Header: National Wildland Fire Enterprise Architecture (NWFEA). Photo: Silhouette of trees and a mountainous landscape with smoke billowing upwards from a wildland fire in the distance and to the right is the NWFEA logo.
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NWFEA Overview
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The advantages of having an enterprise architecture program are:

  • improved decision making
  • improved adaptability to changing demands
  • elimination of inefficient and redundant processes
  • optimization of the use of organizational assets
  • minimization of employee turnover

Who is involved?

The NWFEA Program is managed by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG). The Wildland Fire Leadership Council (WFLC) and the Fire Executive Council (FEC) are also involved in an interagency executive leadership role for the national wildland fire enterprise.

The NWCG Program Management Office is responsible for the development and implementation support of NWFEA Program and Blueprint. Implementation of the Blueprint recommendations will be assigned to the appropriate agency and interagency organizations.

What is the NWFEA Program?

The NWFEA Program has two major activities:

  1. The NWFEA Program will provide the framework to better manage interagency wildland fire initiatives by providing:
    • A knowledgebase that provides a consolidated view of the various wildland fire components such as: organizations, products, services, processes, standards, and technology components of the national wildland fire community. This knowledgebase, or repository, is similar to the card catalog system in a library providing a description of each component and its relationship to other components.
    • Guidelines and procedures to assist the wildland fire community in assessing and prioritizing major initiatives.
    • A methodology to be used by the national wildland fire community to perform a self-assessment of the current condition and the desired condition; and the steps to transition to the future.
    • A governance model, or roles and responsibilities, of the various department, agency, and interagency organizations in the national wildland fire enterprise.
  2. The NWFEA Blueprint, through interaction with the interagency wildland fire community, will provide a bird’s eye view of:
    • The current “as-is” condition of the wildland fire enterprise
    • The future “to-be” desired condition of the wildland fire enterprise
    • A transition strategy to address needs and future improvements

In July 2008, the NWFEA Blueprint was delivered to the NWCG and the FEC. The chief architects for the Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service and the Department of the Interior are currently facilitating the presentation of the NWFEA Blueprint to their respective Investment Review Boards (IRB). The IRBs will reference the NWFEA Blueprint when making decisions about major wildland fire IT investments.

The NWFEA Blueprint consists of two volumes:

Part I: Goals and Recommendations
Part II: Supporting Analysis

A copy of the draft NWFEA Blueprint is available on the NWCG website:
www.nwcg.gov/nwfea/blueprint.html

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