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National Wildfire Coordinating
Group
Fire Environment Working Team
Fire Behavior Committee
Teleconference
September 13, 2007
Members
on call:
Kelly Close
Dan Jimenez
Punky Moore
John Saltenberger
Larry VanBussum
Robert Ziel
Others present:
Wayne Cook, S493 Chair
Paul Schlobohm, FENWT Chair
Not on call:
John Barborinas
Kyle Cannon
Risa Lange-Navarro
Tami Parkinson
Fire Behavior
Curriculum:
S190:
Update from J. Saltenberger about
online course review. Initial impression was favorable about
the professional looking format; however, in the weather
portion the graphics did not illustrate well the principle
point of the text or narration. The discussion included
how the FBC heard about the review at a late date, allowed
less than 10 days for the evaluation. Saltenberger sent
his report to FBC chair and TWT. FBC’s concern is
that the recommendations were not included in the review
and that the process is going forward without needed changes.
P. Schlobohm will follow-up.
S290:
Comet project is on course as reported from L. Van Bussum.
TWT is continuing to look into the process of directing
some funds to the effort and how to transfer to Comet. Understanding
the need for fire behavior SMEs and agency perspective led
to the discussion about ensuring there are experts who are
committed to the project. Initial SME identification was
made. P. Schlobohm will contact D. Epps before the Nov.
meeting about additional subject matter needs for the project
in coordination with VanBussum and W. Welch.
Action Item #296: Zeke
will forward committee intent about S190-490 SME continuity
between courses to Schlobohm, due date Oct. 1.
S492/S493 curriculum proposal:
FENWT is responsible for maintenance of these courses. The
emergence of decision support centers, incident analysis
at the geo level, outdated and new spatial environment tools
necessitate the examination of how the curriculum is preparing
course graduates to work in support of wildland fire incidents
today. A briefing paper is being developed that P. Schlobohm
will present at the joint TWT/IOSWT meeting (last week of
Sept.) that recommends changes in course content and offerings.
The need to adjust position taskbooks and course content
leads to the proposal of holding fire behavior and risk
assessment training needs workshop(s) starting in December.
Schlobohm added that shifting content
in the taskbooks for FBAN/LTAN is one thing, but if there
is a shift in the function and skills needed in the positions;
we will need to work with IOSWT about changes to position
taskbooks. FBC concurred there are some differences in the
skills needed in the positions.
Further discussion on this topic will
happen after the decision is made on ’08 course offering.
Action Item #297: Paul
will present recommendations to TWT/IOSWT meeting and
relay decision to FBC, due date Oct. 1
Action Item #298: Participant list will
be developed for workshop, Zeke and others, due date Oct.
11
Oct.18th conference call agenda item
FBC members offered FBAN/LTAN perspective
about FSPro, who is the target audience, who is using, who
should be using and who is interpreting? Unclear what FBAN
role is? Discussion continued about the need to revise outdated
curriculum to keep pace with a changing environment.
Course Evaluations and Critiques:
Oct. 18th conference call agenda item.
Implementation for fire behavior courses is planned for
winter ’08.
RAWS/ROMAN:
FENWT is building a set of recommendations for NWCG. Included
in the pending report derived from input provided by users
is a more defined purpose of the RAWS network to support
a system wide overlook at point and gridded applications
of fire weather for fire danger, fire behavior and planning.
It is recommended that NWCG conduct the kind of analysis
that FENWT was not funded to do, that will help directors
understand the size of the network and growth potential.
FENWT will make both short term and long
term recommendations for the ROMAN such as making it a NWCG
project managed like its’ other projects. Long term
recommendation is that ROMAN continues to be one-stop shop
for RAWS, hourly data, with integrated capability to interact
with other systems, i.e. WIMS. Changes made in one would
be affected in others.
Paul will present the report the 2nd week
of Oct. to NWCG parent group. For more information, go to
FENWT discussion topic to see RAWS/ROMAN, S492/493 info.
Ziel added that FBC participation was valuable.
FBC Budget 2008-2009-2010:
- State Travel: $7,500.00
- Firefighter Math: $7,000.00
for Phase 2 – one year to spend funds, each chapter
will have interactive test, user account and Google analytics
to get feedback from the user community
- Field Ref. Guide: Was converted
into electronic format. Needs serious updating. FBC should
review and strategically plan where to take it from here.
Discussed task orders and how to solicit, Dan will continue
to investigate.
- FLAME outreach: Professional
service contract including travel and per diem. Define
what is necessary and what Erin can help with
- S492-S493 Workshop: Funds from
project $ for development materials
Annual Refresher:
No funding requests were made of the FBC. K. Close will
contact Al King to get more information about direction
of the project. King has asked to attend the Nov. meeting.
2008 money has not come to FENWT yet.
Money that is not spent in the fiscal year is lost. FBC
will make some budget decisions at Nov. meeting. Discussed
management of funds whether projects are in Missoula or
in Boise. Erin could help with credit card purchasing/larger
contracts.
Action Item #299: Dan
will followup on budget process and provide info to FBC
co-chairs, due date Oct. 1.
Action Item #300: Zeke will draft budget
items for FENWT meeting, 1st week in Dec.
Taskbooks Review:
Our job in the review process is to make
sure the fire behavior knowledge and skills are adequately
evaluated, i.e., what kind of expectations do we have for
the single resource boss position and does the taskbook
cover the skills needed for the position? Are safety zones
adequately addressed? What should be added or changed?
Action Item #301:
Taskbook review deadline is Oct. 31; draft feedback to
Zeke by Oct. 18th.
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Assignments
follow:
- ICT3/ICT4/OSC1-OSC2
- SRB (ENGB, TRPB, CRWB, DOZB,
FIRB, FELB)
- FFT2/FFT1/RXCM/ICT5
- RXB1-RXB2/RXB3/FUM1/FUM2
- SOF1/SOF2/SOFR
- DIVS/TFLD/STLD
- FEMO/FOBS
- AIR OPS Books
- John B.
- Other Support Books (PIO2, PETM)
- J. Saltenberger & K. Close will
look at all books for wx components
Fire Lab
Report:
Dan reported that Pat Andrews would like
to attend Nov. meeting, at least 2 hours toward the end
of the meeting week. She has many items she would like to
address; upgrades to BehavePlus version 4.0, implementing
a training plan for Behave, next generation of Fire Danger
Rating/Fire Severity features, interface and web capabilities.
Wind Wizard – Working on ironing
out some quirks, ready to release later this month. Support
will be provided thru the lab. B. Butler also obtained JFSP
money to pursue “Improving Guidelines for Safety Zones
in a Slope Environment.” (3yr project)
FSPro – products were being generated
from an analysis and computer standpoint. Managers were
pleased to see that requests were being generated into products,
but the products received mixed reviews. There is more work
to be done to determine how the technology impacts managers
and how the data is interpreted. Future work includes integrating
Google earth products; lead, R. Stratton.
John Szymoniak is retiring in the next
year, stay tuned for more information.
RMRS is going thru a large reorganization
process which involves developing a new charter and 5-year
strategy. There is a national level R&D effort to design
new fire spread model that would replace Rothermel model.
FBC may consider providing a letter of support for this
kind of initiative. Changes are coming quickly, such as
running FSPro from the incident which now takes 8 hours
but may soon become a 1 hour process.
Round Robin
Kelly – will draft observations
about FSPro on the Zaca Fire
Larry – shared info about his assignment and NWS filling
every IMET request this season.
Conference call adjourned 1200 PDT
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