Spring 2010 PNW Incident Commander Meeting
Hood River Inn, 1108 East Marina Way, Hood River OR
Mar 29-30, 2010 final meeting notes
Mar 29 Session. In Attendance: Carla Schamber, Jim Furlong, Carl Gossard, Pam Ensley, Tom
Cable, Nick Giannettino, Ken Paul, Brett Fillis, Tom Savage, Kurt Ranta, Rob Batten, Nick
Lunde, Brian Watts, Brian Goff, Jim Walker, Dave LaFave, Jeff Pendleton, Ed Lewis, Doug
Koellermeier, Dave Leitch, Keith Satterfield, Rex Reed, Mike Spencer, Chris Hoff, Mike
Morcom, Chris Schulte, Doug Grant, Mark Rapp, Doug Johnson, Jennifer Letz, Kathy Shelton,
Carl West, Ross Williams, Ron Barber, Dennis Sifford, Chris Klein, Paul Bell, Dan O’Brien, Jan
Mathis; Oregon Forest Industries Council, Mike Dykzuel; Ted Reiss, Seneca Timber; Milton
Moran, Cascade Timber Consultants.
Meeting called to order at 1230 hrs.
Carla presented agenda overview.
(Handout #1- Spring 2010 PNW Incident Commander Council Agenda, 2 pp)
Welcome & Introductions
Carla Schamber & Jim Furlong
PNWCG Perspective
Carl Gossard
Thanks to all the IMTs. It takes special people to get teams up and running. We appreciate the
work you do.
PNWCG took a good hard look at the Strategic Plan and the structure of the working teams.
Merged several teams and added one new team.
o National Fire Plan WT incorporated under the Fuels Working Team.
o The Prevention, Communication and Investigations WT was merged into the Prevention
and Communication WT.
o The Contract WT merged with Incident Business Practices WT.
o Added the newly formed Safety and Health Working Team. Shelby Gales is the Chair.
She’s currently working on recruiting members.
We currently have a total of eight working teams and three Advisory Councils:
1) IC Council
2) FENC Council
3) FPA Council who participated for the first time at the Feb Annual WT-SC meeting
this year.
The next step is to have the liaisons go through the Strategic Plan with each of their working
teams.
Incident within Incident Protocols
 The incident in California last year highlighted the need to improved capability to extract
injured firefighters faster (by ground or air).
 The AWT has conducted a survey of hoist capabilities in the PNW.
 Looking at different methods so that we can be efficient with extraction.
 Encourage all teams to practice and do tabletop exercises on how you would organize for
an incident within an incident.
PNICC Spring Meeting Notes Mar 29-30, 2010 - pg 1
Question: Has PNWCG looked at standardization of incident within and incident?
 Response: The safety officers at ODF have developed an incident within an incident
plan which they will be happy to share. They will forward to Jim Furlong who will
send out electronically with the ICs.
 Jim Furlong will be happy to act as a conduit and share other incident within an
incident plans from other teams.
NWCG IMT Study Update
Pam Ensley
(Handout #2 – IMT Succession Project Team & Task Teams worksheet, 5 pp)
 Please complete the worksheets and send to Pam Ensley, USFWS, by Apr 5, 2010.
She would like to take your comments and suggestions to the National Meeting on Apr 6-7.
It doesn’t have to be anything formal, just your thoughts and suggestions.
Send your worksheets to Pam Ensley (FWS), David Summer (FS), or Tom Cable (NIMO)
Landowner’s Perspective (OFIC)
Mike Dykzeul, Milt Moran, Ted Reiss
Mike Dykzeul, Oregon Forest Industries Council:
There were issues that came up from the Williams Creek Incident. These were discussed at the
AAR with private landowners and Federal agencies. This highlighted a need for improvement
and the desire for both to continue to work more closely together.
Another incident occurred shortly after. The Tumblebug Complex which involved Seneca
Timber working with the NW Oregon Team, Carl West and Pam Ensley.
There are 12 local forest protection areas governed by a Board of Directors which set an adequate
level of forest protection. There’s a lot of crossover from private landowners and the Forest
Service, Bureau of Land Management and ODF.
April 1, 2010 is the 100 year anniversary of Cooperative Fire Protection in Oregon.
There’s a resurgence and reaffirmation of the cooperative nature of firefighting.
Private landowner’s have capabilities that can assist in the effort: training, resources.
They want to be listened to and respected, they’re willing to be open and work with other
agencies.
Milt Moran, Cascade Timber Consultants:
Thank you for your success in protecting public and private lands.
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The issue is State/Federal has effects on landowner’s property.
Invite the landowners in early. Think of them as an asset. Local folks have local
knowledge of the area: road systems, detailed maps of fire areas, sensitive
resources/habitat in the area. These are unique skills that can be useful in fighting fires.
Ops in the organization could work with the landowners.
PNICC Spring Meeting Notes Mar 29-30, 2010 - pg 2
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Private land should be the last resort as to where to stop a fire.
Indentify concerns in areas, there are wilderness areas near private lands.
Adjacency and access issues, fire breaks, roads.
Ted Reiss, Seneca Timber (operations in Eugene & Roseburg)
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One acre of land on private property is worth approx. $1000
To protect these investment, we constantly work to maintain road systems, firefighting
capabilites, and ease of access. We don’t want any fire from private land going on to
Federal and State land.
Want to work with the Federal & State agencies to coordinate their efforts. Think of us as
an ally and an asset.
 Mike Dykzeul will be putting together a 1 page paper for landowner’s on how to prepare
to be engaged before fire season and during fire season. He’s open to suggestions from
this group.
 Mike Dykzeul to gather input, conclusions and lessons learned from the 12
associations, at their upcoming meeting. He’ll send the results to Jim Furlong, who
will forward out to the ICs.
Sustainable Ops
(Handout #3 – Sustainable Ops & ICPs, 3 pp)
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Jennifer Letz
Sustainability issues – environmental, social, health & safety decisions; efficient
processes, not wasting resources. The focus is on ICPs.
Regional Office wants to take the leadership role in sustainable ops.
Sustainable ops is about creating a consumption ethic to parallel our land ethic.
Consider all opportunities to incorporate sustainable ops through routine operations.
Jennifer will be going out to the field to observe 5 to 6 different T1 & T2 NW teams this season
for about 3 days.
(Carl Gossard) Suggests that she rotate her visits between eastern side and the western side of
Oregon and Washington to see the difference in types of resources available (if any) for recycling.
Western Collective, Greening Fire Team (Jennifer is co-chair) have 3 2010 focus areas:
1) Waste Stream Analysis
2) Bottle Beverage Reduction
3) Success Stories Depository
What would the group like to see Jennifer work on for your teams or incidents?
Brown bag lunches - donate the waste from these to a food bank. The juice boxes are an issue.
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The juice boxes are going away this year.
Link some policy issues to local capability. Waste management may not have recycling facility.
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Trying to get the AA to check waste recycling opportunities before they go in.
PNICC Spring Meeting Notes Mar 29-30, 2010 - pg 3
Where are we headed with the bottled water issue?
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We want to find out what it is folks like about bottled water and find a better way to
deliver that product (explore other options).
Good place to start would be at the local level to get their expertise.
Hot Shot and Engine Community – could learn from them.
ODF / logistics team have been studying this for the last couple of years. Hired a local person as
a recycling coordinator to document cost savings of recycling.
Include Sustainable Ops in Logistics section training.
Incident Business Update
Kathy Shelton
There were 2 items from the IHC community:
1) Compensable Meal Breaks. This is in the National Arena, it’s been handed over to the
Incident Business Working Team. It’s a human resource rule. Forest Service will be
talking to the Human Resources department and ask them to define this further. Once
that is done, they’ll work to change the language in the IB handbook. You won’t see
anything this year, expect to see it in 2011.
2) IHC crews will be traveling with their own inventory of items this year which will list
quantities, type of gear, serial numbers from chain saws, etc. Still need to work on the
State language, but be aware that you will see crews show up this way.
Rehired annuitants – federal employees have heard about the DoD appropriations bill
making it easier for federal agencies to hire annuitants without effecting their retirement earnings.
The scenario will be different when it comes to implementation ruling from the other agencies.
From a draft implementation from the Forest Service, there will only be a limited number (ie. 400
positions) that will be filled with rehired annuitants. These are a mix of positions, not just fire
positions. FWS has only 72 positions available nationally.
ADs cannot go out of country on fire assignments. NWCG clarified at a recent meeting
that many of our cooperators also cannot go out of the country. Unless there is an agreement with
that country (ie. Canada, Mexico, Australia). You have to know what their authorities are for
leaving the country. Need to take stock of your teams, know how they were hired and what the
rules are. Know who can go and who can’t go.
Resource Reallocation Strategy – Dan O’Brien will be going over this tomorrow. Just
know that the business piece has been taken care of and it will be covered at the team meetings.
Kathy Shelton will be retiring at the end of April. Will be filling her position, when you see the
new employee for Incident Business this summer, please introduce yourself.
Follow-up from Fall 2009 PNICC meeting
Jim Furlong
Time to go over some of the items that we promised to work on last fall.
1) Workforce Capacity
PNICC Spring Meeting Notes Mar 29-30, 2010 - pg 4
This is the age-old problem of continually filling our Incident Management Teams. This is the
first issue that we identified 3 years ago when we became an IC Council. Put together a
workforce capacity paper which describes the most problematic positions to fill. This issue made
the list again this fall. At a meeting two weeks ago, went through the paper and thought of some
new ways to put more energy into this issue. An updated action plan was put together with tasks
and dates so hopefully we can continue to make progress.
 Jim will send out this new action plan to the entire council so to see the progress
that’s been made (or not), to make comments or come up with new ideas.
Renee Beams has worked the IQCS system (includes employees in the Fed, State & County in
Washington), and put together a list of any individual who are qualified, trainees with a task book,
and any potential trainees (meet pre-requisites to be issued a taskbook)
 Jim will send out these lists, created as excel spreadsheets, to all of the ICs so they
can be used as a tool to fill teams.
One of the new ideas from Renee Beams is to offer a 400 level course and follow up with
an incident participation survey. Students will fill out this survey. For other courses at the 400
level, do a survey of the folks who were successful. Do you have a taskbook? Yes. Have you
gone out? No. Why? Supervisor won’t let them go, personal reason, etc. This gives us some
way to follow up on why folks haven’t been going out.
2) Role of NIMO
Tom Cable, Jeff Pendleton & Chris Hoff
FLAME Act and Strategic Risk Assessments. If you want to get funding from the FLAME Act
and Congress, a Strategic Risk Assessment will be required. In 2011, the Forest Service will
require a Strategic Risk Assessment to for all T1 & T2 complexity fires.
1. On some incidents, NIMO can come in, get the Risk Assessment all set up, train the
units on the process, then move on.
2. On a T1 incident, NIMO can come in as the lead or as an advisor. On a T2 incident,
NIMO can be an advisor or take the lead with the T2 team C&G becoming deputies.
The intent is to train as much as we can with NIMO this year, so we’re ready next year.
RLT (FS) John Phipps, maybe we can get this process down to one 8 ½ x 11 sheet of paper. This
may be all that’s needed to satisfy the FLAME act requirement. They want to make it an efficient
process.
It’s crucial that the home units learn this process so that we can access FLAME Act money.
There are 5 Continuous Improvement sessions coming up:
Apr 7-8
Rogue River-Siskiyou
Apr 22-23 COFMS
May 11-12 Wallowa-Whitman
May 17-21 Okanogan-Wenatchee
Malheur is set for June – exact date to be announced
PNICC Spring Meeting Notes Mar 29-30, 2010 - pg 5
Risk Assessment – preparedness planning is very important. Everything you invest in
preparedness can help you exponentially later on. The more you do up-front, the easier it will in
terms of process and time requirements.
You can find Preparedness Modules on the Forest Preparedness Planning “Lessons Learned”
website at:
http://www.wildfirelessons.net/additional.aspx?Page=300
What do you get with a NIMO team?
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We’re a seven person C&G staff
Have CWN lists (Call When Needed)
Tries to build capacity, work to tap local resources to build capacity.
Come in an provide oversite
Provide mentoring and recommendations
NIMO is still learning and growing. Can be utilized for many different functions.
Overlap of T2 & NIMO team roles, what would the T2 IC do? Same situation, can only be one
person with the delegation, just work together.
3) Structural Protection Plan
Rex Reed
A plan has been drafted up. Want to come up with a generic template every one can utilize. Then
find a site to post. Hopefully by mid-April, the draft plans will be circulated to the ICs.
4) T3 Teams / Organizations
(Handout #4 – Briefing Paper on T3 Teams, 1 p)
Chris Schulte
Asked to find out the current status of T3 IMTs. In response, Mike Morcom developed a survey
and it’s was sent out to all of the stand alone and blended units in OR and WA.
Heard back from all but 2 of those surveyed.
We haven’t drawn any conclusions from the survey yet. Hope to do that soon.
The agencies that are now Dept of Homeland Security and FEMA are becoming the T3 IMT
experts.
IT Support to IHC Teams
Jim Furlong / Dale Guenther
(Handout #5 – PNWCG Adopt An IMT, 1 p)
(Handout #6 – Adopt an IMT – Interagency IT Support for the PNW Teams, 1 p)
Presented the implementation proposal. Dale Guenther has agreed to take the lead.
Work with the CTSPs, assess their needs. Have them funnel an order through Dale for
consistency. Then have the agencies listed on the sheet buy the equipment that the teams need
and assign to the teams.
You will tell what you have, then tell us what you need.
$10K the first year, with $5K per year thereafter.
PNICC Spring Meeting Notes Mar 29-30, 2010 - pg 6
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Apr 1 CTSPs put together a list of their equipment they have, then tell us what they need.
The next step will be for a steering group of CTSPs to set the equipment standards.
Apr 26 will go thru the requests.
May 7 – 21 start the purchasing process. Not sure how long this will take.
Host agency will make the purchase and equipment will be sent to the CTSPs.
We’re not going to focus on Thin Client. (it would require extra training)
The common architecture will be laptops linked through a basic server.
A component we’re working on is to contract for a transition kit. Vendors will configure a kit
that can be ordered and set up so that when a new team arrives, everything will be ready.
Equipment pre-season agreements in configuring and setting up that configuration.
11 teams, $10K per team:
6 teams funded by the FS
2 teams funded by the BLM
1 team funded by the BIA
2 teams funded by the DNR (DNR has no funding this year, but will contribute in other
ways.
Risk Assessment Process
(powerpoint presentation)
Nick Giannettino
Risk Assessment Process is composed of 3 elements:
1. Strategic risk management = decisions at the AA level
2. Deliberate risk management = decisions at the IMT level
3. Time critical risk management = decisions at the crew level
SRA risk-based decision making process that considers Values and Risk (VAR) & exposure.
What’s the probability of success?
A new term is Prospect (a prospect is nothing more than an alternative)
Roles: AA is the Risk Manager
IMO is a consultant to the AA (Incident Management Organization)
Principles, Tools & Practices:
 Pre-season preparedness
 Google Earth applications – info gathering, display & assessment (ARC, quantification of
values, VAR, land management databases, etc)
 Forms, tables & outline (other behind the scenes applications)
The Boze Fire Risk Assessment was shown as an example:
Example illustrates the four columns in a risk assessment:
1. Resource at Risk
2. Probability
3. Consequences, Effects & Severity
4. Mitigation and Action Trigger
PNICC Spring Meeting Notes Mar 29-30, 2010 - pg 7
Risk Assessment on the Incident
Jeff Pendleton
(powerpoint presentation)
(Handout #7 – Summary of the proposed Incident Risk Assessment Process, 10 pp)
This season, Jeff worked with the X team (a group of folks from NIMO) and Don MacGregor on
this process. Strategic Risk Assessment is a FS process right now. But when you get to the
Deliberate Risk Assessment, this is something IMTs do all the time.
Strategic Risk Assessment is the view from the 30,000 ft level
Standard definitions of Hazards & Risk:
Hazards – identification of the hazards
Risk – what is the risk to the firefighter and the severity of that risk
Risk assessment is the process of identifying, assessing and controlling risks.
Deliberate Risk Assessment (Operational risk management is part of system safety) and is a
7-step process:
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Identify mission
Identify hazards
Assess risks
Identify options
Evaluate risk vs gain
Execute decision
Monitor situation
More than a process, Risk Management Assessment is a way to communicate a little differently.
Sharing the risk, that communication with the AA and carrying that onto the ground to the
firefighters.
Time Critical: Risk assessments done “on the fly” by ff at the ground level, deference to
expertise, doing the right things for the right reasons.
Is the risk worth the amount of exposure?
Mission is broken into tasks. The tasks are what you do your risk assessment on. Are the risks
worth the gain?
You can break these tasks (missions?) down further when you do risk assessments. One of our
challenges is finding the right level to conduct your risk assessment.
For efficiency and safety, the deliberative risk assessment process has a huge amount of value.
Risk Assessment can make the process more objective, than subjective (less emotional).
Not a huge change, enhancement of a piece of it. It’s a new way of communicating
so the AA and folks on the ground can have a common operational picture.
This process is for those 20 to 30 large long duration fires that we get every year.
PNICC Spring Meeting Notes Mar 29-30, 2010 - pg 8
Where do we go from here? Strategic risk assessment isn’t a requirement until 2011. We have
the opportunity to work with this process, so we can provide good feedback at the end of the
season for what worked and what didn’t work. Influence what we end up as the final solution in
2011.
(Tom Cable – NIMO) Our intention this year is to leave a packet of completed Strategic Risk
Assessment copies so that they can use as a reference.
Summary of action items (Carla Schamber)
 Incident within an incident – Tom Savage at ODF to finalize and send to Jim Furlong.
 Tom will push to Jim and Jim will send to ICs.
 OIG successional planning document, can now be released to the public
 OFIC state tour – minutes & findings will come through Mike Dykzeul to Jim, then out to
ICs
 Successional planning update – a number of spreadsheet attachments. Jim to send out to
the ICs
 Input to Pam on National IMT Succession Planning study, proposals and inputs to her by
April 5.
Meeting adjourned at 1700 hrs.
Tues, Mar 30 Session
Meeting called to order 0730 hrs
Feedback Mechanisms on Incidents
Kurt Ranta
(Handout #8 – PNW IHC Briefing Paper – 3 pp)
(Handout #9 – Suggestions/Proposals from the fall 2009 Incident Communication AAR, 4 pp)
Neil Austin, Chair
Jeff Dimke co-Chair
Eric Miller – National IHC SC rep
We had our Spring meeting a couple of weeks ago and tied in with the Fire Ops Safety
Conference. We further defined what we wanted out of our advisors: IC group, FALT group;
shared resources in SORO – Sarah Robertson; Safety – Shelby Gales. Mark Rapp is our rep for
the IC group.
Current Events
New group Charter & Code:
o Defined advisory roles
o Established steering committee
o Ambassador concept
o Re-defining decision-making process
PNICC Spring Meeting Notes Mar 29-30, 2010 - pg 9
IHC EMTs Scope of Practice:
o IHC-EMTs attending IMS conference
o Starting affiliation under Dr. Jui
o Covers our EMT’s when on the line
Note: The issue with IMS is still at a stalemate in WA state.
PNWIHC Inventory/replacement form. When the IHCs show up at an incident, they’ll give the
team an inventory form that lists what they have brought with them. This is to alleviate some of
the inconsistencies.
Background:
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Communication issues back in 2007
Focused the issue and developed tools (feedback for & DoA addition)
PNWIHC engage with outside meetings/groups
Trying to close the “gap” (how we’re making decisions on the ground vs. what the
AA thinks is being done.
o Communication workshop at spring ‘09
o Fall AAR
AAR:
4 discussion items (see handouts #8 & #9 for details)
1) Intent
2) Workforce capacity
3) Feedback channels
4) Strategy/Mission
Tools for IHC’s to use
o Work with fireline leaders – solve communication issues low in the chain of command
o “Shadow” ops positions
o Use the tools the IMT’s offer (crew boss meetings)
o Encourage AAR’s and offer to facilitate (be proactive)
o Solicit feedback on crew performance. Encourage use of new 224. The IHC
o Seek out information and intent during transition phase when a lot of things are changing.
During the transition phase, there’s lot of time the intent is not clear when a lot of things
are changing.
Tools for IMT’s to use
o Continue to build trust and communicate intent to non-team fireline supervisors
(mission and intent)
o Communicate intent in daily briefings, and pre-ops meeting
o Enforce the use of AAR’s at line-levels (include in ICS-204 as an expectation)
o Encourage AA’s involvement in non-traditional ways (eg attend crew boss meetings, preops meeting)
Tools
o Promote HRO thinking by education firefighters through briefings and AAR’s
o Explore ways in involve contractors/partners in learning process (not many answers from
this discussion, identifying challenges here)
o Use crew boss meetings and AAR’s as opportunities to catch “weak signals”
PNICC Spring Meeting Notes Mar 29-30, 2010 - pg 10
o Start looking at new ways to solicit and incorporate feedback from the ground.
Challenges from AAR
o Need more widespread representation across agencies and disciplines (we need to have
everybody in the room, not always the same players, budget barriers can be a factor)
o Same discussion from the same people
o No true action items developed. Just similar themes
o How do we keep momentum going forward?
o Looking to groups like you for ideas
 Anytime you have suggestions or ideas, we want feedback from you. Always open to
new information on incidents, emails.
Strategic Risk Assessment
o A natural step forward. Will help close that “gap”
o In concert with High Reliability Org principles
o Would force us to strengthen communication and trust (through intent and feedback)
o The PNWIHCs are committed to making it work. And committed to helping implement
it. We’re available to do this.
Current efforts
o Changing our charter in order to expand capacity.
o Continuing representation at group meetings
o Front-loading IMT’s with IHC info. This has been put on thumb drives and will be
handed out to every team: feedback form, new version of the 224 form, replacement
inventory list, revised charter with appendices, and code of conduct (how we’re going to
operate on an incident and the process to use if a problem arises with updated POC list),
SOPs, Good Sam Briefing paper. This is for more transparency on our side.
o Beginning efforts to incorporate all resources (engines, T2 crews, national shared
resources) into united effort
o 2010 AAR in the Fall.
NWCC Update, Resource Reallocation Strategy
(powerpoint presentation)
(Handout #10 – Resource Reallocation Strategy, 9 pp)
Dan O’Brien
Dan highlighted the items in the document that apply to the ICs.
PNWCG tasked a group of folks to compile a grouping of strategies that MAC could use when
resources were tight for whatever reason.
Looked at three currently in use:
 Lend/lease
 Pre-position
 Resource Reallocation
Two are new strategies:
 IMT Reserve
 Surge Task Force
PNICC Spring Meeting Notes Mar 29-30, 2010 - pg 11
The Incident Business Practices WT has been task with coming up with a pre-season agreement
on how the costs to pre-positioning will be handled.
Negotiation and coordination is done with the sending unit and receiving unit for resource
reallocation.
IMT Reserve - assembles and mobilizes a packet of resources to be sent to an incident to meet
objectives. Any crews remaining will have at least 6 days of work left. Travel is paid by the
receiving incident. The intent is to time them to arrive when you do.
The folks who sit on the NW MAC will use their prioritization processes. This dictates where the
resources will go. Prioritization and reallocation is another thing, Reallocation is more
challenging. The reserve is pre-identified so that they can be pulled quickly and not all
reallocated from an existing incident.
You need to let the AA of the receiving unit know that you’ll be receiving these resources so that
they can build the strategy around that.
Mission prioritization vs. incident prioritization.
Regional Surge Task Force – designed to bring together a group together to complete a specific
mission. What sets the RSTF? This remains under the control of the NW MAC and moves
together from mission to mission between incidents and complexes. NWCC takes care of the
costs/documentation for the task force. Checkout, demob, billeting, travel, time taken care at the
NWCC.
It is a true regional resource. Will be composed of Type 1 or Type 2 resources, something that is
fairly capable, mobile and self-sustaining.
Operations are based on the request from the IC an AA submitted 2 days before they’re needed.
IC AA Area Commander to pull those resources together to get the process going. MAC is the
frontman in the communication and negotiation. Assignments are 1 to 4 days.
Task Force Request Form is posted to the NWCC website.
 Make your request
 List the days needed
 Probability of success
 The consequences of not completing the task.
How does the set of 5 tools fit into the Risk Assessment process?
With the Risk Assessment process you need to address the question: What is the resource
availability to execute that course of action? Are the resources available to be successful?
It goes back to communication. The process requires thinking ahead.
You need reasonable assuredness that you will have the resources, this another way to
access resources.
 Dan will work with Jim Furlong to get the Task Force Request form out to the ICs.
PNICC Spring Meeting Notes Mar 29-30, 2010 - pg 12
National AC/IC Update
Chris Hoff / Jeff Pendleton
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Successional Planning: We have 16 national teams left, however when you throw out the
ADs, there’s only 11 teams left. So the workforce capacity issue is huge. NWCG is
working on team configuration and where we’re headed. There will be some changes
coming.
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Federal fire management strategies, state and local cooperators, recognize that there are
tensions there. Need to understand the challenges and complexities that we are dealing
with regarding stakeholders.
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There was a presentation on social media. Some teams have been trying some twitter and
facebook stuff. Did a survey and found that 73% wanted the one-on-one communication
via e-mail, telephone. Only 15% of the respondents go to our public meetings. Message,
the new media is out there, but seems most of our respondents for large fires may be like
the older generation. Still a work in progress. Room for new tools, but with older
audiences, planning meetings and telephones work right now.
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Zimmerman – evolution of WFDSS program. Relative risk assessment chart that was at
the back of the program more. Smoke did dispersal models, farsite will be attached in
threr. Developing a cost module (tough one) some estimation model, complexity analysis.
NIMO has an X-team working on the complexity analysis.
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Continue on with KDLs which is web-based on FAMWEB. The goal is to link right into
WFDSS. We’re not this year, but a work in progress
National mob guide:
o Clarified aviation length
o Chptr 20 ICS 209
o Chptr 60 removed NIMO rotation
o Upped the crew weight
o FBANs automated weather units, the IMETS are taking care of updating them
o Small shower unit with some of the vendors - 4 to 11 stalls (2K per day)
o 12+ stall showers are the usual size. We have 12 national buying teams now.
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Automation looking at bar codes for supply. Will be a couple of pilots this year.
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Big things for these programs – security training is required. For state guys, will have to
complete the training some way to access.
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2011 ISuite will be tied directly into ROSS.
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More on the Media: National talking points posted on the PIO bulletin board on the NIFC
website.
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Talked a lot about the golden hour and what happened at the Dutch Creek and how we
honor the golden hour. If we can’t extract the individual within one hour, we really need
to consider the tactics to see if we’re on the right track.
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Talked a lot on the hoist capability and it’s pretty limited here. We rely on the coast guard
and navy right now.
PNICC Spring Meeting Notes Mar 29-30, 2010 - pg 13
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The golden hour is going to be a major item for all the teams this year.

Predictive services – there’s a big red bullseye right over the Northern Rockies and the
Pacific Northwest. Dan O’Brien will cover more on predictive services later.

MEDC is doing smoke research. They may be coming out to our incidents to do smoke
sampling studies. They have permission to do this, so if they call you and ask to come
out, please allow it. Studying regression between carbon monoxide and how that relates
to particulate matter.

Hosting all-risk T3 teams - Expect more requests coming from that group to your teams
this season.

There’s some new technology that’s coming that’s very cool. They can offer some
services, such as real time monitoring during daytime.
Aviation Update
Ron Vail / Scott Dewitz
(Handout #11 – Aviation IC Meeting Information, 4 pp)
o Regarding Type 1 Heli, there hasn’t been a decision on troop transport from the WO.
Don’t know where they’re at on this issue.
o Big thing is the letter from the Chief, standing down the rappel program. Region 6 feels
that they’ve met most of the mitigation measures and hope to have the program stood back
up this fire season.
o RADS was also shut down, because of the rappel program.
o 18 large air tankers this season.
o VLAT program has been awarded a CWN basis. (one DC-10 and one 747)
o CA have put on a couple of COBRAs, tasked to be deployed outside of R 5, on a trial
basis will see how this will work. Order up through NWCC.
o With the number of aircraft we have, 11 new aviation positions have been added for the
purpose of quality assurance. These will be WO employees, some stationed in Boise, the
others will be hosted at the regional level. ASC and AVUE is working on it.
o There are five Air Attack platforms in the R6 these are available for IMTs but mainly for
IA. Contact your local dispatch.
o Working on training up as many air attacks as we can. They’re hard to find.
o Aerial task force put together with Clay Hillin and Scott Dewitz.
o ASM detail last year. Worked out great, but won’t have that this year. May have an ASM
throughout the season, they can help a lot.
o Working to provide good quality training out there.
o If you need a hand, give Scott Dewitz a call.
 Will send the handout electronically to Jim who will send out to the ICs.
PNICC Spring Meeting Notes Mar 29-30, 2010 - pg 14
OR DNR Aviation update
Paul Bell
Not much change. We have 2 Air Tankers, 3 T2 ships statewide in addition to the districts
capabilities. We have an agreement for an ASM out of Alaska, will probably see that later in the
season. The Oregon National Guard Black Hawks are back in Salem. We’ll have our standard
capacity with hoist capability. No access to the National Guard Chinook this year.
WA DNR Aviation update
Rex Reed
6 T2 helicopters are pre-positioned in Ellensburg right now. Other places they are positioned
during fire season are Colville, Omak, Klickitat, Blue Mountains.
National Guard training in place. The King Air 200 is about to be sold.
Geographic Training Coordinator Position
Mike Spencer
This topic was one of the items on the workforce capacity effort we identified a couple of years
ago. This position is to work with the home units, to help build capacity, training mobilization.
Our goal was to focus and trainees more available to you and see if we can get a match. This is
an interagency effort.
Please send the following info to Mike Gomez at mgomez@fs.fed.us
 The name of your training specialist and their cell phone number and/or
 The name and cell phone number of your planning section chief.
 Send in a list of priority trainees that are available to go out.
He will make phone calls personally to these folks.
Position will be staffed when there are 2 Type 2 IMT’s out. He’ll be working at the NWCC.
Dan O’Brien
NWCC Update
(NWCC – Prelim Outlook powerpoint presentation)
Lease is up in the near future at NWCC, so we’re looking for new digs. Looking in the central
Portland business district. Adding the street car line OHSU south to the NW beyond the Pearl.
It will cost a lot more to lease a new place. We’ll talk about budget on Thursday.
GSA could have us in a new place by March of 2012, but they hope to get us into something by
Spring 2011.
o The NWC Center Manager Job announcement closes today.
o Dave Quinn is detailed into the Coordinator’s job, NTE is up in August. A request has
been submitted to ASC to fill or extend. Hope to have something by June.
o Kim Kelly is transitioning to BIA full-time. Barb Haney to fill in behind.
Dolly Davis is working on the Mob guide. Will be posted on-line and distributed to the units by
the first week in June.
PNICC Spring Meeting Notes Mar 29-30, 2010 - pg 15
o The only major change is for levels PL3 any orders are to go through the NWCC to
facilitate more communications.
Decision support center will be up and running this summer whether Dan’s in the Fire Analysis
position or not.
Weather outlook:
o Below average to 50 to 60 % below average for snow pack.
o Precipitation totals including rain looks better. A lot of brown showing up through the
Northern Rockies.
o April starts cool and wet. Warm up and dry up as the month goes on, south and east of
Washington, below normal at the NW part of the GAC.
o El Nino – a moderate El Nino pattern is expected to slowly decrease through mid summer.
Most El Nino’s are followed by a dry spring.
o This would portend earlier snow melt and fuel availability.
o Highly responsive fine fuels availability over wider area.
o Fire season begins up to 2 weeks earlier than usua1 and adding to the overall length.
o En Nino is not a good indicator of fire season weather patterns in the PACNW.
o Number and intensity of lightning episodes drives fire activity.
Summary: Expect an earlier than normal fire season due to fine fuels availability.
 Fall IC meeting will be in the Fall Monday, Nov 15 to 16, 2010 noon to noon, in
conjunction with the FALT. If FALT does not meet that week, we’ll move the IC
meeting to another date. (Location: We’ll have our meeting wherever the FALT
meeting)
Award Presentation
Jim Furlong
A “Spirit of a Leader” award was presented to Ken Paul in honor of his contributions and
retirement. Congratulations Ken!
Carla: Thanks the PNWCG members who came and stayed with us. Appreciate that you came,
listened and contributed. One of our guests, Milt Moran, has stayed with us for the whole time,
we appreciate that. Thanks to Jan for notetaking.
AAR
What Was Planned?
Good review of those issues that we will have going into fire season, policy changes, coordinate
our activities, face-to-face.
Updates on our 6 different action items that our committees were working on.
Intentionally planned our session to tie in with the ODF team meeting to try to minimize travel.
PNICC Spring Meeting Notes Mar 29-30, 2010 - pg 16
Broader target audience than we’ve had in the past.
Kept the meeting where the WA DNR folks could attend.
What Actually Happened?
Some of the action items were not completed. Was there adequate time or were the items too
complex?
Follow through on commitments.
What Went Well?
Location worked for the WA DNR so they could have a face-to-face and not go the conference
call route.
Good to have the private landowner perspective. We need to continue the involvement.
We got better participation from ODF, it would be good to continue to tie-in with the ODF team
meeting in the future.
This location works well for the Oregon folks.
Step in the right direction for the Hot Shot sups to want to participate in shadowing the ops folks.
Jeff and Nick’s approach on Risk Management was well done and well received.
Funding for the IT. Atta boy!
Work in the Resource Allocation Strategy project was well done and useful.
Meeting adjourned at 1100 hrs.
Handouts
Handout #1 – Spring 2010 PNW Incident Commander Council Meeting Agenda, 2 pp
Handout #2 – IMT Succession Project Team & Task Teams worksheet, 5 pp
Handout #3 – Sustainable Ops and ICPs – 3 pp
Handout #4 – Use of Type 3 IMT’s - Interim Briefing Paper, 1 p
Handout #5 – PNWCG Adopt An IMT Team, 1 p
Handout #6 – Adopt A Team, 1 p
Handout #7 – Summary of the proposed Incident Risk Assessment Process, 10 pp
Handout #8 – PNW IHC Briefing Paper – 3 pp
Handout #9 – Suggestions/Proposals from the fall 2009 Incident Communication AAR, 4 pp
Handout #10 – Resource Reallocation Strategy, 9 pp
Handout #11 – Aviation IC Meeting Information, 4 pp
Powerpoint presentation: NWCC Prelim Outlook
PNICC Spring Meeting Notes Mar 29-30, 2010 - pg 17
PNICC Spring Meeting Notes Mar 29-30, 2010 - pg 18