1/28/16 Risk Management Workgroup FY 2016 Mission and Vision

One of NIMO's 5 workgroups is Risk Management and they have posted their Mission, Vision and 2016 Goals and Objectives to their page. If you are an IMT or a part of the USFS, you may be exposed to this group's work this year, so take a look at their page here or click on the WG: Risk Management tab above!

1/22/16 Using Periscope on Wildfires

Always looking to advance the work Information officers can do on wildfires, we experimented with a "newish" social media tool called Periscope in late summer 2015 on the River Complex.  It's a fun tool and has some significant applications for enhancing public communications and understanding during wildfires and other all hazard incidents. After being asked by a number of people how to use it, PIO Kris Eriksen made this 25 minute video demonstrating the basic "how to's" of using the tool as well as discussing some lessons learned.  We certainly are not experts & it's very likely others have used this tool as well and have even more helpful tips, so we encourage you to share them.

Click HERE to watch the video on our Skill Builders Page

1/21/16 NIMO 2016 Leader's Intent Now Available

If you are interested, we have posted the official document that provides NIMO with Leader's intent for 2016.

The purpose of this document is to provide guidance to the National Incident Management Organization (NIMO) program for FY 2016 and to describe the best management practices as identified by the NIMO Executive Council. This document describes the direction and Leaders Intent that guide practices and behaviors of the organization while maintaining the doctrinal principles where program managers are expected to make decisions on implementation details.

See the page above called NIMO 2016 Program Leader's Intent or click here

11-14-15 NIMO Blog Still Under Construction

Thanks for taking a look at our blog. We've just started it and we're still working on it so there are many empty spaces right now but more content is coming. Please check back over the next few months as we add things. We'd also welcome suggestions if there are learning tools you'd like to see here.

11-14-15 Learning & Innovation Workgroup FY 16 Focus Areas

NIMO’s are asked a lot about what we DO when we are not on fires, so we plan to begin sharing that information on both this site and on this blog. (The blog is a project of our workgroup as a platform for sharing ideas,  but is still a work in progress so please be patient!)   

NIMO’s are employees of the Forest Service Washington Office (in D.C.) and we answer to AD for Operations Steve Gage and up the chain to Fire Director Tom Harbour, so we take our direction from them. Each year we are given Leader’s Intent regarding what we will be working on over the next year. A couple of years ago, we began to change how we do business a bit. We are now more of an organization, rather than individual teams. We still function as teams on some occasions like wildfires, but the rest of the year we work in workgroups. There are four workgroups: Risk Management, Cohesive Strategy, Workforce Development, and Learning and Innovation and each is given specific direction.

Today, we’re sharing the work of the Learning and Innovation Workgroup. Having just met and defined the “focus areas” for FY16, we thought we’d share our plan. These are not all specific “tasks” but rather general areas where we are free to figure out how to accomplish a measureable end state. Please feel free to give us some feedback, other ideas or any connections you might have to help us accomplish our work.

1. Write a concept paper to develop an International Wildland Fire Coordinating Group that has representatives from across the world and can work on International ICS accreditation and access for resources internationally.
2. Solicit new concepts and ideas from the wildland fire community and work preseason with selected, current IMTs (including NIMO), to get commitments to act as “hosts” for these new concepts and approaches. This will be an ongoing project for development of new processes for IMT’s.
3. Create incentives to push NIMO’s to pursue challenges that push them out of their comfort zone and lead to new ideas and processes that leave the customers they serve better than when they arrived.
4. It is the program’s duty not only to try and implement the above new ideas, but to share the results, successful and unsuccessful, with the greater wildland fire community. Each new concept, approach, technology that’s written and approved by the NIMO Executive Council. is published on NIMO web platforms and the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned site. These platforms will also be used to engage the larger wildland fire community in conversation about projects and ideas still in development.

10/2/15 NIMO Job Openings in Operations and Plans

Here is the NIMO Operations and Plans outreach. These are great, adventurous jobs with NIMO so please encourage people to respond to the outreach if they have any interest at all. Here's the official word:

"We are reissuing the PSC and OSC outreach for NIMO. Though we got some good responses, it was limited due to the extreme fire activity during the listing.  Please share these links far and wide.

Those who have already responded will remain on our list so they don’t have to resubmit, but PLEASE encourage anyone who is interested to send an email or respond with their name and location so we can take it into consideration when choosing duty locations across the country."

Plans Section Chief

Operations Section Chief

10/1/15 New Portable Inter-Operable Radio System

Eric Martinez demonstrates the new radio concept

Eric Martinez joined NIMO early in 2015.  He had an idea for a Portable Inter-operable Radio System, useful in Spike Camps, very remote locations or even ICPs.
During the River Complex in 2015, he shared the beta test of the system with a small group which we recorded on video. If you'd like to know more about it, here is the link:

Portable Radio System Video - 10 minutes

The video link will remain on the Innovative Ideas page on this blog. If you need to contact Eric about his project, you can email him at epmartinez@fs.fed.us