4/29/14 Headed up to the Brindabells

 Everyone finally got some sleep so we are headed out this morning for our first adventure. Wait, the first adventure was this morning.! The stuff is truly awful. Like salty something rotten!

4/28/14 Made it to Australia!

All the 2014 Wildland Fire Study Tour participants survived the
14.5 hour flight and here are waiting for the last flight to Canberra.

Well, we all made it to LAX from across the country to catch our flight to Sydney! The 14.5 hour flight was really, really long but we all survived with varying amounts of sleep.  We skipped Sunday and arrived Monday morning the 28th and then waited a few hours for our next flight to Canberra.

We were picked up in Canberra by our hosts one (whose name escapes me due to lack of sleep) was the head of their equivalent of the NWCG,  Andrew who will be our tour guide for the rest of the trip, and Neil Cooper (whose job escapes me now).

That's Neil to the right, on the right, talking with our fearless leader Jason Steinmetz on the bus that took us to the Australian National University where we stayed the first day.


To the right is our first view of Australia as we flew out of Sydney.  Those weird shapes are the way the prop showed up on the phone camera!  Very fall like here, all the trees gold and red.  But a very nice 60 or 65 degrees.

Not to much to report.  We got to our rooms about 12 noon Oz time.  The rest of the day we spent trying not to fall asleep.  We walked around outside, went to see some museums, walked around the beautiful lake that is the center of Canberra and tried to stay awake till dinner at 5:30 so we could get in sync with the time zone. Got to know some of our fellow fire peeps.  Juan is from Mexico, Jalisco to be exact, and is like an FMO for the equivalent of a state agency, since Jalisco is like one of our states.  I believe he called it the State Forestry Commission?

During our walk we saw some, well bizarre architecture like this little brick and steel structure to the left.  Not sure what that was all about.  Perhaps it was art!   And the building to the right.  Those are large planters of some sort hanging off the sides of the building.

Otherwise, just some minor adjustments.  Only some people's phones work. Not mine.  Had to learn how to operate the room heat and lights (you have to put your room key in the thermostat mechanism on the wall! Never would have figured that out. Got our first "biscuits" on the plane - cookies which I'm sure many of you know. So not much hard news to report as we are just focusing on arriving and staying awake at the moment. But everyone has been very nice, and its beautiful.  Looking forward to tomorrows ride up into the Brindabelles (SP?) the mountains to look at a fuels treatment and some other efforts.  So more when we find wifi again.

National Social Media Training Next December

At the request of the State of Massachusetts, I am working on a 3 or 4 day social media training that is tentatively planned for the first week in December.  NIMO has agreed to help with the cost of live streaming the training to anyone in the country that would like to participate and we are whittling down the agenda and instructors, etc.

I am interested in anyone's thoughts about what ought to be be included.  We have, of course, many "how to" sessions on specific tools, and a segment on social media strategies for IMTs.  But we also want to include processes such as: how often should one engage, how do you get more information from Operations, what do you do about negative comments, can you delete rude or offensive comment , what should you talk about and who should be allowed to post.

Any other ideas?  Things we should include?  Please feel free to comment here and let me know.

Thanks

Kris Eriksen
Public Information Officer
NIMO

Welcome!!

I am so thrilled to see NIMO using a new medium to communicate ideas, share stories and lessons learned and simply opening the doors of communication to further our mission. Using the blog is easy, and I encourage all NIMO employees to contribute.

I expect that once this starts getting used, each of you will find that you know more about what is going on across the organization and once the 2015 work groups discover how easy and useful this tool is, you will likely want to look at using this method for communicating and brainstorming.

Be open to the possibilities and enjoy!!

Robin Cole, NIMO Coordinator

PDX NIMO runs another team through the sim at 520

All the NIMO teams participate in organizing and putting on 520 each year on Tucson, Arizona.  Here are some moments from 2014.

Portland NIMO SIM team

Portland NIMO SIM team

Portland NIMO SIM team

Portland NIMO SIM team

Portland NIMO SIM team

PHX NIMO runs the sim at 520

All four NIMO teams are involved in running the simulations that test 520 students in Tucson Arizona each February.

Above, a mixed group of PHX, BOI and PDX NIMO members work on inputs to the student team in a separate room.

Ironwood Hotshots of Tucson volunteered to be role players and did a great job. Left, Damien plays his role as Ground Support.

Steve and Tom Johnson work the radios as Air Support and Divisions during the sim.

1-10-13 PDX NIMO First Simulation for 2013

Mt Hood and the Portland Watershed

Portland NIMO began 2013 with an exercise and Google Earth simulation in Sandy, Oregon on the Mt. Hood National Forest. About 40 people, including NIMO, attended with a great cross section of the agencies involved in the exercise as well as the Regional Office.

Acting Deputy Regional Fire Director Deb Roy helps set the
scene for the simulation in the Portland Watershed

The scenario, created at the request of the regional office, addressed the possibility of a fire in the Bull Run Watershed which provides water for nearly one million people in the Portland area, one quarter of the population of the state of Oregon. The seriousness of this occurrence becomes apparent when reviewing a mudslide from years ago when about 1000 cubic yards of debris ended up in the water supply and shut the system down for 11 days.

Regional Forester Kent Connaughton (left) and
Forest Supervisor Chris Worth (center) participate in the exercise.

In attendance, representatives from the Portland Water Bureau (8), USFS Regional office (4), Regional Forester Kent Connaughton, local fire districts (6), Oregon Dept. of Forestry (6), Mt Hood Forest Supervisor, firefighters & fire staff (8).   The simulation allowed participants to talk through, and walk through, agency thinking and strategies in a situation that is rarely encountered.  Due to the size of the population, and concern for the single source water supply, good communication between agencies and  speaking with one voice were of paramount concern.

David Summer (back to us,) facilitates the exercise

The sim also included a situation similar to Dollar Lake when the nation was at PL 4 and resources were scarce. The exercise allowed participants to share and understand that the values at risk in the watershed, were competing for attention with the values at risk, like houses, across the nation. There was agreement that there would be intense pressure from elected officials and the public to take aggressive action,  but the sim allowed for discussion about how that pressure must be balanced with what resources were available, people's homes burning and danger to firefighters.

The day ended with a number of agreements about how the agencies can work together and prepare ahead of time to manage public expectations. Specific bin items were agreed to: more tactical simulations in the near future; incorporation of fire potential and information into the public tours of the watershed; communication with public around the state about these efforts to coordinate plans; build relationships ahead of time so all agencies understand specific concerns and interests; and consider the most urgent of these things ahead of the 2013 fire season.