Minutes of the

Prevention and Education Committee,

of the

Northern Rockies Coordinating Group

October 29^th-31st, 2001, Fairmont Hot Springs

Members Present:

Cathy Scofield, USFS, R1

Connie Fox, USFS, Lolo NF, Southwest Zone Rep.

Pat Mullaney, BLM, MT State Office

Tim Sayles, Missoula Rural Fire District

Lee Clark, USFS, Lewis & Clark NF, Central Zone Rep

John Allhands, Local Government

Denny Sutherland, NPS, Yellowstone Park

Mike Kopitzki, DNRC, Missoula

Mike Dannenberg, BLM, MT State Office

Dena Spandel, BLM, Miles City

Membership

The first topic of discussion was the membership of this committee. This committee has experienced some turnover of membership, including the Chairperson. Most of the zone positions have been filled (see membership list at end of minutes) and the previous agency rep positions are still filled. Several agencies that are members of NRCG are not currently represented on the Prevention and Education Committee. The committee is also not well represented from the education side of the committee.

Action Item: The committee chair will present a request to NRCG members from the FWS, BIA, and MT. Fire Wardens to provide members to the Prevention and Education Committee.

Status: DONE The above agencies agreed to find representation for the committee.

Chairperson

Because DC Haas has accepted a position in Oregon as the Director of Keep Oregon Green, a new Chairperson was selected. It was decided that this position should rotate between the agencies, with the Montana BLM being next followed by the National Park Service.

Action: Mike Dannenberg assumed the chair position; Denny Sutherland was selected as Vice-Chair.

Members Roles and Responsibilities

The committee discussed the roles and responsibilities of members, both zone representatives and Agency representatives.

Zone Representatives:

Promote and develop Zone prevention/education cooperatives
Bring zone issues to the committee meetings
Provide field input/insight
Take committee information back to the zone and disseminate
Establish communication network
Identify prevention/education training needs

Agency Representatives

Serve as an agency advisor
Work to organize needed training
Promote interagency coordination in mitigation/education activities
Serve as a conduit for the committee to national issues.

GB/NR Fire Prevention/Education Workshops

2001

Actions: A thank you letter needs to be written to Keep MT Green for their support. A $500 donation will also be made to their organization for the financial support that they provided.

Action: Mike will write the letter, Mike Kopitzke will handle the donation.

2002

The Great Basin is the primary sponsor of the 2002 Workshop. The 2001 workshop in Whitefish had a $1,500 surplus after all bills had been paid. This money will be forwarded to the 2002 Workshop Committee as start up money. Because of the amount of workload involved in hosting a large workshop and to provide continuity between the Geographic Areas, the Northern Rockies will provide committee members to assist with this year’s workshop. They are: Mike Dannenberg, Denny Sutherland, Lee Clark, and Dena Sprandel.

2003

The 2003 workshop is to be held in Idaho. Since Idaho is shared by the two geographic areas, it was suggested that we have a joint hosted workshop committee.

Action: Mike will propose the idea to the Great Basin Prevention Committee.

Prevention/Education Committee Strategic Vision

The committee reviewed the content of the document titled “Strategic Vision for Wildland Fire Prevention in the Northern Rockies” to verify that the concepts it contained were still sound.

(See www.fs.fed.us/r1/fire/nrcg/committees/prevention_committee.html)

After reviewing this document, the committee felt that the ideas were still sound and the National Fire Plan strengthened the Strategic Vision. It was noted that the strategic vision opening does not match the mission statement for the committee as described in the charter and there is a need to add the mitigation role to prevention.

Action Item: All committee members were asked to review this document more closely and send comments to Pat Mullaney. Mike will take a look at the charter to see if changes need to be made.

Training

Several prevention training opportunities coming up and more needed.

June 10^th – basic Fire Prevention Academy in Boise
June 17^th – intermediate Fire Prevention Academy in Boise

Needed: Prevention Position (job) Training

The Northern Rockies will host Wildland Prevention training at a central location within the geographical area. This training will tentatively target Industrial Inspections and Railroad Inspections. (Possible week of April 22) Also identified the need to have some basic prevention primer available for Guard Schools.

Preplanning

Lee Clark, Lewis and Clark N.F. gave a presentation showing the preplanning/mapping with GIS that the Lewis and Clark is doing in the Rocky Mountain Front.

Readiness Reviews

The prevention and Education Committee discussed the readiness reviews conducted each spring and whether prevention measures were a review topic. The committee encourages all NRCG members conducting readiness reviews to include Wildland fire prevention/mitigation as part of the review process.

Also discussed the need for the P&E committee to visit with those people working in the prevention field. Efforts will be made to move the prevention committee meetings around the Geographic Area and allocate time to meet with those people conducting local prevention efforts.

Preparedness Levels

A review of the preparedness levels within the National and Geographical Mob Guides show very little reference to prevention activities, and no reference to local or national prevention teams. The P&E committee feels that the mob guide preparedness levels may be an excellent place to start coordinating prevention actions.

Action Item: Mike Dannenberg to contact Ray Nelson to find out more about getting prevention actions into the mob guide.

Restrictions

A discussion of the Restrictions and Closures plan showed that most users felt that the 2001 plan was an improvement over the old plan. There are some things that still need to be worked out.

Authorities and coordination- the existing plan needs input from the BIA/Tribes, Counties, FWS, and anyone else who may have authority to enact fire restrictions.
Area Boundaries- a written description and map of area boundaries needs to be included with the R&C plan. Those having jurisdictions within those areas should determine the area boundaries.

An Action Plan for implementation from the last P&E Committee meeting in Bozeman was reviewed and projects assigned.

Restriction and Closure training for Agency Administrators, Fire Managers, Area Coordinators, and all others involved in restriction implementation. This training should include who, what, when, why, how, and the expected problems and possible solutions. Assigned to Mike, Lee, Dena, and Pat. Draft Jan.1, 2002
Communications Plan to communicate with internal and external partners, general public, industry, and other government agencies. Assigned to Mike, Connie, and Public Affairs Officers. March 1, 2002
Thresholds for large-scale closures. Create the guides to help determine the need for large-scale closure. Insert in Appendix 4. Assigned to DNRC. Feb 1, 2002
Standardize Exemptions/permits for special activities, including utilities, Railroads, special use, mining, oil and gas, D.O.T., etc. This would provide recommendations for exemptions. Assigned to Cathy and all. March 1, 2002
Public Education- the creation of R&C brochures, signs, posters, describing why, how, what to expect, etc. Assigned to Pat Cross
Create a list of Key Messages and Talking Points including PSA’s, prevention messages, pre-restriction awareness messages, definitions, media package, etc. Assigned to Public Affairs People, March 1, 2002
Coordinate with Great Basin. Assigned to Mike
Web Site for restriction information, both internal and external information. To include maps, guidelines, links, area contacts, key messages (including prevention messages directed toward possible restricted activities). Assigned to Cathy and possible NRCC. May 15, 2002.
Collection of statistical information regarding the effectiveness of restrictions. Assigned to all, on going.

Communities at Risk-National Fire Plan

During the June, 2001 meeting, the P&E Committee worked on a rating system to rate and quantify Montana communities at risk, as per the National Fire Plan. Idaho is using it’s own system (Chairman is not sure what North Dakota is using). A rating system was worked on, but never released to the zones for testing.

Questions that needed to be asked:

Does NRCG (Montana) still want a rating system?
If so, this system needs to be field-tested by the zones.
Who will keep the information? Committee recommends the State
How can the ongoing fuels reduction work be integrated into the system once a community has been rated. Committee recommends some type of NRCG Fuels Committee.
Who will do the ratings?
How can the data from communities that have been rated with other systems be incorporated?

This topic was carried to the NRCG for disposition. NRCG stated they would like to see the draft of the Rating System, but due to the fact that there has not been interest shown in a communities rating since the last list of Communities at Risk in the Federal Register August 17^th, 2001, the P&E committee should table this.

Living with Fire

The Living with Fire information papers were distributed through the Lee Enterprise papers in Montana as Sunday inserts. The committee feels that the effectiveness of this paper as a newspaper insert is dropping off.

Prevention Web Site

Discussed the need for a prevention oriented web site for public use as a central point for web site links. More discussion is required for this topic.

Important Dates

Next meeting: February11-13, 2002, Denny Sutherland to coordinate.

Pacific Northwest Prevention Workshop: February 25-March 1, 2002

Great Basin/Northern Rockies Workshop: May 6-10, 2002

NORTHERN ROCKIES COORDINATING GROUP

PREVENTION/INTERFACE COMMITTEE

Zone	Committee Member
North Idaho	Sandy Groth, Forest Service
Northwest Montana	Miles Friend, Forest Service
Southwest Montana	Connie Fox, Forest Service
Central Montana	Lee Clark, Local Government
South Central Montana	Bill Breedlove, Forest Service
Eastern Montana	Dena Sprandel, Bureau of Land Management
North Dakota	Mike Santucci, North Dakota FS
Agency Representative DNRC	Pat Cross, DNRC
Agency Representative Bureau of Land Management	Mike Dannenberg, BLM Chairman
Agency Representative Forest Service	Cathy Scofield, FS
Agency Representative National Park Service	Denny Sutherland, NPS Vice-Chair
Agency Representative Montana State Fire Wardens	VACANT
Agency Representative Fish and Wildlife Service	VACANT
Agency Representative Bureau of Indian Affairs	VACANT