PNW FENWT meeting minutes
Dec 18 and Dec 19 2007
Tuesday Dec 18th 2007
Began charter review 0800-0900 some wording changed.
0900-1000 National Fuel Moisture Database presentation from Ed Delgado EBGCC
 What units are interested in collecting fuel moistures?
 Promoting awareness
o Uses of the data?
 Archival
 Sharing and display
 Protocols for collection?
o Eastern Great Basin document posed at NMFD website to be used
as a starting point for field collection methodology
Action Item: Dan O’Brien to coordinate with MSO Fire Lab on collection literature
Action Item: John Saltenberger to emphasize the NMFD link on NWCC web page.
1015-1100 NWS presentation from Steve Todd
 Regional and national spot load high but increase leveling off.
 77 IMETs nationally
o 13 IMETs from 6 NWS offices supporting the region
o 45 IMET dispatched from 6 NWS regional offices in 2007.
 2500+ spots for wildfire and prescribed fire issued from 6 offices in 2007.
 IMET availability not a problem but
 Some newer IMETs report being assigned to incident without FBANS and
felt a bit uncomfortable integrating with team. IMETs can work with
teams without FBANS but shouldn’t be pressured to perform FBAN
duties.
Action Item: Geoff, Todd and Greg, to mention at spring type II team meetings about
using IMETS only in IMET role and making sure teams appoint an alternate contact with
IMET in absence of FBAN.
Action Item: Ask teams to brainstorm workarounds for scarcity of FBANs until FBAN
ranks increase.
Action Item: Julia Ruthford and John Saltenberger to begin online library of case studies
for meteorological anomalies in the region to be hosted on NWCC web site.
Related Action Item: Dan O’Brien to query FENWT about status of FBAN/LTAN
shortage. John Saltenberger to do the same with FENWT FBC.
1100-1200 Status of NWCC predictive service Terry Marsha
 Reviewed potential changes in 7-day product.
 Reviewed status of lightning research at NWCC
 Dan O’Brian proposed investigating the resource contribution to fire
potential
1300-1400 Status of WFDSS project from Rob Seli, MSO Fire Sciences Lab
 Reviewed planned changes in WFSA/WFIP incorporating a variety of new
tools such as
* This is an important item for future discussion as role of WFDSS becomes larger
1400-1500 Status of NFDRS from Matt Jolly, MSO Fire Sciences Lab
 Reviewed planned changes in WFAS web interface.
 Use of NDFD to forecast ERC (g) out to 7 days on a 5 km for the US
 Updates to NFDRS and simplification to user inputs.
 Inclusion of Growing Season Index in future NFDRS displays.
* This is an important item for future discussion as WFAS and NFDRS change to a
more gridded format.
1500-1700 Completed PNWFENWT charter review process with extensive wording
changes.
Wednesday Dec 19th 2007
0800-0900 Election of PNWFENWT officers. Dan O’Brien chair. Brian Goff vice-chair.
0900-1000 Status of Behave Plus/FFP revisions from Pat Andrews, MSO Fire Sciences
Lab
 Behave Plus 4.0 coming
 Pat Andrews seeks input on web based versus PC apps
1000-1100 Naches burn project Julia Ruthford’s experience as an IMET.
 Julia indicated IMET participation was perceived by USFS fire
management as a significant element in the success of the Naches project.
 This IMET assignment differed significantly from wildfire IMET
assignments because it involved coordination with several meteorological
agencies contributing information related to smoke dispersal.
 Julia identified a central Washington weather pattern conducive to
excellent smoke dispersal during large broadcast burns. Some elements of
this weather pattern may prove to be similar elsewhere in the region.
1100-1200
leader.
Update on BlueSky/RAINS project from Brian Potter, AirFire team


Brian explained the BlueSky/RAIN project and its use for planning smoke
dispersal.
Brian explained products available for Haines Index and ventiliation index
from the North American Regional Reanalysis.
Action Item: John Saltenberger to coordinate with BlueSky/RAINS on ability of model
to forecast gamed potential smoke dispersion several days in the the future.
Action Item: Dan O’Brien to coordinate with BlueSky on ability to do pattern
recognition on smoke dispersal potential.
Action Item: Dan O’Brien and John Saltenberger to keep state fire agencies (ie Teresa
Vonn and Greg Sinnett) up to date on developments with BlueSky or other advances in
smoke dispersal modeling.
1300-1700.
Discussion on AMR, FSPro and LandFire data.
Topics for future discussion:
 Storing locally calibrated LandFire data?
 Standards for locally calibrated data?
 Access to that data? Coordinate with GIS working team?
 What suite of applications require fuels data?
 Proposed white paper advocating better fuels data?