FIRE USE WORKING TEAM
MEETING MINUTES
November 7-8, 2000
Missoula, Montana
| Name | Agency |
| Members Present: | |
| Bill Leenhouts | U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service |
| Phil Range | Bureau of Land Management |
| John Dickinson | South Carolina Forestry Commission |
| Colin Hardy | USDA Forest Service Research |
| Ken Nehoda | California Dept. of Forestry |
| Don Artley | NWCG Liaison |
| Members Absent: | |
| Dave Bunnell | USDA Forest Service |
| Lyle Carlile | Bureau of Indian Affairs |
| Dick Bahr | National Park Service |
| Advisors Present: | |
| Advisors Absent: | |
| Marion Matthews | BLM Training |
| Cyndie Hogg | NARTC Training |
| Guests: | |
| Jim Kitchens | NPS Yellowstone NP |
| Janice Peterson | U.S. Forest Service |
| Roger Ottmar | U.S. Forest Service |
| John Toliver | Ass't Director, Rocky Mtn. Forest Experimental Station |
Business:
 | Prescribed Fire Training Course - All NWCG prescribed fire position skills
address operational activities. Prescribed fire planning activities are
considered agency responsibilities. With increased interest in interagency
and landscape fire management planning, should NWCG develop prescribed fire
planning standards? This could be formalizing a prescribed fire planner
position, develop a standard prescribed fire plan or checklist, or establish
standardized planning elements. ACTION: The Team will collect as many
prescribed fire planning examples as possible to identify similarities and
differences in planning elements. |
| NWCG Prescribed Fire Complexity Rating - Activities by the BLM and NPS to
add descriptions similar to those for Risk to Potential Consequences and
Technical Difficulty have improved the usefulness of the complexity rating
system. ACTION: The Team will continue to monitor these efforts
for possible formal NWCG inclusion. The unknown factor is how the Cerro
Grande Fire review recommendations to develop an interagency complexity/risk
rating system will be implemented. |
| NWCG Glossary of Fire Terminology - The Team will contact the IOSWT about
their schedule for updating the Glossary and offer our assistance for fire
use terms. |
| 1st Order Fire Effects Module to S-244 - Completion of the
module is almost complete. ACTION: The Team will review the completed
module at the next Team meeting and, if acceptable, will recommend to the
TWT that the module be included in S-244 were students are perusing Fire
Effects Monitor qualifications. |
| NWCG Update - New activities include: report on wildland firefighter
demographics, DOD membership, Australia/New Zealand associate membership,
national standard of 1/4 turn quick connect coupling, incident base
automation, NFDRS satellite integration, GACG joint meeting, and FUWT as the
feature team at the Oct. 16-18, 2000, NWCG meeting in Bar Harbor, Maine. |
| Field Managers Course Guide - Fire use positions in the course guide were
reviewed and potential errors were found. ACTION: The Team will
forward recommended changes to the TWT. |
| Smoke Management Guide - The Team met with the Smoke Management Guide
Steering Committee and evaluated the 1st draft stakeholder
reviews. Because of the 2000 fire season, the number of reviews were
significantly less than expected, but there was sufficient comments to
indicate changes were needed. Primarily the goal of the Guide was modified
and the content structure changed. Also expanding the Steering
Committee to include a representative from the Southeastern U.S. Plans
are to make the changes and additions needed in January and have another
review by core stakeholders. Hopefully the Guide will be completed in 2001. |
| Next Meeting - June 5-7, 2000 Book Cliffs, UT |