The consolidation of the Western Great Basin and Eastern Great Basin Coordination Centers (that Wildfire Today told you about in September) occurred on January 1; at least on paper. The consolidated organization will be working out of the former Eastern Great Basin Coordination Center until construction is complete at the new facility in Salt Lake City a mile west of the Salt Lake City airport. The construction is estimated to take eight to ten weeks.
Below is the text of a memo from the Great Basin Coordinating Group with more details:
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“January 7, 2015
From: Chair, Great Basin Coordinating Group
Subject: Consolidation of the Great Basin Coordination Centers
The consolidation of Western Great Basin (WGB) and Eastern Great Basin (EGB) Coordination Centers was effective January 1, 2015. As of close of business on December 31, 2014 both centers Eastern Great Basin and Western Great Basin discontinued operations. The Great Basin Coordination Center will service the needs for the entire Great Basin.
The physical location for the new center is 5416 W. Amelia Earhart Drive in Salt Lake City. New office space is currently under construction and is estimated to take approximately eight to ten weeks. Once construction and move in is completed the GBCC will have a new mailing address and suite number, and new telephone numbers. In the interim GBCC will be operating out of the former Eastern Great Basin Coordination Center and all personnel may be reached by calling (801) 531-5320.
Western Great Basin permanently closed its doors on December 31, 2014. Two Western Great Basin employees, Jess Costello and Ted Spencer relocated to Salt Lake City and arrived at their new duty station this week. Former Eastern Great Basin employees joined the Great Basin Coordination Center staff and a number of vacancies will be advertised over the next few months so that the Center will operate at full staffing levels. One of the key positions that will be advertised is the Great Basin Coordination Center Manager. Gina Dingman has been selected as the Acting Center Manager for the next 120 days.
The new unit identifier for GBCC (UT-GBC) was created and activated on January 1, 2015. During the next several days work is being completed in ROSS to make changes necessary in the transition of data from WGBCC and EGBC to GBCC. These changes will not affect the ability of the GBCC to dispatch resources during this time.
A new website for GBCC is currently being completed and was operational on January 2, 2015. The new website address is: http://gacc.nifc.gov/gbcc/. Users of the current websites for both WGB and EGB will be automatically redirected to the new website address. Anyone currently utilizing a link to the existing websites will have to update their web pages to indicate the change in website address to the new GBCC web page.
Another notification will be provided when the physical move to the new Center location is nearing completion. This will include GBCC’s mailing address, telephone number, and any other pertinent information.
We look forward to the final steps in the transition to a single state-of-the-art coordination center for the Great Basin.
/s/ Michael Morcom”
