West Region Wildfire Council Meeting Minutes 8/9/12

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Letitia Reed
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1 West Region Wildfire Council Meeting Minutes 8/9/12 Meeting Attendance Name Agency 1 Tom Austin Log Hill Fire Toma67@aol.com 2 Chris Barth Montrose Interagency Fire cbarth@blm.gov 3 Lilia Colter WRWC wrwc.lilia@gmail.com 4 Jason Cooley Delta Fire deltafirestationmanager@hotmail.com 5 Steve Denny CDEM Steve.denny@state.co.us 6 Paul Eller Montrose EM peller@cimontrose.co.us 7 Steve Ellis DPS Steven.ellis@colostate.edu 8 Rob Fiedler Delta EM fiedler@deltacounty.com 9 Jamie Gamboa USFS FMO jgamboa@fs.fed.us 10 Curt Leitzinger Telecomm Specialist BLM Jleitzinger@blm.gov 11 Paul Grosvner Arrowhead Fire pgrosvenorc@aol.com 12 Junior Mattivi Ouray County Sheriff dominic.mattivi@ouraycountyco.gov 13 Scott Morrill Gunnison County EM smorrill@gunnisoncounty.org 14 Ross Oxford NPS K_ross_oxford@nps.gov 15 Dan Pierce Dave Wood Road danapier@montrose.net 16 Jodi Rist CSFS Montrose Jodi.Rist@colostate.edu 17 John Rogers Log Hill/Montrose Fire Jsr5@hotmail.com 18 Steve Schroeder Hotchkiss Fire ki0ky@tds.net 19 Austin Shelby CSFS Montrose Austin.shelby@colostate.edu 20 Alan Staehle Ouray County EM awsouray@aol.com 21 Deb Veo Montrose County EM dveo@montrosecounty.net Objective/Purpose The Council gathered to discuss the following: Introductions Introductions were made by those that attended; roster above. Approval of Minutes Minutes approved Radio Communications/Operations Burned Area Emergency Response Teams Pine Ridge Fires Other Fires

2 Restrictions AAR Set date for AAR Governor s Letter Wildland Fire Round Table Discussion Area Conditions Recent Fire Assignments Fuel Treatments & Research Radio Communications/ Operations Steve Schroeder: Hotchkiss Fire Department and State Executive Interoperability Council. Communication sites: Steve Schroeder started the radio communication and operations discussion off with bringing up the topic of wildfires that affect communication sites. Steve told the group that many places don t know where all of the communication sites or towers are. He mentioned to the group that knowing where communication infrastructure is located is imperative for pre-planning functions. Some interesting points that Steve brought up were: Cell companies don t have to disclose location of towers Cell companies may manage but not own the towers In a wildfire event, if we are protecting cell sites, who s cost is it to protect the site? Steve Ellis brought up that they had an issue related to this at the Weber Fire when a communication tower lost power cutting off cell communication for AT&T customers. They didn t know who was contracted to maintain the tower so it took much longer to get the tower back up and running. The IC determined that it was too dangerous to let the tech into the area to fix the tower so they had to fly the tech in to fix it. 800MHz Radios: Steve Schroeder also brought up some interesting points about the 800MHz radios and interoperability between the 800 system and VHF. Steve expressed that he felt it is important to include 800MHz systems in the AOP meetings each year. 800MHz in Interagency Dispatch: As a side note, he ask the group if it would ever be possible to have a 800MHz radio that is monitored in dispatch. Steve Ellis responded to his question bringing up that this has been requested in both Craig and Durango, but the idea usually gets shot down because during a busy spell, dispatch has a hard enough time keeping up and usually one radio gets turned down. Tactical Interoperability Communication Plan (TIC Plan): The TIC plan was a requirement of the Homeland Security Department but the Emergency Managers from the region put the plan together. There was a template for the TIC plan that was shared across all six counties when they were first put together. At this point in time, the TIC plan needs to be revised as there are holes. It

3 was brought up that having the Fed s present as well as CDOT and State Patrol would be extremely beneficial as those agencies have always been missing. MAC Channels: Delta is moving towards having a MAC channel programmed for any mutual aid response. The idea is that any other counties/ agencies that show up to help will also have Delta MAC programmed. Steve Schroeder brought up a potential downfall of using MAC channel. The issue is if you are responding to an incident and communications are happening on the local MAC Channel, if you don t have that MAC channel programmed you are stuck. This happened to Hotchkiss fire when they responded to the Pine Ridge Fire. The conversation about MAC channels lead into a conversation about having communication plans and how they evolve once an outside resource call is made. When the federal agencies are on scene, it add another layer of complexity trying to communicate with VHF and 800MHz. Communication plan need to outline who talks to who and how/when to interface the 800 s and VHF together. Aviation Frequencies: These frequencies typically change in the middle of the year, usually May or June. This year the changes won t actually take place until September or October due to the active fire season in the region. Radio Communications/ Operations Presentation by Curt Leitzinger Curt is the Telecommunications Specialist for the BLM. I have attached Curt s power point presentation to the and will have printed copies for reference. Additionally, Curt ed me the following as a follow up to the WRWC meeting in July. Some follow up information I would like to share regarding radios and wildfire communications in general. The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) has a good website with lots of information. Here are a few links regarding radio information your members can use to find radio field guides, programming guides, safety alerts, and other bulletins regarding radios There was some follow up discussion after Curt presented his PowerPoint to the group. Those topics included: Master 800 radio: Not sure if there is one to clone off of, Ouray made the mistake of cloning radios but didn t know if they had cloned a master or not. Curt was asked to provide those interested with a list of radio models that cannot be narrow-banded.

4 Ouray and Gunnison Counties use Motorola radios but have had big issues with getting them narrow-banded because you can t clone across radio models. Bendex Kings seem to be fairly field friendly, but cost about $ for one radio vs. Motorola costing about $ Burned Area Emergency Response Teams: BEAR teams have been in the news lately with some of the regional fires receiving media coverage on the rehabilitation effort that is ongoing for burned areas such as Pine Ridge, Lower North Fork, Weber and Waldo Canyon. BEAR teams put together rehabilitation plans for both private and public lands. Teams look at surface, structures, fences, etc. and come up with a rehabilitation plan for the area. Plan may include planning suggestions and needs for private land but cannot be covered with the actual rehabilitation work. There have been estimates that the Pine Ridge fire is going to cost approximately 1.9 million dollars to rehab and the Waldo Canyon fire is going to cost approximately 7 million dollars. The Natural Resource Conservation Service can help private landowners with some of the costs of rehabilitation but they really don t have the resources ($) to help out on a large scale. Generally they can provide landowners with seed mix at the same price as the BLM would pay for it. New issues have been fencing if a fence gets burned or destroyed in a fire, who pays to replace it? This is especially an issue for lands that border public/private. Steve Denny brought up that the BEAR teams were absolutely essential in rehabbing the Coal Seam Fire. The team was a crucial element in mitigating flooding, coming up with evac. Plans and placing diversions after the fire. He mentioned that BEAR teams are crucial for dealing with potential impacting in a time sensitive manner. Disaster Declarations: The High Park and Walk Canyon Fire were granted Disaster Declaration status. However, given the number of fires in the state, Colorado is working to expand the Declaration to some of the other fires around the state. As of now, the Declaration has only been granted to the fire perimeter. Usually, Declarations are given on a County-wide basis and in 2002 the state of Colorado was granted a State-Wide Declaration. Restrictions AAR The WRWC has been talking about scheduling a restrictions After Action Review sometime near the end of the 2012 fire season. Lilia brought up to the group that it may be beneficial to utilize one of the WRWC meetings to conduction the AAR. The intention of holding this AAR is to discuss the indices and benchmarks for necessitating restrictions, the processes for going into and out of restrictions and public messages on a regional level that includes an interagency perspective. The goal is to have a better plan and methodology for implementing restrictions for the next time they are deemed necessary.

5 The group decided that having the restrictions AAR at the October WRWC meeting would provide enough time for folks to review their processes and go back to their respective county commissioners with resolutions for implementing restrictions. There was mention of developing a region restriction plan. It was suggested to the group that we hold the AAR at the October meeting and then if deemed necessary, hold a restrictions work session following. Lilia will send out an AAR template after the September meeting so folks can prepare for the AAR. NEXT MEETING Thursday, September 13 th :00 PM 5:00 PM Montrose Public Lands Center 2465 S. Townsend, Montrose, CO North Building Conference Room

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