CEPC-CC-2014-12-11

The following are notes taken during our last conference call 12/11/2014 @ 1500 Eastern Time.

On the call: Fred Turck, Pat McDowell, Brenda Rice, Elaine Waterbury, Morgan Warthin, Gwen Beavans, Jennifer Smith and Wendy Fulks.

Fred welcomed those on the call. We began with a round robin update.

Pat – Coming off a year of accountability, self-initiated review of the BIA National Programs especially the Prevention Program. Will be attending a staff prevention meeting in Albuquerque in January and also traveling to Minneapolis in February to present an overview their revised Trespass Course.

Morgan – Wrapping up the wildfire program review 2015-2019 Strategic Plan, it is now at the National Office and will be released soon. Some interesting trends are identified and an emphasis on communication/education. She will share once it has been finally approved etc.

Brenda – Their Fire Investigation Sub-Committee will be meeting on January 12-14^th.  They are done with content revisions on the 110/210/310 course and are now just dealing with the 210 pause. This hopefully will not cause much more of a delay as there is not really any issues with material content but more so on how to deliver the material. More from Brenda when we discuss a letter of support for the FI-310 course.

Gwen – Plans are moving forward with an Alpha test of delivering the P-310  course virtually. Three (3) “pods” have been identified, Alaska, the Pacific Northwest  and Colorado. However still evaluating the possibility of expanding this as there is a lot of interest. Robin Bible PETL from TN will be the lead instructor. The course will be offered in March. A traditional P-310 is being delivered in GA in January which should allow a good comparison possibly. There will soon be a new contract between the USFS and the NFPA, due by end of January. The new Mitigation Awards will be announced soon. The Smokey Bear Awards nomination will be hitting the streets tomorrow or the by the first of the week and are due by Feb 20^th for the Forest and by Feb 27^th for others.

Jennifer – Shared a well done Grouse short, view at http://youtu.be/tOmRiywaOb8 . Stressed the need to get with Scott Anderson (?) to discuss the possibility of getting something in place with the next round of refresher modules. Jennifer is to get with Elaine to move forward.

Wendy – The FAC Network will soon be coming out with new outreach material sometime in January and should have more to report on at next call. Wendy is asking that once this material is made available that we use our various networks to deliver this far and wide. Working on a Fire Adapted Community state of practice report.

Elaine – Busy working on All Chairs Agenda. “Leadership Without Authority” is the meeting theme. Date of the meeting is February 10-12, 2015 in Boise. Talked briefly about the Glossary Term Review which an email was sent out by Fred dealing with these Fred asked that if any member had comments to make to please do so prior to the next call and they will be combined into a response from our committee. A template /outline as to what should the structure (or what makes for a good) definition is soon to be completed and distributed. Web site work continues, there are 14 committees and 60 sub-committees which make this a very large and complicated project. The page is to be very searchable.

Fred – Mentioned having just been part of the cadre that delivered the PETL course (P-410) for the NE Forest Fire Compact in Albany NY. Had a lot of good student and cadre comments/suggestions for improvement which will be valuable when that time approaches. Briefly talked about the upcoming WUI meeting in Reno,  March 24-26, 2015, the 2015 Back Yards and Beyond Conference in Myrtle Beach SC in October 2015 and a potential multi state and international (Canada) joint compact conference/workshop on WUI, Prevention and possibly Arson in 2016 in the NE, maybe NY around the Albany area.

After this brief round robin we continued with the agenda items.

Re-structuring P-10, refresher and possible 201. Goal 1, Wendy as lead and Goal 2, with Pat as the lead both indicated that there has been some very early thought as to how and proceed which they both will be sharing with their work group and hopefully have something to report on our next call. Wendy did forward some of her initial work to the group via email. Brenda did ask that a review of the 9 fire causes be taken on possibly in conjunction with this work as many are in need of revision according to the Investigation folks.

Symbols Product Review – Gwen began this discussion with a report from contact she has made with Symbols and the 9 regional prevention coordinators. The following was a result of those contacts.

            Brochure, Wildland Fire in the United States. This was well liked by all and recommended to be kept available as is both in the cache and online.519 packages of 100 are available which is a several year supply based on recent purchases. Once this supply gets depleted it should be reviewed for updating etc.

            Brochure NWCG Making a Difference. This should be removed from the cache and if possible purged from any online availability. Current stock is 132 packages of 100. The Symbols folks are ok with absorbing the $760 to re-cycle.

            Notebook, Wildland Fire Communications Guide. It was suggested that the notebook NOT be sold and be removed from the cache once the existing supply has been distributed. We should not be selling something (especially at such a high price) that is available electronically or via other more usable product like the CD’s. The cache does have a fair supply of these with a value of $11,500 tied up in them but is willing to absorb this cost to get them out and off the shelves. A couple of courses like the S-203 , P-101 PETM etc could use these and it should be made known that they are avail (for free) to anyone contemplating hosting one of these courses.     

            CD, Fire Messaging Materials. Eliminate this product incorporating what information is relevant into the Wildland Fire Communications Guide. Jennifer provided a link and Elaine provided support documentation via email ref these.

CD, Wildland Communicators Guide.  This product was discussed in context of previous materials.

            S-203 Introduction to Incident Information – Fred mentioned that he has gotten a few calls/emails recently regarding this course and was looking for guidance. It was determined that this course is NOT the responsibility of the CEPC but that of the Training Branch. Any future questions, comments should be referred to that committee.

            Letter to FLETC (Federal Law Enforcement Training Center) regarding FI courses specifically the FI-310. Fred provided a brief background and Brenda filled in the gaps and offered additional information. In short the FLETC folks were/are the only ones in conjunction with the Investigation Sub-Committee that can offer the course and due to some retirements/changes there is the strong possibility that the 310 will not be available to units especially the states. They are discussing the possibility of contracting this out very similarly to how the Assessing the Risk In The Home Ignition Zone is currently being delivered by NFPA. It was agreed that we should send a letter in support of FLETC keeping the course and material as available as possible if even via a contract basis. Brenda is to send Fred a few key points to be woven into such a letter.

A reminder about our next call ……..

Thursday January 8^th, 2015

Call in # 1-866-842-5779

Call Code # 7177677265

Time: 1500 PM Eastern Time (11 AM Alaska, 1 PM Boise, 2 PM Oklahoma, 3 PM Virginia). 
 

With no other business well wishes for a happy holiday was expressed all around and the call was completed.