NRCG SPRING MEETING
FEBRUARY 18-20, 2003
HELENA, MT
MEETING NOTES
Present: Brian Shiplett, Tim Murphy, Greg Greenhoe, Mike Plattes, Mark Romey, Tom Maloney, Bob Sandman, Neil Nelson, Peg Geiger, Bret Ruby, Paul Chamberlin, Rick Grady, Scott Keuhn, Dale Glenmore, Brett Waters, Mark Stanley, Mike Santucci, Tom Boatner, Chris Shelton, Jim Greene, Bryan Swift, Jim Kelton, John Specht, Lee Clark, Tracey Nimlos.
Committee Reports:
Equipment Committee: Rick Grady (see handout)
Introduced Kris Phillips from DOT to talk about length of driving restrictions. Maximum driving time is 70 hours in 8 days on any public access road. We are violating this policy on incidents. All NRCG states have adopted federal DOT regulations. Regulations start at 26,000 pounds in MT, but apply if the vehicle goes out of state.
Option is for NRCG to petition DOT for exemption for operators in direct support of wildfire work.
Decision items: 1) Support GVWR issue (vehicle operator and safety issue)
2) Pre-season vehicle inspections & local mob board involvement
3) Equipment inspector workshop
4) Equipment inspection teams
MIFF Committee: Dale Glenmore
Adopted committee members and officers for newly formed MIFF committee. Final draft of 2003 MIFF Operating Plan is ready for signature—would like to look at having the Op plan for geographic area as opposed to just Montana. The BIA Regional FMO from SD is willing to do this, but need to contact Portland Area to see if they are willing to be covered under the same plan.
Decision item: Does the NRCG BOD support recommending all Native American crews in the Northern Rockies be covered by the MIFF operating plan?
Operations Committee: Mark Romey
Team selections completed at spring meeting.
Decision items:
1) ASGS needs to have assignment with a Type 1 IMT in order to be qualified. NRCG needs to come out with a letter.
2) Limit on number of “shared” positions on IMTs.
3) NRCG protocol for staging IMTs.
4) IMT Standby: 8 hours vs. 12 hours
Looking at zone draw down plans.
Incident Management Teams meeting is March 18-20th in Kalispell. Would like to have an NRCG BOD member present.
Training Committee: Neil Nelson
Training MOU rewrite is in final draft. Jim Grant will be giving Training committee update on ICQS at next meeting. Will be going over needs analysis for NRTC. May need to re-look at zone training allocations.
Decision items: 1) LFML training every year?
2) Leadership curriculum issue paper
3) Annual Refresher training—need written direction on minimum number of hours as well as course content (especially for contractors)
4) Adopting LACES instead of LCES
Would like to ask all NRCG committees to come to or submit issues to training committee for meeting on March 10. Will be performing spot checks on MOU training providers this spring.
Business Committee: Peg Geiger
Looked at equipment rates for leasing this year, will update all rates and make sure all types of equipment are covered. Developing a matrix for hazard pay to identify which positions qualify for hazard pay. Matrix will be attached to AD-5 rates. Sponsoring Finance and Logistics workshop. Helped with Equipment workshops.
Decision Items: 1) Standard for refresher training for contractors: number of hours and core subjects. 2) Engine briefing paper.
Prevention Committee: Lee Clark
Committee updated its membership and chair at last meeting. Membership set up by zones. Presenting joint Prevention Workshop with Great Basin and Northern Rockies in Idaho Falls. Scholarships are being offered to VFAs and tribes. Drafted prevention action updates for the mob guide last fall. Will be presented at Dispatcher’s spring meeting.
Career Development, Recruitment and Retention: Bob Sandman
1) Request for NRCG to adopt the DNRC program on an interagency basis (see handout).
2) With federal partnership, identify small core group to identify sequential steps needed to implement.
Contract Equipment Concerns: Scott Keuhn
1) How to effectively use equipment on the land—has been working with Jim Steele to put on a workshop called “Big Iron Tactics” on March 25 in Missoula.
2) Sawyer certification program--hire sawyers as ADs for liability to be covered during their fire-training period.
3) Junk equipment hired during panic situations and kept for the duration of the event—pre-season action.
Action Items:
1) Letter to congressional delegation telling people how to prepare their equipment and where to get training before the season starts.
2) Would like clarification on number of hours required for refresher training.
3) Proposal to national level to establish 3 levels of sawyers: basic, intermediate, and advanced. Training would be provided by agencies for professional sawyers. MLA would probably support this. Probably would work better to give training and be certified in one day rather than taking a task book around to assignments. Scott will look at the NWCG proposal.
4) Paul Chamberlin suggests an NRCG Saw Coordinator to maintain communication lines and oversight with all sawyers, public and private.
Contractor representation at NRCG & committee meetings: Tom Boatner
People invited on a regular basis to sit in on our meetings. How do we want to handle and regulate this issue? Suggest we invite representatives of contracting associations as opposed to individual contractors simply as a time and space management issue.
Need a write-up of our expectations of the contractors being at the meetings. We need a process for getting issues on the table or getting items on the agenda. Tom Boatner will write a 1-page white paper to post on the website.
Interagency coordination of NFP and Communities at Risk: Tom Boatner
In 2004 budgets will be allotted based on an interagency list of prioritized communities. Some are hearing that this should be done on a statewide (state by state) basis. NASF has given direction to group communities on a high, medium and low rating.
Have the group that exists tie in with the Fire Wardens and Fire Chief’s associations to prioritize projects across the state of Montana. Should Montana try to model after Idaho’s successes and fund a position similar to Peg Polichio’s to coordinate these efforts? Rodd, Tim and Tom Boatner will work toward establishing this position of a statewide coordinator funded by the interagency partners.
Cache Management Plan: Patrick Nooney
This is the first coordinated plan for the 3 Northern Rockies caches. Will be signed by the NRCG chair.
Old Business: Tracey Nimlos
|
Action Item |
Assigned to |
Due Date |
Action Taken |
|
ACTION ITEM 2001-24 – Review Training MOUs to clean
up issues and questions. |
Training Committee |
Fall 2002 |
Draft of new MOU template is currently in review. |
|
|
|
|
|
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ACTION ITEM 2002-1 – If Committees anticipate
projects that require funding, they need to submit a budget to Tracey Nimlos
by the NRCG spring meeting for inclusion in the AFD Financial Operating Plan. |
Committees |
Feb 2003 |
None Submitted. |
|
ACTION ITEM 2002-2 – Should contractors be in
leadership positions, i.e., Division Group Sup? |
Business & Ops Committees |
Spring 2003 |
Ops Committee will draft a proposal and have Business Committee review. NRCG will elevate the proposal to NWCG. |
|
ACTION ITEM 2002-3 – Decide at Spring meeting if we
will issue a letter saying our policy is not to stage IMTs more than 72
hours. |
BOD |
Feb 2003 |
IMTs staged in the Northern Rockies will be placed at the top of the NR team rotation and we will make an effort to not hold them longer than 72 hours. After 72 hours we will review whether to continue to stage or release the team. |
|
ACTION ITEM 2002-4 – Reissue ENGB qualification
letter with clarification. Send to contractor’s
associations, MOU training providers, dispatch offices. |
Whitlock/Nimlos |
Spring 2003 |
Done. Letter reissued 1/23/2003. |
Need issues submitted to GACG advisory group from BOD members. Brian will be attending meeting May 22.
North Idaho: Brian Shiplett
No issues to bring forward.
Northwest Montana: Mark Stanley
Contractors and local departments are concerned about payment system with DNRC and their cash flow problem. These folks would like to receive info as it becomes available.
Southwest Montana: Mike Plattes
Equipment Mobilization Board has been identified and have met one time. A draft plan is redy for review. Will be changing the method previously used within the zone for equipment dispatch. The Bitterroot Forest is represented on the Equipment Mob Board. MIDC will be taking over dispatch of airtanker and leadplanes from NRCC this spring. Will take over smokejumper dispatch next summer.
Central Montana: Bret Ruby
Decision was made to not break up the zone. Divisions are in place and work well. Trying to get greater local gov’t involvement by paying for travel for local folks to attend committee meetings. Problem is that DES and county employees have to take leave to go on fire assignments. Trying to update zone-wide operating plans. A zone-wide draw down plan does not make sense for central Montana, but each division has a draw down plan.
South Central Montana: Brett Waters
Mob board is working well. Biggest concern is communications with feds going to digital radios. Interagency engine academy is set up for this spring. Park County rural and FS have entered into an agreement to staff a new fire station.
Eastern Montana: Chris Shelton
Every Wed. is set up as a ROSS training day with the NRCC. Have invited non-fire agencies as well. Hosting an interagency rookie school at Northern Cheyenne Agency. Having aviation dispatcher class, aviation workshop, and eastern zone dispatchers’ workshop in Billings. Standards for Survival courses are being contracted out for Eastern Montana this year. Should be able to staff both Eastern MT IMTs.
1999 agreement on sharing resources along the Wyoming border is being updated and will be sent to NRCG chair for signature.
Horse thief project in Roundup: This will be run through the new Healthy Forests Initiative “streamlined NEPA” process.
North Dakota: No issues for the BOD to address. Making a run at the first zone-wide interagency annual operating plan. Hoping for a fall conclusion date, as we will not make it by fire season. Revising the state fire plan. State is revising the co-op fire agreements with the rural fire departments. Zone is offering ICS training for the Governor’s office and county emergency offices. Initial attack resources are looking okay for the zone. Moisture levels are paralleling last year but probably in an expanded area.
Preparedness Level Calculation Group: Mike Plattes
There are a lot of inconsistencies in the way we set preparedness levels now. This will set standards for the whole country to use when setting their P.L. levels. Hoping to make this a proactive process by using Predictive Services, NFDRS, historic fire data, etc. Goal is to develop a model to use at local and geographic levels on “how” we set preparedness levels. There will be a workshop in Missoula on April 16 and in Denver on April 24. The workshops are intended for users of the model.
Safety Update: Paul Chamberlin
Objectives for the summer are to get to areas where there is activity. Plan to hit Type III, IV and V IC meetings. Jim Steele is putting together Safety Officers/Operations workshop and Safety Officers meet at IMT meetings.
Would like to bring these groups together and is looking for ideas. Team in-briefings need to include hazard tree issues in the area.
Paul is on the committee to promote driving as a national safety emphasis item. This is listed on the Annual Refresher Training web page. Specht brought up the point that we need to issue something as Northern Rockies policy to be addressed at spring meetings, refresher training and team briefings. Paul will send DOT policy along with NWCG policy to national level.
Merge of Predictive Services/Smoke Monitoring Unit: John Specht
BLM was unable to extend the Admin Assistant position contract period. Forest Service agreed to host a term position, but there will be no change in the way the position is funded. BLM Idaho has agreed to continue supporting of this unit for only one more year. They want a meteorologist position in Boise because of lack of support from the National Weather Service. They have asked for a work/needs analysis to be done for the NR unit.
Action Items: Complete a work/needs analysis for the Northern Rockies Predictive Services and Smoke Monitoring Unit.
Smoke Monitoring Executive Board has asked that their relationship with NRCG be formalized. Their options:
1) E-board be established as an NRCG committee
2) Appoint an NRCG BOD member as official liaison to E-board
3) Establish an MOU between NRCG and E-board to clarify roles and responsibilities
Season Readiness:
Next week we are sending 3 people to a pre-season assessment workshop to develop a format for seasonal assessments, which will be updated every 60 days. Dick Rath has developed fuels data and Bruce Thoricht has developed weather data. Colleen Finneman and Julie Polutnik will also be attending. On March 4, several people from the Northern Rockies will use this report to compile a NR Strategic Plan for the 2003 fire season. Will use document from SW for a template but strengthen aviation, add a cost-containment strategy, and re-emphasize initial attack. Also possibly add a contracting strategy. This document should be available the week of March 10 prior to team meetings.
Group represents individuals from various zones and agencies. Jim Stires suggested we address interagency severity funding strategies.
Interagency preparedness reviews: the BLM will be under a national review this year and will not be able to coordinate interagency reviews this year, but would still like to participate. Look at reviewing a zone in western Montana this year.
Aviation: Northern Rockies Barons are shut down due to exceeding flying hours on the aircraft. NMAC will manage the location of the heavy airtankers and lead planes. Tankers will be reserved for initial attack. There will be 6 MAFFS units available nationally.
Do we need to identify resources to bring on early in case our season is early and also to support other geographic areas with early seasons? Need direction from NMAC on bringing on national shared resources early. Another issue is Rx burning and we have over 3000 burns proposed for the geographic area.
Do we need a mechanism in place to rotate firefighters/engines that are being held for IA with crews on nearby large fires in order to rest crews and gain experience for inexperienced crews?
The Homeland Security advisory system is showing potential to affect our Type I IMTs. If we move to level Red we may have to preposition teams at threatened areas. We need to determine the availability of state and local team members.
There will be a clear delegation of authority that National MAC has the authority to manage national shared resources if necessary.
Tracey will send out the MAC Operating Plan for review to be complete by April 1.
Update list of MAC zone coordinators and post to website.
Need to look at bringing in an FBAN to assist in the Predictive Services unit if we get into a busy season.
Need to look for opportunities to put on a water show in a location where we can’t get air tanker support. Get some people who don’t have a lot of water handling experience an opportunity to see what water can do. Make this a priority for the coming fire season.
Agency Administrator Conference Call: additional items
· Cost containment
· MAC activation and if MAC group convenes update the delegation of authority, which gives reps more authority
DECISION ITEMS:
Agency fiscal folks are pushing to get it signed so funds can be obligated. BLM will add $10,000 to Team Management budget to cover travel to team meetings for ADs, county employees and state employees from the Eastern Area. Do we need to make any more changes? No, John and Tracey will start routing for signature.
NWCG stipulated content, not hours. Contractors need to train to the standards of the agency that hires them.
We do not yet know what NWCG is going to require. Some courses may be added to and some may be eliminated. We need to wait until NWCG determines whether these courses are a requirement. Agencies can factor into their ’05 budgets but we will not hold funds at Regional levels. Decision: courses should be contracted.
Brett Waters will attend the entire meeting. Rodd Richardson will attend on Tuesday.
NRCG would like this course to be a high priority for NRTC as long as there is a demand. The Training Committee should work through their BOD liaison (Brian Shiplett) to present NRCG with an extensive list of alternatives if there is a need to drop a course for reasons other than lack of demand.
DNRC will make the brocure and PowerPoint presentation available to all NRCG agencies. NRCG agrees with the concepts presented and each director will take it back to their agency to implement the ideas practical for their agency.
Charter is written and the following members have been identified.
DNRC - Check Brenton
IDL - Bob Burke
BLM - Allen Edmonds
BIA - Steve Rossiter
NPS - Cliff Chetwin
FS – Barry Hicks
FWS -
Greg Greenhoe will act as NRCG liaison. The Aviation Committee needs to identify a chair and attend the NRCG BOD meetings to present a report of their activities.
NRCG will submit the issue paper to NWCG for consideration.
Action Item: Send memo to Jim Stires to submit issue paper.
Paper to raise standards for wildland fire engines
NRCG will not make these changes to the Incident Business Management Handbook. We approve of these standards for contracts done on a case-by-case basis, but do not feel they should be imposed on EERAs, which are intended for occasional use.
Support GVWR issue (vehicle operator and safety issue)
NRCG will continue to support the Equipment Committee and the contents of Chapter 20 of the Interagency Business Management HB on this issue. The Equipment and Business committees should update the GVWR requirements letter to be reissued requiring water tenders/trucks to meet the manufacturers’ GVWR by Jan. 1, 2004.
NRCG encourages the Equipment Committee to continue pre-season vehicle/equipment inspections working within the NRCG local mob zones and boards and dispatch centers. The Equipment Committee is also encouraged to continue with the Equipment inspector workshop and equipment inspection teams. John Specht will assist monitoring the need and incidents and assist in mobilizing inspection teams.
Does the NRCG BOD support recommending all Native American crews in the Northern Rockies be covered by the MIFF operating plan?
Dale Glenmore will talk with Cory Winnie and the North Dakota tribes to obtain their agreement. If they approve of this proposal, NRCG is in agreement.
NRCG follows 310-1 direction for position qualifications. We support the idea of having an ASGS work with a Type I IMT and encourage mentoring to continue, but it is not mandatory to become fully qualified. The Operations/Aviation Committees are reminded that the unit red card committee does red card approval at the unit level.
When a position is shared by two individuals, neither of them is considered an alternate, therefore there is no limit on the number of shared positions on a team. The individuals who share positions are full team members who participate in team meetings.
IMTs staged in the Northern Rockies will be placed at the top of the NR team rotation and we will make an effort to not hold them longer than 72 hours. After 72 hours we will review whether to continue to stage or release the team.
NWCG has recently addressed this issue and will not change their standard. If we decide to put teams into ordered standby and pay them for 12 hours per day, they should be assigned to productive work helping with various tasks on the hosting unit.
Contractor Issues: Scott Keuhn
1) Sawyer certification program: Brian Shiplett will talk to Scott to see what he’s really looking for on this issue.
2) Propose to national level to establish 3 levels of sawyers: basic, intermediate, and advanced: the NWCG IOS Working Team is already working on this. Training would be provided by agencies for professional sawyers.
3) Letter to congressional delegation telling people how to prepare their equipment and where to get training before the season starts to avoid junk equipment hired during panic situations and kept for the duration of the event—need pre-season action: we will include this issue in our pre-season briefing for the governor.
Action Item: Complete a work/needs analysis for the Northern Rockies Predictive Services and Smoke Monitoring Unit. The Smoke Monitoring Executive Board has asked that their relationship with NRCG be formalized. Their options:
1) E-board be established as an NRCG committee
2) Appoint an NRCG BOD member as official liaison to E-board
3) Establish an MOU between NRCG and E-board to clarify roles and responsibilities
NRCG’s preferred alternative is #3. The analysis will address this issue as well as the question of whether or not it is time to re-draw the airshed lines along geographic area boundaries. Possible review team members suggested: Dave Goens, Ron Hvisdak, Kim Van H., Scott Keuhn or Tim Egan. The North Idaho Airshed Group and FWS, Jim Kelton offered to provide funding for the Needs Analysis.
October 14-16, 2003, in Missoula