PNW FENWT Conference Call Notes
October 22, 2008
In Attendance: Dan O’Brien
John Saltenberger
Teresa Vonn
Karrie Stevens
Brian Potter
Steve Todd
Brian Goff
Discussion Items
1. National Weather Service MOU with PNWCG: In years past, PNWCG negotiated a regional MOU
with NWS, separate from the National MOU. This year, the National MOU will serve in place of
the Regional MOU; details specific to the region will be included in the Regional NWS Operating
Plan, with the exception of the agreement governing the annual NWS forecaster detailer at
NWCC. Further, the detailer agreement must be renegotiated specifically with a Federal Agency
in order to meet NWS policy.
Action Item: John Saltenberger will post a copy of the National MOU to the PNW FENWT
MyFireCommunity page, along with a document explaining differences between old and new
copies of the MOU.
2. PNW FENWT continues to pursue sponsoring a Fire Behavior Workshop in the region. Louisa
Evers (BLM-SORO) and Brett Fay (FWS-RO) are interested in helping to organize the event.
National FENWT and the Fire Behavior Committee are looking to help fund regional fire behavior
conferences/workshops but the funding won’t be available until FY2010.
Action Item: Include Fire Behavior Conference agenda development on PNW FENWT meeting
agenda.
3. Discussed a short list of topics relative to Prescribed Fire Support:
a. Info Sharing—the FAMWEB Sit Report includes a module for tracking planned (and
accomplished) Rx fire projects. This would be a good tool for raising regional awareness
of where and when projects are occurring, particularly as we move into and out of fire
season. There will likely be duplication of information from smoke reporting venues,
but this particular reporting system is standardized and national in scope;
b. Revisited the idea of creating a “smoke dispersal model” that would forecast smoke
dispersion out 3 to 5 days for Rx fire ops planning and logistical support purposes.
Model development would focus on science, but would need the involvement of state
regulators. Brian Potter suggested that several individuals would be interested or
available to help in model development;
c. Availability of NWS IMETs for Rx fire use is limited due to staffing and other reasons.
Brian Goff suggested that the objective is accomplishing the Rx fire—what’s needed in
order to meet that objective?
Action Items: 1—Dan O’Brien will work with Teresa Vonn to set up meeting w/ODF
meteorologists and with Greg Sinnett for the WA DNR; 2—John Saltenberger and Brian Potter
will take the lead in model development strategies; 3—Agenda topic for winter meeting might
include a discussion of managing Rx fire relative to IMET support; culminate in a white paper?
4. 2008 Fire Season: Issues and Observations
a. FBAN-IMET use by IMTs; no further report from last meeting. There was a question of
whether the fire behavior conference would serve to raise awareness of fire behavior
shortage. While this wasn’t its primary purpose, it could meet this need.
b. WFDSS implementation in CY09; are we ready? Need to explore future training
opportunities and methods of raising awareness in the region.
c. Fire Behavior Service Center successfully activated at NWCC during the 2008 fire season.
The plan is to activate it again next summer as the need requires. Would like to use the
service center as a vehicle to give trainees modeling experience in a well-supervised
environment. The service center will be discussed at the FALT meeting this fall (FS/BLM)
but would like to share info with other agencies, including the states.
Action Item: Include WFDSS implementation as an agenda topic in future meeting. Dan
O’Brien will call Rob Seli for information on existing white papers or PPT presentations that
might help in this effort. Possibly culminate this topic in a white paper.
5. Next meeting will likely be in January. Dan O’Brien will set up the Doodle scheduler.