2/17/16 Wildfires Near Me - a new tool for real time fire information

This is Kris Eriksen, NIMO PIO.  I wanted to pass along some information from a NIFC webinar I was involved in today; many of you may not have seen it as it was aimed at PAO's and PIO's. I have been working with Ben Butler and his group at NIFC for almost 2 years on a fire information app called Wildfires Near Me, which was announced for the first time today on the NEW PIO TECH TOOLS webinar!  We're pretty excited about it and hope it will be very useful to the public.

The app is based on a similar tool I was introduced to while on the 2014 Bushfire Study Tour of Australia and New Zealand and it focuses on a largely untapped niche - information about new and emerging fires.  It's a tool that takes official fire information downloaded directly from dispatch immediately upon being reported, and merges it with twitter discussions filtered to only those about new and emerging fires. It incorporates social media allowing users to tweet or post to facebook without having to leave the app and includes the ability to create a personalized stream of information or alerts about fires near specific locations via texts or emails.

If you'd like a copy of my and Ben's PPT on just Wildfires Near Me with speaker notes from Feb 17, 2016, go here to download: Wildfires Near Me

If you'd like to play with the Wildfires Near me tool on the web, go here:  http://www.wildfiresnearme.wfmrda.com/

You can also watch the compete Feb 17th,  PIO TECH TOOLS webinar recording, which will be located (soon) on the PIO Bulletin Board under PIO training.

The Wildfires Near Me tool will continue to be under construction (but useable!)  until May 6 when it will move from Alpha phase to Beta, and remain untouched for the 2016 fire season.  Feel free to play with the tool and use the feedback form to let us know what you think or changes you'd like to see. But since it will be "tweeked" more between now and May, we encourage you to join us for the launch of the final beta version on May 6th. You can register for the webinar here:

Wildfires Near Me Official Launch Webinar
                May 6, 2016
                12 noon Mountain time
Webinar registration: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7799720355545609730

2/3/16 How to Request NIMO Help On A Project

Most of the NIMOs have been asked at one time or another, how a person, District, Forest or IMT can get NIMO to come help them. We get requests for exercises, simulations, Risk Management training, help with functional training, help with SRA’s, type 3 training and just about any else you can think of.

And while we are Forest Service centric, we do help other county, state and federal agencies when appropriate and when time allows.

If you would like to request NIMO’s help, please go to the PROJECT REQUEST tab on this blog for information on how to make a request:

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.