Eight Incident Management Teams mobilized to Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands

U.S. Navy Puerto Rico

Above: The U.S. Navy assists a victim of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. U.S. Navy Photo.

Eight Incident Management Teams have, or will soon be responding to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to assist in the response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria. As of Wednesday evening a total of 353 personnel have been assigned to the FEMA response through the National Interagency Fire Center. This does not include the resources mobilized directly by FEMA.

Here are the details, according to NIFC:

  • A Type 1 IMT (McGowen) has arrived in Puerto Rico and is coordinating with FEMA regarding establishment of an Incident Support Base for the receipt and distribution of commodities, supplies and resources at Aguadilla Airport.
  • A Type 2 IMT (Zombro) and 23 two-person saw teams are coordinating with FEMA, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Puerto Rico Emergency Management Agency regarding plans and priorities for emergency road clearing. Lack of ground transportation is delaying operations.
  • A Type 2 IMT from FDNY (Kane) is working with San Juan Fire Department to assess fire protection capabilities and needs.
  • Two Type 2 IMTs (Bird, Parrish) have arrived in Virgin Islands to establish and manage LSAs [Logistics Staging Areas] in St. Croix and St. Thomas to further distribute commodities and supplies to points of distribution on each island.
  • While not part of the ESF #4 [Emergency Services Function #4, firefighting] response, 52 Forest Service Law Enforcement Officers continue to support ESF #13 in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
  • A NIMO [National Incident Management Organization] (Quesinberry) is staged in Atlanta, GA, awaiting transportation to the U.S. Virgin Islands to support the Territory’s Emergency Operations Center in St. Thomas.
  • Nine two-person saw teams and overhead are staged in Harrisburg, PA; they are scheduled to fly to Puerto Rico on September 28.
  • Two Type 2 IMTs have been ordered to support LSAs and will arrive in Atlanta on September 29 and 30 to await transportation to the Puerto Rico/Virgin Islands region.

New York Task Force 1 Puerto Rico

A U.S. Navy Osprey delivers supplies in Puerto Rico. U.S. Navy Photo.

Status of “Evolving Incident Management”

Rocky Mtn Area Team C
The Rocky Mountain Geographic Area Team “C” Type 2 Incident Management Team at their annual meeting in Cheyenne, Wyoming in 2013. (click to see a larger version.)

The National Wildfire Coordinating Group has been working on efforts to address sustainability issues with wildland fire management succession planning for incident management teams. In other words, to ensure that the wildland fire agencies continue to have an adequate number and the right mix of incident management teams and the personnel to staff them. The NWCG chartered the Incident Management Organization Succession Planning Team (IMOSPT) and the Evolving Incident Management (EIM) project team to develop implementation plans.

Evans Kuo, the Project Lead for Evolving Incident Management, provided an update on the group’s progress, dated May 27, 2015: (I wish I had a dollar for every acronym below.)

****

…As you know, last fall we made the presentation to the NWCG Executive Board (under whom the EIM Task Team is tasked).  A copy of what we presented can be located at: http://www.nwcg.gov/general/memos/m-14-014.pdf  NWCG accepted our report and forwarded it onto the Fire Management Board (FMB) along with their endorsement.  Over the course of last fall the FMB reviewed our findings, developed a strategy to move forward, and presented it to the Fire Executive Council (FEC).  A key element of the FMB strategy is to divide up the tasks / recommendations identified by the EIM Task Team and re-assign these tasks to different entities that have the purview to make the decisions, i.e. NMAC for IMT mobilization and IMT utilization processes, CGAC for IMT governance practices, FMB for overarching principles that individual agencies have purview over, NWCG for development of streamlined development pathways, etc.   One of the problems we ran into in EIM Phase 3 was NWCG’s role in the new governance structure, which changed quite a bit since 2010 when IMOSP/EIM was first conceived.  Hopefully the FMB strategy will help clean up the governance issues and allow us to move forward in a more succinct way.

Last winter FEC discussed our revised recommendations and the FMB plan of action and they briefed the Federal Fire Policy Council (FFPC).  At their April 2015 meeting FFPC agreed to the FMB/FEC recommendation and strategy to move forward.  We’re expecting to see the final FFPC decision memo soon, but I did get a copy of the draft decision.  In short, the FFPC decision supports all the revised recommendations the EIM Task Team developed:

  1. Maintain distinction between Type 1 and Type 2 IMTs and establish national templates to increase the speed to certification.

  2. Maintain GACG autonomy to assign IMTs within their geographic area, though NMAC will continue to exercise their authority to maintain a “national perspective” relative to IMT assignments and regular exercising all IMTs.

  3. Defer to the GACG to determine number of IMTs hosted by each GA, with some sideboards that NMAC and CGAC will put into place.

  4. Work within individual bureaus and agencies to analyze and reduce (if possible) barriers and disincentives to IMT participation.  Will also be evaluating the possibility of establishing national and geographic area participation goals for each agency/bureau/partner agency. “

****

Related articles on Wildfire Today:

—New model for Incident Management Teams February 6, 2012
—NWCG reconfigures Incident Management Teams September 24, 2013

Number of Area Command Teams reduced from 4 to 3

area command team

The lineup for the Area Command Teams (ACT) has been announced and the number of Teams has been reduced from four to three.

Jennifer Jones, spokesperson for the U.S. Forest Service in Boise, told us the reason for the change:

Based on analysis of Area Command Team use over the past 15 years, it was determined that 3 Teams were adequate.

An ACT may be used to oversee the management of large incidents or those to which multiple Incident Management Teams have been assigned. They can take some of the workload off the local administrative unit when they have multiple incidents going at the same time. Your typical Forest or Park is not usually staffed to supervise two or more Incident Management Teams fighting fire in their area. An ACT can provide decision support to Multi-Agency Coordination Groups for allocating scarce resources and help mitigate the span of control for the local Agency Administrator. They also ensure that incidents are properly managed, coordinate team transitions, and evaluate Incident Management Teams.

National ACTs are managed by the National Multi-Agency Coordinating Group (NMAC) and are comprised of the following:

  • Area Commander (ACDR);
  • Assistant Area Commander, Planning (AAPC);
  • Assistant Area Commander, Logistics (AALC);
  • Area Command Aviation Coordinator (ACAC); and
  • Two trainees.

They usually have an additional 2 to 15 specialists, including Fire Information, Situation Unit Leader, Resource Unit Leader, and sometimes others such as Safety, and Long Term Planning, or assistants in Planning, Logistics, or Aviation.

This year the ACT lineup looks like this, according to the ACT website:

Dugger Hughes ACDR
Paul Summerfelt ACPC
Rich Rusk ACLC
Yolanda Saldana ACAC

Boo Walker ACDR
Jim Jaminet ACPC
Butch Hayes ACLC
Mike Dudley ACAC

Bill Van Bruggen ACDR
Joe Ribar ACPC
Martin Maricle ACLC
Rich Webster ACAC

The Area Commander not on the list this year after serving on ACTs for nine years (2006 – 2014) is Jim Loach.

Area Commanders serve for a three-year term, after which they can apply for any of the other three Assistant Area Commander positions if they wish to continue to serve on the team. They may be selected as an Area Commander for up to an additional 3 years, if there are no other qualified applicants.

Type 1 Incident Commanders are managed in a similar manner for the most part. Generally they serve for three years and then must re-apply.

We have been told that the National Wildfire Coordination Group has been pushing to “re-form” the Type 1 teams each year, with a yearly application and re-selection process. It seems to us that would be a detriment to the TEAM concept.

Contest: when will the first Type 1 Incident Management Team be assigned

question markOn March 8 we looked back at the weather in the United States over the last three months knowing that it could have an effect on wildfires over the next three to six months. However the extent to which past weather influences future fires is debatable and can be overridden by the weather conditions during the fire season.

What is YOUR prediction for the 2015 fire season? Like the first robin you see in the spring, the assignment of the first Type 1 Incident Management Team (IMT) is a sign that things are getting real. In the last few years there have been about 30 to 50 assignments each year for T1 IMTs.

So let’s have a contest about the date the first Type 1 IMT will be assigned on a fire.

How to enter: In a comment below this article give us your prediction of the date the first Type 1 IMT will be assigned to a fire in 2015. In case more than one person selects the correct date, include the state. A second tie breaker will be the general area within that state. The date is defined by the date they are actually dispatched to a fire, not necessarily arriving at the fire. For the purposes of this contest, a Type 1 IMT includes only the 16 national interagency IMTs listed here. Only one entry per person, of course.

Deadline for entries: write your date with the two tie breakers in a comment below this article before April 1, 2015. If an IMT is assigned before April 1, the deadline for entries will change retroactively to the day before that fire started.

Prize: the winner will receive a limited edition Wildfire Today cap. So that we can contact the winner, you must enter your correct email address in the form when you are writing your comment. As usual, email addresses will never be disclosed to anyone without your specific permission.

Thanks and a tip of the hat for the idea go out to Dick.