February 13

National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) Monthly Meeting Minutes February 13-14, 2013 Action Decision No. Topic X 1. Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center (LLC) 2. Joint Fire Science Program: Meet with Program Review Team 3. Agenda Review 4. Work Session to Prepare for Thursday Morning Report Out at All Chair Meeting 5. Wildland Fire Executive Council (WFEC): Meeting Summary and Emerging Issues 6. Cohesive Strategy (CS): Phase III Update 7. Interior Fire Executive Council (IFEC): Meeting Summary and Emerging Issues 8. NASF Fire Committee Meeting X X 9. Evolving Incident Management (EIM) Implementation 10. Single Point Billing 11. OSHA Wildland Fire Orientation Course 12. BIN ITEMS X Bin No. 1: NWCG Portal Bin No. 2: Draft Type 2 IA hand crew tasking to OWDC National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) Monthly Meeting Minutes February 13-14, 2013 This meeting of the NWCG was held in Boise, Idaho, at the Hotel 43 and Holiday Inn on February 13 and the National Interagency Fire Center on February 14. NWCG Executive Board Members Attending: Aitor Bidaburu (Chair), U.S. Fire Administration Dan Smith (Vice-Chair), National Association of State Foresters John Segar, Fish and Wildlife Service John Gould, Bureau of Land Management Steve Gage, USDA Forest Service Lyle Carlile, Bureau of Indian Affairs Bill Kaage, National Park Service Tim Sexton, USDA Forest Service – Fire Research PMU Attending: Paul Schlobohm, (Acting) NWCG Manager Others Attending: Brit Rosso, Lessons Learned Center Program Manager Mark Koontz, National Park Service (acting for Kaage, 2/14) Barry Mathias, EIM Project Manager Called In: Meeting minutes mirror the topics listed on the Meeting Agenda, but not necessarily the order in which they were discussed at the meeting. Meeting started at 11:00 a.m. 1. Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center (LLC) Presenter: Brit Rosso Distributed and reviewed: Handout No. 1: Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center 2012 Accomplishment Report Discussion: The LLC is now 10 years old. LLC was created from recommendations in the Tri-Data Study. It was approved by the Federal Fire and Aviation Leadership Council (FFALC) in 2000. Its charter was signed in 2003 by Jim Stires as NWCG chair. The charter states that LLC will liaison with NWCG and its committees. Central to its mission and success is a degree of independence from programmatic entities such as NWCG. The roles of an ombudsman or fire lookout were suggested for reference as analogs. In the past couple of years LLC has focused more on serving the field and the firefighter on the ground. Similar to the PMU, the LLC staff is employed full time, not as collateral duty, to accomplish its mission. LLC manages three websites and plans to consolidate them into one. 650 groups, including 150 IMT groups, use these websites for collaborative work, sharing 30,000 documents. The status of LLC and NWCG websites was discussed, including business requirements, funding, and management. LLC continues to work to provide a searchable database. The Executive Board expressed support for the autonomy of the LLC but concern that this status is appropriately established in LLC’s enabling documentation (charter, MOU, SLA, etc). Redrafting the appropriate document was proposed. Action Item 13-005: Brit Rosso will develop a draft MOU by March 29 for Executive Board consideration at their April meeting. 2. Joint Fire Science Program: Meet with Program Review Team Presenter: Executive Board Distributed: Handout No. 2: Joint Fire Science Program Review Agenda The Executive Board met with and answered questions from the JFSP Program Review Team. 3. Agenda Review Presenter: Aitor Bidaburu Distributed and reviewed: Handout No. 3: February 2013 Agenda 4. Work Session to Prepare for Thursday Morning Report Out at All Chair Meeting Presenter: Aitor Bidaburu Discussion: Executive Board discussed key themes from Tuesday’s All Chair meeting, including panel presentations, committee chair presentations, and support for doing less with less. The workload for committees associated with publications was discussed including how the PMU is planning to focus on supporting this work and that the committees should re-examine the revision cycles of their documents. Handout: All Chairs Meeting Agenda 5. Wildland Fire Executive Council (WFEC): Meeting Summary and Emerging Issues, and 7. Interior Fire Executive Council (IFEC): Meeting Summary and Emerging Issues Presenter: Bill Kaage Discussion: Bill reviewed outcomes of the recent WFEC meeting, primarily regarding governance and the creation of a Fire Management Board. 6. Cohesive Strategy (CS): Phase III Update, and 8. NASF Fire Committee Meeting Presenter: Dan Smith Distributed and reviewed: Handout No. 4: Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy, National Goals; Collective Solutions Discussion: This topic was covered during the All Chairs meeting during Day 2. Dan presented status of Phase III activity and answered committee chair questions about their involvement with the Cohesive Strategy. 9. Evolving Incident Management (EIM) Implementation Presenter: Barry Mathias Distributed and reviewed: Handout No. 5: NWCG EIM Update, February Handout No. 6: Draft EIM Presentation slideshow Handout No. 7: Draft EIM Tasking Memo Discussion: Barry discussed the progress of each work unit, detailed in Handout No. 5. The Executive Board discussed their individual perspectives on the anticipated proposal from the IMT Pathways Work Unit. The group agreed to wait to see the actual proposal. The draft EIM tasking memo, Handout No. 7, was shared and briefly discussed. Could it help address the concern about “wrong rocks?” Action Item 13-006: Executive Board will review the draft memo and send comments to Paul by February 15. Action Item 13-007: Aitor and Paul will review the draft memo to address concerns raised about due dates and implementation. Memo is planned for release week of February 19. Barry presented and the Executive Board discussed rationale for a proposed EIM charter, as detailed in Handout No. 5. The need may vary by agency. DECISION: On EIM implementation, Executive Board agreed to let go of the full implementation due date of 2016 as described in the matrix in order to help work groups bring forward adjusted timelines. The objective of the project is to sustain 40 IMTs in the future. The two critical issues facing the project at this time are team typing and agency purview. Barry presented the draft slideshow, Handout No. 6. Action Item 13-008: Executive Board is to send comments on the slideshow to Barry by Tuesday, February 19 (in time for his presentation on Wednesday). Paul explained that Anne Black now has hardcopies of the General Technical Report she authored on the Phase 1 Stakeholder Feedback. The document is also available electronically.. Action Item 13-009: Paul request by Friday, February 15, 2013, the GTR on stakeholder feedback from Anne Black in hardcopy format for use by the Executive Board and Project Team. 10. Single Point Billing Presenter: Dan Smith Distributed and reviewed: Handout No. 8: State Forester Concerns on Single Point Interstate Billing for DOI Agencies Handout: NWCG#020-2012 – Single Point Interstate Billing memo (12/10/2012) Discussion: Dan described the issue outlined in Handout No. 8. No one is late on a payment yet. Some states are already making it work. The issue for four states is when the bill comes to NIFC. Lyle noted that agreement status is also uncertain in Indian Country. Dan will approach Sara Fisher, Anne-Marie Carlson, and Dave Burley for assistance with solutions. 11. OSHA Wildland Fire Orientation Course: Update Presenter: Paul Schlobohm Discussion: Paul reviewed the February conference call for the OSHA course development. Ted Mason, representing Risk Management Committee, and Tim Blake joined Paul and Rod on the call. Ted was able to help Rod complete several of his action items prior to the call. The new contractor participated for the first time. Ted and Tim expressed to Paul concerns of increasing commitment to this effort on the part of wildland fire staff, in particular related to development and presentation of the course. Steve Gage stated that if the course would result in OSHA no longer citing the Forest Service for not following the 10 & 18, his agency would gladly invest time to put on the course. 12. BIN ITEMS Bin No. 1: NWCG Portal Presenter: Paul Schlobohm Distributed and reviewed: Handout No. 9: NWCG Web Portal Briefing Paper Discussion: Paul reviewed the status of the portal contract, options and recommendation. Recommendation is limited by not having information provided by Brit about the LLC website situation. In the end, NWCG needs a web presence and it needs to provide collaborative work space for its stakeholders. Executive Board expressed concern about contract costs for the portal and the desire to consolidate not duplicate functionality between the portal and LLC efforts. More expertise on what is necessary was requested. Inclusion of the Fire I&T Program Board was requested. Action Item 13-010: Bill Kaage and Paul Schlobohm arrange a meeting with Erik Torres, Aitor, John Gould, Brit and others as needed to evaluate the NWCG portal and LLC websites and determine feasibility of transitioning to one development effort. Provide recommendation to Executive Board by February 27. Bin No. 2: Draft Type 2 IA hand crew tasking to OWDC Presenter: Aitor Bidaburu Distributed and reviewed: Handout No. 10: Draft Type 2 IA hand crew tasking to OWDC Discussion: Aitor reviewed the draft tasking and asked for comment by Tuesday, February 19, 2013.