.
IS this more of a communication problem instead?
Lauren will commit to working with the Training working team to let them know that we are struggling
with this and see if this communication helps. Len offered to assist with the investigation portion.
PNWCG Prevention Website
The former prevention working team did an overhaul of the Prevention Working Team’s website. The
domain name has lapsed and another entity bought the domain name and has used the front page
information for a sales pitch. All of the data that was attached is now gone. Please ensure that any
links that you have to this removed.
Tom requested that the website be sent out and Lauren will do this. We had previously decided that the
PNWCG prevention website is not effective for us due to the time that it requires for maintenance. If
we want to go forward with sharing information, then we could keep it simple and find a couple of
targeted things that we can do without overwhelming the group.
The current web presence for the CPI working team under the PNWCG site is basic. Lauren would like to
get more information up. Due to time constraints, we will talk about this more next time.
Fire Prevention Conference – Salishan Conference.
Lauren and Claire attended the conference. There were 4-5 individuals from the WIldland arena that
attended. The Working team did receive some support for scholarships this year, however, the
budgeted line item was not approved until after the conference registration was final.
For the future, Len would like to see it as more of a regional endeavor than a state focused workshop.
The group will revist this at a later time due to time constraints.
Fire Restrictions Project
The website relays all of the restrictions on where you can and can’t have a campfire. The NW Rockies
groups have done a great job in developing a strategy to provide consistent restrictions on the web.
The SW region is now making steps to get on board with this movement as well. Dale Gunther is the
contact for working on this national website. Lauren and Tom K. have reached out to take the first steps
of consolidation. Once Lauren receives the plan from the others, then she will share it with the group.
The goal is to get the public one place to go to get fire restrictions. Len will check with his counterparts
in the Northern Rockies and in the SW to see how the tribes are participating.
Representative updates
Tom – None
Trish- None
Rod – ODF is trying to reconfigure fire funding system to try to get more initial attack in high fire costs.
Len – Attended a conference last week which was was sponsored by the BIA. It was a Youth Firesetter
intervention training in Lewiston, ID. Len indicated that it is rare to have a youth firesetter intervention
program, however, they have 5 reservations that have adopted this and are using it. In regards to their
budgets – fuels, and suppression went down. Fire Prevention budget stayed level.
Claire McGrew- Claire has been meeting with Kris Babbs from ODF in order to promote consistent
messaging for fire safe communities in the WUI.
Lauren Maloney – Lauren is the new FS fire prevention coordinator. 2 weeks ago the fire service had a
webinar conference with their fire coordinators. Some of the items that came out of that:
Last week BLM hosted a statewide meeting of the fuels and community assistance group. BLM has
withdrawn from the National Fire Plan grants program, leaving FS as the primary funders. BLM is
changing how it funds work on community assistance. Last half of the week, Lauren met with her
community assistance counterparts in Boise.
Lauren explained to the group what she learned about the 2009 Flame Act, the Cohesive Strategy and
how that relates to BLM community assistance. It is a 3 phase strategy - just wrapping up phase 2. The
gist is that they are looking to have a national strategy that looks to involving all of the partners, not just
the typical 5. It should be ready by September 2012.
Future Meeting Schedule
Lauren will send out doodle polls. We are asked by the charter to post these a year in advance.
This meets the steering committee requirements.