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

9-29-15 NIMO Operations Job Opening Outreach

NIMO OSC John Giller (left) talks
with incoming OSC Steve Underwood

Would you like to consider a NIMO Operations Section Chief job?  There's an opening so please respond to this outreach.  We'd like to have a good field of candidates. Click here:

OSC Outreach

It's a great job in which you can pursue many of your personal interests in regard to making Operations better in wildland fire.  We travel to interesting places, get to interact with and meet interesting people and you can live anywhere you like because the job is virtual.


Contact any NIMO you know for more information or contact NIMO Coordinator Robin Cole at:

404-805-7083 Cell or email: robincole@fs.fed.us

9/29/15 NIMO IC Hahnenberg Introduces a new APP at the River Complex

NIMO IC Bill Hahnenberg introduced firefighters to a new "APP" at the River Complex on the Shasta Trinity National Forest, September of 2015.  It was a great message about managing large, long-term fires.

9-29-15 Relaunching the NIMO Blog

For anyone who might have tried to follow this page,  we have not been very good about using it to share what we are doing or what we see YOU all doing that we think is valuable.  But that will soon change and we will be posting more things here.  If there is something you'd like to see here that originated with NIMO, please let any NIMO know and we will run it by the Executive Council.

Thank you for your patience

5/16/14 Pam and Peter for FireSmart - Kaiteriteri National Park

Peter talks about the native species he
 has planted on his property

We began a very nice, sun filled day by going to meet Pam and Peter Holloway at their home overlooking Sandy Bay and the Tasman Sea, in the Golden Bay area.  They have been instrumental in bringing FireSmart to the Sandy Bay area and to the 35 homeowners who live there.  They hosted us for tea and conversation about how that program is working, citing a common universal problem of getting all the neighbors to support efforts to eliminate "wildings" which are non native Radiata pine trees. 

The group enjoys tea on the deck

Beautiful beaches

Following tea, we headed for a wonderful day boating and hiking in the Kaiteriteri National Park, a place with with several of the "Great Treks" of New Zealand.  They have a significant hut system along

Our boat for the trip

many miles of trails in the 22,000 hectare Park and we had a delightful time on about 5 miles of the trail.  Some pictures here but more in the dropbox!

Everyone enjoyed a  walk on the beach

Many more pics will be in the dropbox of this beautiful park.

5/16/14 Nelson - Richmond

Morning found us on the bus again for a 292 kilometer bus ride north to Nelson at the very northern end of the south island. We drove on a cold morning up through the New Zealand Alps, through Lewis Pass, with beautiful views of the mountain peaks, rolling fog and some frosty ground, stopping at a high point called Hope Pass.  Down and out of the mountains, we stopped for lunch at Richmond and listened to Ian Reade with the Rural Fire Authority for the Waimea District who told us about the area

Nelson and the Tasman area has a population of 100,000 people, half of which live in town and half in surrounding areas.  The main economic activities are: Exotic Forestry (non indigenous, mostly Radiata) and wood processing (medium density fiberboard, laminated veneer). The forests are similar to South America and were all privatized in 1990 and currently, 30% - 40% of wood goes off shore and the rest is

Ian Reade presents in Richmond

domestically used.  Other industries are horticulture (Apples, kiwi, grapes, hops) which uses fire quite a bit, tourism (3 national Parks) and seafood (largest fishing port in Australasia, hoki, Orange Roughy, flounder, snapper and farmed salmon, mussels & scallops).  Summer temps reach 70 to 85 degrees with RH's as low as 20% and winter temps of 50 to 65 degrees.  The northern most point of the area gets 240 inches of rain a year while just 45 miles southeast, only 38 inches per year.

The Waimea RF District is 1,018,437 hectares covering Nelson City and Tasman District. 5500 ha is Urban Fire Districts, 120,000 ha is Commercial forest, 632,000 ha is Dept. of Conservation reserves of indigenous forest and 5000 ha is agricultural. They have a Rural Fire Committee which oversees the Rural Fire Network which provides fire management through a Principal Rural Fire Officer (PRFO).  Stakeholders own all the equipment and contractors just do the firefighting & maintain the equipment.

The areas around Nelson and Richmond

The area is managed in zones primarily by the kind of land: conservation, exotic forestry etc.  There are only three seasons: open to burn (with conditions), restricted (permit required & conditions) and prohibited (no fires but some exceptions).  Most of the Waimea is restricted all year except for a few areas where its prohibited.

The risk profile is similar to many tourism based places in the US:  WUI areas, steep terrain with heavy fuel load, a lot of tourists, commercial forests, and 67+ days of high fire danger.  Fire was used for some land management, some in land clearing, but not much any more.  It is used for disease management especially in agriculture, but most planned or prescribed burning is done by by private landowners in yards and gardens.


The PRFO is in charge of 7 of the rural fire brigades.  The volunteers do deal with structure fires, vehicle accidents and other things because they are often on scene first, but there are urban firefighters trained for those things.  They use fire lookouts as fire weather index goes up in the summer as a lookout and as an initial coordinator between the 111 call (their 911) and those first on scene.  The lookout also watches for smoke when there are restrictions and the public knows he is there and watching which serves as a deterrent. 


They do run a preparedness program through the forestry company which goes out at 10 am to let forest production operators know the fire danger rating and the crews must stick to the rules associated with that danger class.  As it gets worse, they are required to repeat back on the radio to ensure they understand. Publicity is done all summer aimed at visitors and patrols are increased. 

The ocean at Nelson in NZ

FireSmart is also in place, their version of FireWise.  It's aimed at rural communities and the WUI and just informs the public about the risk to life and property and stresses that they should not rely on the brigades coming to save them.  Mostly focused on fuel reduction by going into communities to show them the tools they can use to reduce their risk.  

It's interesting that at least on the South Island, the New Zealanders don't really have prescribed burning as part of hazard reduction - certainly not in indigenous vegetation since fire is not believed part of the ecology here since lightning is very rare. Mechanical reduction is all that's allowed. The only burning that's done is by private landowners and on agricultural land.


The Rural Fire Authority is very aggressive in pursuing remuneration from those who have caused fires.  In some high profile cases, where the RFA won the court judgement against a resident who had started a fire in a business, but who did not have commercial insurance to pay the costs, the publicity has caused others to make sure they get insurance and are more careful. The couple who lost the case was also required to share their story with other people.. Defendants usually settle out of court because the RFA has the backing of law to collect and they usually do.  They don't have to prove negligence only causation which makes it easier - if you caused it, you pay even if you didn't mean too. They want home and land owners to realize they have primary responsibility to take care of fire on their property.  In the Urban Fire Districts, it doesn't work that way.  People pay a tax on insurance to pay for fire protection and those who start fires  are not prosecuted.