The
Lookout
Information,
Observations and Comments from the
National Association
of
Sustaining the Heritage
____________________________________________________________________________________
A SPECIAL
EDITION
The following message from Al West, Chair
of the NAFSR
Fire Committee will up date you on the status of the committee’s work.
The
final report will also be distributed as a special edition of THE
LOOKOUT.
NAFSR FIRE COMMITTEE STATUS REPORT
I
want to bring everyone up to date on Fire Committee activities and the
direction of involvement in which we appear to be heading.
This is the first time I have written to all
of you at the same time, so let me review the background up to this
point.
During
last year’s NAFSR annual meeting, the board agreed to establish a fire
committee to respond to numerous concerns expressed by retirees and
others. The concerns focused on what
appeared to be changes in fire policies and how they were being
implemented. The Wildland Fire Use (WFU)
and Appropriate Management Response (AMR) policies were the center of
concern
but there were others. Many retirees
described several incidents that caused severe watershed and other
resource
damage, excessive costs, along with increasingly larger fires than
should have
occurred. Several of you provided
examples of what was happening.
Following
the meeting Darrel contacted, or heard, from several people and asked
if they
would be willing to assist in various ways to work with the current
Forest
Service Management Teams. My
understanding is that each of you have agreed to be involved in various
degrees. If not let me know or tell me
your interest level.
Darrell
asked me to chair the committee and we met with a small group during
last
year’s SAF meeting in Reno Tom Harbour
A
small core committee that includes Steve Eubanks, Jim Golden, Gordie
Schmidt
and myself prepared a draft problem statement that is currently being
revised
based on the input from the core team and a few others.
I felt it should not be finalized until after
a series of contacts with Fire Management.
That has now occurred and a rewrite should be done in the next
30 days
and will be shared with all of you for comments and suggested changes.
George
Leonard and I have been involved with several communications with the
Chief,
Deputy Chief of State & Private Forestry, Director of Fire
Management and
most of his top staff. I have also had
personal conversations with Tom Harbour California
My
observation is that the Chief’s office has listened to our concerns,
has
provided us with requested information and has been open to our
suggestions. We are continuing the dialog
and we will work
together to develop an action plan that will utilize the experiences of
retirees. Fire and Aviation Management
has been positive in working with the NAFSR scheduling conference
calls,
meetings, and understanding the sincerity of issues raised. At the same time we did express our concerns
that they are constantly changing policies and the intent does not
appear to be
understood by local line officers. They
are trying to overcome this situation with a number of regional and
forest
level meetings. The new NIMO teams are
being used for some of this exchange at the forest level.
Time however is short as they try to make a
number of changes for the 2009 fire season.
In other words, be ready to go by the end of May.
These training and briefing sessions are
situations we have discussed to which the fire committee members may be
able to
contribute.
Among
the change is to go back to just two types of fire—“Planned Ignitions”
(prescribed fire) and “Unplanned ignitions” (wildfire) instead of the
current
three kinds of fires—“Wildfire (unwanted), “Prescribed Fire”
(management
ignitions) and “Wildland Fire Use” (natural ignitions).
They are replacing the “Wildland Fire
Situation Analysis” (WFSA) with a new analytical and methodology called
“Wildland Fire Decision Support System” (WFDSS). In
addition it does not appear that the field
has full understanding of the consequences of decisions related to
implementing
the appropriate management response (AMR).
Overall we are concerned with the implementation of policy
changes,
including the involvement and understanding of Line Officers in their
essential
role in making decisions related to fire management actions on their
units.
Tentatively
we are discussing potential retirees’ role in implementing Fire Policy
changes
at Regional and Forest level meetings. We are also discussing how retirees can be
part of NIMO Teams’ pre-fire contacts with forests.
Finally, we have discussed “Hot Fire Reviews”
and how retirees can be involved. We do
not at this time feel there is an urgency to review past fires.
In
summary let me say I believe Forest Service management has heard our
concerns
and wants to solicit our help. It is
important we move beyond the past and help the agency do what is right
for the
land and people. We all worked so hard
to fulfill the Forest Service Mission and want to make sure it
continues into
the future.
As
the next phase develops I will keep you informed. In
the meantime, please give me your
comments.
Al West, Chair
The Lookout, published by National
Association of
Forest Service Retirees. Editor John Marker, jf37m@aol.com, 6681
Highway 35, Mt