Pacific Northwest Wildfire Coordinating Group
Meeting Notes
October 30, 2013, V1
Attendees:
Pam Ensley, FWS
Cory Winnie, BIA
Jeff Fedrizzi, BLM
David Summer, FS
Tod Johnson (Virtual/Phone), NPS
Albert Kassel, DNR/Proxy for WFM, ODF
Jim Walker, OFM, OFS Proxy
Dave LaFave, WFS
Dan O’Brien, NWCC & notetaker
Pat Kelly, Executive Director
Announcements:


AD and Supplemental Fire Department Resources—responses due close of business Monday,
11/4.
Fire Operations Safety Training—responses due Friday 11/1. Currently looks like April 21 is the
preferred week. Resend letter noting that only 30 responses have been received to date.
Hot Topics:


Guidance for IMTs when dealing with LODD/Fatalities--LaFave
Emerging Incident Management—Kassel
Tracking Commitments:








Task 1—November due date.
Task 2—Complete.
Task 3—February due date.
Task 4—deliver next week.
Task 5—still unscheduled.
Task 6—TBA
Task 7—in process
Task 8—Letter is out.
Agenda Items:
Annual Meeting Schedule
 Continue 3rd Wednesday of each month (2nd Wed in December), Wed/Thu in February for
Annual Workshop.
 “Star” the June 18 meeting to extend invite to Agency Administrators to attend the NW MAC
Preparedness Review.
Preparations for the Contractor Association Meeting in November









FS/BLM moving forward with assessment of fatalities in 2012/13.
Briefing to Contract Associations will show Agency intent to learn.
Need to be prepared to receive issues raised last year, use lessons learned to map the way
forward.
Message to National Program: Perception is that National templates have caused performance
to back-slide. Need to match performance with contract issues/expectations.
Need to set up VTC/Webex to provide for NIFC involvement.
Need to standardize performance across Agencies/contracts.
Need to standardize dispatching of contract resources.
o Albert—WA DNR will work with NWCC to develop a common dispatch process for water
handling equipment.
Pam—need to have a 10 year average of contractor mobilizations in/out of GACC.
Albert—will call Nancy/Doug to set up meeting to discuss contractor dispatching issues.
Proposed Meeting Agenda: November 20th
 *Break from SC Meeting*
 Pam—open the meeting and introductions
 Pat—ground rules
 David—FLA update
 Pam—address 7 issues raised/solutions proposed in 2012.
 Contractor Associations presentations--views on 2013, based on four questions asked in
invitation letter.
 Solutions—Contractor Association perspectives
 Pam—Closing remarks
Responses to the 7 Proposed Solutions
 Solution 1: Meeting w/ODF.
 Solution 2: Program accountability steps implementable in 2014.
 Solution 3: Agencies in alignment; work in progress—including NWCG in the conversation.
 Solution 4: Meeting again in November; continuing the discussion.
 Solution 5: Same as #3.
 Solution 6: WA response--WAC 29630507010: if attacking a wildland fire, if last longer than
1 hour, need to meet 310-1 requirements. OR response—participating agencies
accept/meet standards; agencies operating within home jurisdiction meet only the local
requirements.
 Solution 7: Sarah Fisher advertising an Ops Specialist position at NIFC; R6 filling vice-LuAnn
position. NW Contracting group working together with Operations Working Team.
David—SC member to accompany him to NWSA Conference in Reno Feb 25th?
PNWCG Governance
Recognize opportunities to utilize existing business structures. Adapting oversight structures; i.e., IC
council report to single geo-board? What are the core elements on which the SC needs to focus?
Five core areas: operations, safety, business, training and planning? Or operations, aviation, business,
resource integration, and safety?
Need to work with WT/ACs and facilitate the approach taken by the SC in working with existing WT/AC’s
in constructing the future organization/governance. Goal is to set clear intent, identifying fatal flaws,
trigger points, tactical considerations in meeting implementation objectives.
What are the different core areas called? NWCG calls them “branches”; SORO opted for “sections”.
Opportunity to invest personal interests/passions of SC members, to get the greatest benefit.
DECISION--work towards a framework that always exists: Operations, Aviation, Business, Resource
Integration, Safety. Move specific functions to the core areas: e.g., Training to Ops; Contracting to
business. Resource Integration collects diverse elements. Include the IIMT Governing Board in
Operations.
November meeting—contractor associations; December meeting—single geo-board; January—
validating IMT selections/Feb workshop prep. Need to be mindful of how to transition from existing to
future organization; how do we prepare/present these decisions? Need to program work that will
implement the change: redo charters, etc.
Pam/Pat—draft a “case for change” to distribute to WT/AC’s after January meeting.
Dan to draft letter of intent to dissolving NW FENC and investing those responsibilities to Predictive
Services.
Dissolve FPA AC? Jeff to follow up with David to confirm that is a desire. (David concurs. FPA will be
dissolved).
Cory—be mindful that work load isn’t going away. Need to focus on priorities; what fits the mission and
objectives of the SC?
How does NWCC fit into this organization? Is there a separation of policy making groups and
administrative functions? Pam—part of the January discussion. Cory—what about the NWCC oversight
group? It’s been some time since we’ve met.
2014 Timeline for IMT Selections




ICAPS is open.
IC Selections for WA tomorrow. OR and Type 1 IC’s on three year rotation.
ICAPS closes 11/22.
IMT selections 12/10-11.



Until we have an approved roster, go with the last year’s roster if an incident occurs (in WA, at
least).
Last year was highly successful; this year should also go well. Need to show appreciation for
successes that have occurred and urge to continue progress.
IMT Meetings? By January 15 should be positioned to distribute information and status of IMT
meetings. Will have a single meeting for all teams. Albert will look into securing the venue for a
single meeting. Make this a December meeting topic? Pat/Pam will work this out.
Single IMT Governing Board
Final plan to be drawn up in December. Need to come out of this meeting with a decision.
Hot Topics
LODD—Dave L. meeting with individual to help flesh out IMT procedures for dealing with LODD; he will
develop protocol for NW teams.
Master Agreement—interagency group met and should be a good product coming out. Capture
guidance for geo-board coming out of updates. Due date is in April. There is an extension que’ed up for
existing agreement is due date is breached.
Emerging Incident Management—why 40 teams? The NW is slated to decrease by 1 IMT; some
confusion about how many were identified at the beginning of the analysis.
PNWCG Chair/Vice-chair
Proposal—elevate FS to chair given Nancy H’s agency commitments. Place Nancy in Vice-chair position.
Elevate her to chair in 2015. David—needs to talk to DRF and will report back to SC.
AAR
+Contracting issues are in a good place.
+Group showed nimbleness in meeting out of schedule and still staying on track and getting good work
done.
-A bit disjointed at times.
+Decisions were made.