3/18/16 Announcing 2016 NATP!

The Forest Service is pleased to announce the 2016 National Accelerated Training Program (NATP). The Program is a great opportunity for leadership development in the Agency with a priority on the advancement of incident management knowledge and experience. Participation is aimed at highly motivated nominees that would benefit from exposure to regional and national issues and mentoring by mid-level and senior leadership. Applications are due April 11th to your Regional Training Officer.

 

NATP is a joint effort of AD Workforce Development and Training, Geographic Area Training Representatives (GATRs), Regional Training Officers (RTOs), and the National Incident Management Organization (NIMO). For more information, contact your Regional Training Officer, Dana Reid (dkreid@fs.fed.us) or Darrel Schwilling (dschwilling@fs.fed.us).

 

Additional information and the application are below.

 

NATP Letter

NATP Flyer

NATP Application 
(Either print and complete or send a note to email above for a fillable pdf of the application)

NATP BP

Clarification of one of the requirements of the program:  Employees may be away from their home unit and regular position duties for periods of up to two weeks at a time; there is no intent that the program commitment is just for a total of two weeks. Participants will commit to 60 days (non-consecutive) away from regular job duties.

3/15/16 NIMO is on Twitter!

If you're a Twitter user, please follow @NIMO_teams on Twitter. Our individual teams are also beginning Twitter accounts to keep you up to date on what individual teams are doing off season and during fires. For now, follow @BoiseNIMO as well. Other team accounts will follow.

3/11/16 Wildfires Near Me App Has New Functionality

To view notifications you can click on the
Alerts button at the left and you will see them
when the slide out panel appears

We have an exciting announcement! Yesterday, March 10, we enabled "within app" notifications in Wildfires Near Me! If you don't know about this app click here: WFNM Story

This means that if you have added places to your My Places list or are monitoring fires in your My Fires list you will now see notifications after you log into the app. We are very excited to be taking this step towards a fully functioning beta app for this coming fire season and hope you find this update useful!

To view notifications you can click on the Alerts button at the left and you will see them when the slide out panel appears. Alternatively, you can click the "bell" icon at the top right and use the shortcut menu to view your notifications.

You can click the "bell" icon
at the top right and use the shortcut menu
to view your notifications

In the future we will be enabling the email and text message notifications but we wanted to get these within app notifications turned on now and give you a chance to start seeing how things will work.

We want to hear from you!
How is Wildfires Near Me working for you? Do you like what you see so far? Do you think this will be a useful tool for you and fore the public? Reach out to us and let us know what you think. You can use the feedback button from within the app or find us on Twitter @WildfiresNearMe. We are working on our Facebook page and will announce that very soon.

Official Beta Launch Party Planned!
We would love for you to join us on May 6th for the official beta release of Wildfires Near Me! We will be announcing all of the features and functionality we have included in the app and giving a full tour. Please share thins information far and wide and don't feel like you need to keep our app a secret. We are building this to be a public information app and welcome anyone out there to come and check it out!

Register for the Launch Party HERE:

Thank you for taking the time to use and get to know our app! We are very excited about the changes we are working on and will be getting them out to you very soon. Stay in touch and we'll see you at the launch party!

~ The Wildfires Near Me Team & NIMO

3/9/2016 Lessons Learned from the Okanogan Chelan Complex, Sept. 2015

Because the fire community is small and tight-knit, both good and bad information travel quickly. Part of the reason for starting the NIMO Social Media accounts was to allow us to leverage that network to share the kinds of things we are tasked with accomplishing, but also to answer questions or dispel rumors.

Like you, we have heard conversations about NIMO’s role in taking the Okanogan and Chelan Complexes in Washington this past September.  NIMO did not end up taking the fire, but there has been a lot of erroneous information about why.  IC Bill Hahnenberg prepared a written statement for the regional leadership so they would understand the decisions made at the time, and we are now sharing that document with you. We encourage others to be transparent about their thinking; it’s only fair that we are willing to do the same.

Okanogan Chelan Complex Lessons Learned

03/9-10/16 Iowa Department of Agriculture Land Stewardship (IDALS) Type 3 Training

OSC John Giller explaining how to complete
the ICS-215 Operational Planning Work Sheet
and why it is important for tracking resources.

One of our NIMO missions is to provide training for a variety of organizations to allow them to manage their incidents (fire, all risk, Avian Influenza, etc.). This week a NIMO group worked with the Iowa Department of Agriculture Land Stewardship (IDALS) organization.

IC Mike Quesenbury having discussion with the
students on how to set up their organization.  

Our objective was to teach them the basics of the incident command system (ICS) and how the techniques learned in managing Wildland Fire can be adapted to help them manage agricultural outbreaks; such as the Avian Influenza.




The students are getting hands on experience with the Planning Process (Planning "P"), developing objectives and leaders intent, running tactics, planning, and Command and General (C&G) meetings.

Students working together to
complete the ICS-215 as a team.

NIMO Group: (back row)
IC-Mike Quesenbury,
PSC-Darrel Schwilling,
OSC-John Giller,
PIO-Bruce Palmer,
 LSC-Zeph Cunningham
(front row)
 LSC-Sally Browning,
FSC-Jaci Stimach,
PSC-Brian Watts,
 FSC-Carla Schamber

2/24/16 S - 520 begins in Tucson

The NIMOs attending a session in the large assembly room.

NAFRI's Bill Miller talks
about changes to 520. The size
of the sim book has not changed!

NIMO is heavily involved in putting on S-520 each year in Tucson.  Today is the review of the simulation in which all students participate.  Big book! Lots of inputs! Participants are working toward their Type 1 certification for working on the most complex incidents. Lots of changes coming to 520 so stay tuned.

Rowdy Muir and Curtis Heaton taking to students
about how to develop a Common Operating Picture.

Honor Guard Attends Harbour Retirement

NIMO is proud to have one of its own, Technical Specialist and Honor Guard Captain Eric Martinez, attend FS Fire Director Tom Harbour's retirement.

Here, Eric makea a presentation from the Honor Guard, honoring his career

The case holds a National flag that was flown at all of the duty stations Mr. Harbour worked at throughout his career, Grey Towers and at all fire stations on the San Bernardino (also the start place of the Honor Guard). 

The certificate reads: For your extraordinary support and assistance in the development of the USDA Forest Service Honor Guard. Your leadership, dedication and commitment to our employees, their families, and the communities we serve; will provide direction for years to come.