Fuels Management Working Team Meeting
January 26, 2010
Quote of the Meeting: “I do think the magic is happening.” John Buckman.
In Attendance: Lauren Maloney, Bureau of Land Management/Forest Service; Leanne
Mruzik, BLM/FS; Gene Lonning, Bureau of Indian Affairs; John Buckman, Oregon
Department of Forestry, NE District; Pam Ensley, Fish and Wildlife Service; Laura Mayer,
FS/BLM; Alan McGuire-Dale, FS/BLM; Darrell Johnston, Washington Department of Natural
Resources
Via Teleconference: Mary Helen Smith, ODF; Dee Townsend, National Park Service
The meeting began at 9:05 a.m. at the Northwest Coordination Center (NWCC) with
introductions and an agenda review. In her role as Chair and facilitator of the meeting,
Leanne stated that the two most important goals of the meeting were to discuss and refine
the current Fuels Working Team Charter resulting in the group’s approval of the charter;
and to identify the group’s program of work for Fiscal Year 2010.
Identify Working Team Members: There was a brief discussion concerning the newly
reformatted group’s membership. John Buckman will represent Oregon Department of
Forestry with some help from Mary Helen Smith; Darrel Johnston will represent
Washington Department of Natural Resources in his role acting for Mark Gray, and Mark
will replace him when he returns to his regular position. Leanne will represent the BLM
fuels program. Bill Aney and/or Laura Mayer will represent the FS fuels program. Gene
Lonning will represent the BIA. Pam Ensley will represent the FWS and will also serve as
the liaison to the PNWCG Steering Committee. Alan McGuire-Dale will represent the FS
Cooperative Fire program and BLM Community Assistance program. Lauren Maloney is
serving as a temporary representative of the BLM Community Assistance program and the
FS Cooperative Fire program until a new BLM Grants Manager is hired. Dee Townsend will
represent the National Park Service.
Charter Review: This group worked on a draft of this charter at a meeting in October,
focusing somewhat on combining the charters of two former Pacific Northwest
Coordination Groups: the Fuels Working Team, and the National Fire Plan working team.
Today, the group first reviewed the Mission and Objectives section of the charter and
offered no changes to this version.
There was discussion under the Membership section concerning the grants subcommittee,
which identifies membership as representatives from the BLM, FS, WA DNR and ODF. A
sentence detailing possible membership representation was deleted as a result. There was
a discussion concerning the responsibilities and interests of the grant subcommittee,
including a need for increased monitoring. Most agreed there is a strong interest in the “so
what?” of the grants program. Someone pointed out that the conversation seemed to focus
on the hazardous fuels treatment grants and inquired about adding language to specify that
this group is also responsible to provide their agency guidance and perspective on other
grant programs as well, such as Rural and Volunteer Fire Assistance, Ready Reserve, and
State Fire Assistance. This is implied in the title “grants,” as all of these programs are
administered through federal grants. Some minor edits were made the to the grants
subcommittee membership paragraph of the charter to remove fuels-management-specific
language.
Minor edits were made to the language describing the Chair and Vice-Chair paragraphs,
such as adding the acronym “PNWCG” before the word “website,” to clarify where the ViceChair will post working team meeting notes.
In the section regarding Decisions, there was some discussion concerning the intent and
meaning of agreeing the group would make decisions based on consensus. Pam offered the
the PNWCG Steering Committee also uses a consensus decision-making model that includes
an agency-specific quorum and offered that the group may wish to use that language.
Leanne agreed to locate that language and put it in the revised charter with a plan to email
the final revision to the group by the end of the day on Wednesday, January 27th. Leanne
asked that group members please promptly review that paragraph and offer any revisions
immediately so that the charter could be finalized.
The group took a short break and resumed at 10:45 a.m.
Indentify 2010 Program of Work: The group began by brainstorming a list of possible
work for 2010. This brainstorm included the following:
 West-wide Risk Assessment
 Annual map of fuels projects
 Fuels Budget Analysis (EMDS, HFPAS,
CDP)
 Ways to share RX burn resources on
an interagency basis
 Landfire – latest refresh
 Fire Program Analysis
 Implementing the Cohesive Strategy
(2000)
 Implement the annual grant cycle
This brainstorm included some explanation of the mechanics of the west-wide risk
assessment (FS grant to ODF in the amount of $1.2 M, based on southern risk assessment
which resulted in a 13-state map showing high-priority areas in red. ODF then hires the
consulting firm completing the work for all 17 states engaged).
The group also did a brainstorm on what work might need to be done specifically related to
grants, including: identifying a lead for the grants subcommittee (this will be an FS person,
given the high percentage of FS funds overall in grants), the grant cycle/schedule,
establishing ground rules for applications, monitoring, reporting, information
dissemination, soliciting applications, making the prioritization process transparent,
generating a laundry list of different types of grants and their cycle/schedule, and creating
a synopsis of the “different colors of money,” including ARRA, and even the 2008
Supplemental funds.
Lauren indicated she already has a briefing paper that describes this and could share that
to begin the conversation. Then the group began to brainstorm other grant programs,
including the Western Competitive Process, and FEMA grants. This led to discussion about
what grant programs are important to the work of this group and what should be included
in a write up of the various grant programs. Mary Helen Smith and Darrel Johnston agreed
they could provide some information about other grant programs important to their work
that have not traditionally been included in the grants working team’s workload as part of
the information gathering process.
There was discussion about how the group might help with funding leveraging. For
example, could some grant programs serve to help leverage grant dollars from other
programs, such as invasive weed or biomass programs? (Note: generally, federal granting
agencies do not allow other federal funds to count as part of required “match” for their
awards, though grants from non-federal entities are allowed)
The group discussed its sense that what the PNWCG Steering Committee would like to see
from this committee is something that inventories past projects, how they were funded,
how they were prioritized - what’s been accomplished to date. A POW goal might be to
create a product that inventories past NFP projects from around 2005 forward and offer a
clarification on state processes. Could each agency offer an inventory of its projects for that
time frame and do a write up of how each program is implemented by that agency?
The group discussed developing a briefing paper that describes each of the grant programs
and each agency’s involvement with each program, including a list of what’s been
accomplished for each program. This led back to the question of which programs are the
most relevant to include. The suggestion was made to review the older NFP
accomplishment reports and consider what programs were tracked in those.
Finally, the group agreed to round up already-existing data and reports and bring it
together for review and discussion on the next call so a better understanding of what data
already exists could help define the work product. This could help determine what
programs the group will track and the different ways each agency is engaged.
Leanne agreed to include today’s input on the charter and send it back out to the group by
email on January 27th, with the understanding that the charter would be considered “final”
if there were no significant changes.
Leanne also agreed to set up a Doodle poll to help identify dates for the group to meet
through the year, including a conference call in February to consider the data gathered and
next steps.
The meeting adjourned at 12:25.