National Wildfire Coordinating Group

CEPC-CC-2013-09-19

2013 September 19
CEPC Conference Call
Calling in:
Helene Cleveland
Fred Turck
Morgan Worthin
Pat McDowell
Elaine Waterbury
Jennifer Smith
Erin Darbovan as guest
Erin: working for DOI OWF on Cohesive Strategy. The regional analyses and risk reports are done (risk reports will be done every 3 years) and regions are looking at implementing the plans. There is a phase 3 national risk analysis report draft which is out for review – it may form the basis for the national action plan. All of the plans are at www.forestsandrangelands.gov
If you have any ideas of how the cohesive strategy info should be communicated or want to be involved further, please contact Erin at Erin Darboven, erin_darboven@ios.doi.gov, o. 208.334.1566, c. 208.407.6171
Round Robin:
Elaine: Fred was officially approved as the chair by the NWCG exec board. The all chairs meeting will be in Boise Feb 1113, 2014. Will be putting on a webinar/eshare meeting on the budget in October – more info to follow.
Fred: hosted a WUI exchange for all the southern and midatlantic states’ fire chiefs; discussed all the various aspects of prevention and fire adapted communities with all the usual fed partners and with National Fire Protection Association, Insurance Institute for Business and home safety, International association of fire chiefs, The Nature Conservancy, and others. Also worked on the southern prevention and WUI strategies.
Helene: will retire by end of year; working on getting some actings in place until the position can be advertised.
Morgan: the National NPS office has revised the brochure on wildland fire management and it will be coming out soon and will share pdf file shortly.

Jen: starting refresher revision; it will be online next year and should be able to put in a prevention ‘module’. Karen Takai is stepping down as the chair of the AC/IC PIO1 working group; not sure if she will remain our liaison or not.

P101 update: Mark Cantrell looked at the revisions done so far to the chapters are below are his comments:
My initial review of the P101 content that Jennifer consolidated shows only minor recommended changes to the content. Ten units still need to be reviewed which leaves us with a bit of a guessing game as to how substantial the changes will be in those units. I have attached a spreadsheet that shows the review progress to date.
I did not notice any recommended changes to the objectives. Ideally, the way this process should work is for someone or a group to review all of the objects and then answer the question, "If a student masters these objectives would they have the skills and knowledge necessary to perform the field applications of the basic fundamentals of wildland fire prevention?" Please notice that I stress the words basic fundamentals as P301 and P310 are meant to take personnel beyond this basic fundamentals level. If the answer to the objective review question is yes, then a review of the final exam should be next to ensure that every objective is tested (in some way) on it. Once our objectives are finalized and the final exam appropriately measures the objectives then we ask if the content (instruction and exercises) sufficiently covers the objectives. If the content covers the objectives, then we create the PPT and finalize formatting and are ready for either a test course or certification (depending on the extent of changes).
My recommendations:
Review the objectives
Match the final exam questions with the correlating objective(s)
Correct or create exam questions to match new or revised objectives
Review the remainder of the units
Once all of the changes or review comments are submitted have someone go through all of them and approve or disapprove them.
Incorporate all of the approved changes to final exam, IG and PPT
Then the NWCG Training Editorial Assistants can work their wonders and finalize the formatting. At this point it will be ready for either a test course or certification (again, dependent on how many and significant the changes are). Please give me plenty of heads up so I can let them know this is coming.

Ok: we agreed that we would review the objectives for each of the sections prior to our October 10 conference call. If possible, also look at the exam questions (Jen and/or I will figure a way of getting you clean copies).
Calls coming up – all at 1500 eastern
Oct 10, Nov 14, Dec12, 2013, Jan 9, 2014, Feb13, 2014
Meeting in Boise march 1113, 2014 might be good to get hotel rooms booked and see if Elaine can reserve a meeting room at NIFC.

Attachment(s): 
Parent Committee: 
Communication Education and Prevention Committee
Date(s): 
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Meeting Type: 
Conference Call