Background:

The NWCG is currently considering an issue paper from the NIFCG to modify wildland fire policy to go to two types of fire, prescribed and wildfire (See the "Synopsis of the AMR…" posting).

Philosophically it makes sense to transition to AMR (after all fire is fire) and eliminate the differing nomenclature. But, Uncle Stu thinks that changing policy without some prerequisite structural changes within the wildland fire organizations could be a mistake. We need to look at the situation in terms of teams, training, the philosophy of the fire program, and position shortages and develop a reasonable glide path to get all of us there.

Uncle Stu Sez: Why all of a sudden are folks talkin' about AMR and getting' rid of WFU? Is it cause the ecological light got switched on or mebe it's some economics drivin' the situation? Or, mebe a combination of da two- however the question is answered at the Washington level could well impact us folks on da ground - speed of change vs. effectiveness.

When WFU was reborn out of the old Prescribed Natural Fire (PNF) program in 1995, specialized management teams and crews were developed to meet recognized needs to manage long term (WFU) events. This and the parallel development of WFU policy was done to meet the needs of management of long term events that could not be handled by the traditional IMT and suppression organizations. While there has been movement towards greater acceptance/ability of managing long term events for resource benefit, many of the same hurdles that were in place in 1995 still exist.

There are a series of emerging documents, such as the "Initial Impressions Report, Wildland Fire Use", July 2005 from the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center and the "Gash Creek Fire Lessons Learned" from the Bitterroot NF, 2006 which are documenting the challenges in implementing both WFU and AMR.

The "Initial Impressions Report" lists and goes into detail on 15 themes that they found. This report provides valuable information and background on the challenges faced by WFU events and by extension to the effective development of long term wildland fire event management.

Their themes pertinent to this discussion are as follows:

Theme 1 - "…WFU is an emerging initiative and sub-discipline, and its successful implementation may require a sweeping change in attitude, significantly improved support, and integration of diverse fire management resources…"

Theme 2 - "It appears that agency personnel need to move toward a more holistic view of the fire management job, and view themselves as fire management resources, rather than narrowly defined fire suppression, fire use, prescribed fire or fuels resources. However, this line of thinking is running into considerable internal resistance."

Theme 9 - There are numerous actions required to better prepare fire management personnel to be effective Fire Use Team (FUMT) members or effective resources for WFU events. This is particularly true of personnel and resources crossing-over from the suppression side of fire management. Many of these changes are related to training and education."

For the purposes of this paper, short term event equals the traditional suppression incident and long term event equates to WFU or the confine/contain AMR option.

Needs:

Policy - There are multiple policies than need to be revised prior to combining WFU and wildfire into one wildland fire category.

1- Current AMR policy needs to be re-visited and re-defined to integrate all aspects of wildland fire under one rubric. There is extensive confusion in the field about AMR and it's relation to full suppression and in particular WFU. (See "Synopsis of the AMR…" posting).

2- Policy also dictates that a WFIP is required for WFU incidents. If all fires are considered in the same how do we do the long term planning needed? A WFSA is not a viable candidate for long term planning, nor do I think that we can combine the WFSA and WFIP effectively. A WFIP is probably the most useful, but given the time frames for immediate full suppression action, short term events it isn't possible to spend 3-7 days developing. The U.S. Forest Service is developing a new decision making tool, the Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS) that may be able to address the needs of both short term and long term events (WFU and Confine/Contain AMR). (See "Synopsis of the AMR…" posting).

3- As per policy, wildland fire can only be managed for one objective, either suppression or resource benefit. This will need to be changed, as long term and short term events can have both suppression/protection needs and resource benefit. (See "Synopsis of the AMR…" posting).

4- Incident Qualifications will have to be modified to ensure that IMT Command and General Staff positions have the training and experience needed to manage both long term and short term events. This will require revising NWCG qualification standards (310-1). (There's been some talk about it and folks are workin' on dong some modification to S520)

Teams

1- Philosophy - Many of the "traditional" Incident Management Teams (IMT) do not have the mind or skill sets to be able to manage a fire for long term under anything but the short term anchor and flank tactics. Additional training and paradigm shifts are needed.

2- Team Makeup - Long term events no matter if they are WFU or confine/contain need different staffing levels than the teams carry now. There is no reason for all events to be staffed with a 50+ person team, especially when the Fire Use Management Teams (FUMT) have shown success with core teams of 10. In the long term the agencies need to revise the IMT composition. Uncle Stu suggests that teams have the Core Command and General Staff plus a GIS specialist and a Long Term Analyst position as the team. All other positions could be put into a pre-selected pool to be called on as needed. Many "traditional" IMTs now do not want to go out as a short team. Another paradigm shift is needed here also.

3- Although the activity in the Northern Rockies in 2007 was touted as being a breakthrough - some teams got the message, others didn't. Uncle Stu knew of one team that put in a Management Action Point, just so they could fly (very ineffectively) retardant on a wilderness fire. Another team was trying to scrounge ATVs so they could recon a FS inventoried roadless area so they could put in dozer line - fortunately the locals found out and nixed this plan - and both these fires has a well developed Long Term Implementation Plans. Lots of training and paradigm shifts needed in some cases. Without these changes AMR will become another version of anchor and flank - just because we can and we're comfortable with it.

Agency Administrators

1- There is confusion among many agency administrators about AMR (including full suppression events) and WFU. Putting all wildland fire events, both short term suppression and long term events under one umbrella would reduce this confusion in terminology. However, this action would increase the potential options for managing a fire and would require a better decision making tool that can effectively evaluate multiple options, risks and benefits. While this would allow more decision making space for the administrator, it also requires more in-depth knowledge of both the administrator and their staff to be able to decide among multiple options.

2- Their decision making must include not only the initial evaluation/decision, but a continuing fire assessment process based on relative risk with breakpoints for going between short term and long term management strategies.

3- Implementation of AMR, especially on long term incidents is going to take a lot more time and effort on the Agency Administrators and their staff's part - much more so than now. Constant vigilance, effective oversight of a team's tactics and the willingness to call them on their actions will take more time, effort, and expertise than the agency administrator's normally have taken. There are some units, the "early adopters", that are ready for this now, but many other units do not have the expertise developed to be effective.

Skill Sets

1- Long term wildland fire events with point protection and other indirect tactics require a different skill set than full suppression, anchor and flank tactics short term events. The difference in strategies and tactics are very different for these events. Developing these skill sets will take a longer training time. When Uncle Stu moved from suppression to fire use it was a definite learning process that did not happen overnight. Along with the skill sets, just as important is changing the paradigm or philosophy that one needs to operate under - it's a real difference that unless you've actually been there is both underestimated and undervalued.

2- Line resource skill sets. Long term events require a different set of skills than short term full suppression events for the resources assigned. Short term skill sets include the traditional line building, hoselaying, and firing skills mostly predicated on anchor and flank tactics. Long term events require the field resources to gather data on fuels, fire behavior and weather, extensive work in front of the fire, point protection planning and implementation skills, computer skills, as well as the traditional fireline skills. The Fire Use Modules have developed these skills. IHC's, engine crews, and Type 2 crews have not had the opportunity to develop these skills.

3- Crew Size. This is kind of a stretch, but are 20 person crew's really the most effective size of crew for the changing fire terrain? For those of us with long memories, the "Red Hats", who were the predecessors to the hot shot crews started out as 40 person crews. Then when DC-3s came along, they could take 25 people so the crews became 25. When the next generation aircraft came in (Convairs, etc), crews became 20 person based on transportation capabilities. In Alaska, the Type 2 village crews are 16 people because of the Twin Otter. Could the crew of the future be a 10 person crew? Or another number based on vehicle size, mobility needs, backcountry camping footprint concerns, changing skill sets and differing tactical implementation needs base on less direct line? Just a question for you all to mull over.

Positions

1- Command and General Staff (C&GS) - These positions are critical to the management of both short and long term events. C&GS personnel who are only experienced in short term event management will need additional training and experience to gain the skill sets needed for long term event management. C&GS personnel currently working on FUMTs may also need some additional experience in short term events, but because most of these personnel have migrated from short term event management teams, the learning curve would be much less.

2- Long Term Analysts (LTAN) - to effectively manage a long term event these positions are critical. There are barely enough to go around for the FUMTs now. Until this shortage is eliminated (or greatly reduced) there is no way the IMTs can effectively manage long term events. There are proposals to integrate the skill sets of the LTAN and Fire Behavior Analysts (FBAN). This would also require a long time frame due to the differing operational qualifications needed for each position and for the additional training and experience.

3- Technical Specialists for support of LTAN/FBAN positions. See above, the same needs and shortages as for LTANs. More personnel who are competent in FARSIGHT, RERAP and FSPro need to be developed. These technical specialist positions have been and are used as stepping stone positions to the LTAN. This should continue and receive greater emphasis. GIS specialists are also a shortage area.

4- There's also discussion of pulling many of the tech specialists and LTANs into a GACC and making them mobile regionally based groups to go around and help folks out.

5- Fire Use Modules (FUMs) - These are shortage resources. A re-organization and re-training of suppression forces are needed to meet these resource needs. Without adequately trained field resources long term events will not be able to obtain the information needed for planning and implementation of long term tactics.

6- Local Level Expertise - As more units put long term events/ WFU on line, there is lack of local expertise to manage these local low to moderate complexity events. This leads to a greater demand for non-local resources and teams (currently FUMTs) and a higher probability of an unwanted outcome due to inexperience. It's something that only training, initial conservative decision making (until comfort level and experience are built), and extensive use of off unit experienced resources (increasing workloads/demands for those individuals) can overcome. Demand for these long term event experienced resources will increase until base is built.

Training Classes

There are two different tracks for the short term and long term incidents. Currently there are two tracks for training managers of wildland fires (non-prescribed fire). Traditional suppression personnel go through the established suppression classes. Wildland Fire Use has its own management class S-580.

There is also no training in long term event management requirements at any of the non- Command and General Staff levels.

1- S-580 - This class presents important and valuable management strategies and philosophies for managing long term events. This training will need to be expanded to introduce the short term event specialists to long term event processes. This class may/will have to be rewritten and divided into two classes. One could be focused on managing low to moderate complexity long term events on a local basis (300/400 Level - ICT3/FUM2) and the other higher level (400/500 level) for managing complex long term events (IMT2/FUMT/IMT1/Agency Administrator levels)

2- Operational, Planning and Information Classes - The S-400/500 level Command and General Staff classes need to be revised to include long term events, point protection, increased information and planning needs, etc. No long term management strategies, tactics, informational, or planning needs are currently taught in these classes.

3- The introduction of long term skills needs to be pushed down to the 200 and 300 level classes as well. This is the level that the actual implementation resources (operational resources, unit leader and below positions) need to be introduced to long term strategies, tactics and expectations.

4- Line Officer Training - There is a need to revise the Fire Management Leadership class for agency administrators to include a strong module on managing long term events. This training currently does not include WFU or long term management modules.