Joint Action Group for the National Wildland Fire Weather Needs Assessment

1
Joint Action Group for the National Wildland Fire
Weather Needs Assessment

• 12 Oct 2006, 1230 430 EDT
• Cochairs Dr. Al Riebau, Mr. Eli Jacks
• OFCM Lt. Col. Dave Andrus

Telecon 888-391-6569, pass code 55381
GoToMeeting https//www.gotomeeting.com/join/4901
10788, ID is 490-110-788
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Agenda

• Welcome and administrative remarks
• Approve record of actions from last meeting
• Review goals, timeline, and open action items
• GOES DCS operational requirement update
• 3rd International Fire Ecology and Management
  Congress session plans
• Fire Congress survey question discussion
• Open discussion
• Plans for next meeting
• Review of new action items

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Welcome and Administrative Remarks

• Welcome!
• Federal Coordinator for Meteorology, Samuel P.
  Williamson
• Administrative remarks
• Attendance roster
• Facility information
• GoToMeeting use

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Primary Goal

• The Western Governors urge NOAA to
• Complete a National Needs Assessment Report, by
  NOAAs Office of the Federal Coordinator for
  Meteorology, of federal, state and local fire
  managers needs for weather information in their
  wildfire and prescribed fire decision making
  processes and a framework to meet those needs by
  the NWS and Predictive Services.

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JAG-Established Goals

• Comprehensive assessment of weather and climate
  needs of providers and users in their wildland
  fire and fuels management activities
• Assessment of provider agency capability to
  deliver weather and climate information to fire
  managers and other users
• Raise the critical nature of fire weather to a
  new level of community awareness

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JAG-Established Functional Areas

• Data collection, integrity, processing and
  archival
• Fire weather research and development
• Forecast products and services
• Modeling, prediction, and data assimilation
• Information dissemination and technologies
• Education, training, outreach, partnering and
  collaboration
• User response, decision support, and resulting
  user impacts
• Funding and human resource considerations
• Socioeconomic impacts

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Timeline

• Oct 12 -- Update members and refine Fire Congress
  questions
• Oct 31 -- JAG update to FENWT meeting in Athens,
  GA
• Nov 8 -- Deadline for Fire Congress survey
  development
• Nov 14 -- JAG panel at 3rd International Fire
  Congress
• Nov 30 -- Deadline for responses to Fire Congress
  surveys
• Dec 7-8 -- Meeting to review responses, frame
  assessment issues and agree to assessment
  reportables
• Jan -- JAG drafts assessment report
• Feb 1 -- Deadline to submit draft assessment to
  editor
• Mar-Apr -- Revise report based upon editor
  comments
• Apr 18 -- JAG meeting to review final publication
  pre-print
• Jun 10-12 -- Findings and recommendations
  presented to WGA

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Action Item Update (1/2)

• Action 06-1.3 Assessment Functional Areas
  Gathering information.
• Status Done
• Action 06-2.2 Assessment Functional Areas
  Gathering Information. Part II.
• Status Done
• Action 06-3.1 Workshop for Stakeholders Review
• Status Session established during 3rd
  International Wildfire Ecology and Management
  Congress. Topics and speakers identified. Short
  survey being developed for use during the session.

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Action Item Update (2/2)

• Action 06-3.3 Assessment Information Gathering
  Tool (amendment to 06-2.1).
• OFCM will review the functional area documents
  and produce a draft of the survey or
  questionnaire. This tool will incorporate the
  changes provided at the meeting, along with the
  clarification of positions from Action 06-3.2.
• Status Done

10
GOES DCS Operational Requirement Update

• Mr. Charles Kazimir, NIFC, BLM, DOI

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3rd International Fire Ecology and Management
Congress Session

• Mr. Bob Dumont, OFCM

12
Fire Congress Survey Questions

• Strategy
• Design a short survey for participants and make
  available to other fire weather stakeholders
• Focus survey on primary and established JAG goals
• Keep survey short enough to encourage voluntary
  completion with short turn-around time
• Phrase questions clearly, so that respondents can
  reasonably answer intended questions
• Phrase questions positively so that respondents
  are encouraged to respond without negatively
  impacting associates
• Phrase open-ended questions to encourage
  thoughtful and meaningful responses

13
Open Discussion (1/3)

• Appoint functional area lead agents and teams for
  survey question refinement.
• Final questions needed by 8 Nov.
• Additional survey distribution plans

14
Open Discussion (2/3)

• NWS briefing at next JAG meeting
• Available NWS fire weather products and services
• Fire weather products and services issues NWS is
  currently aware of due to previous outreach and
  customer feedback
• Predictive Services briefing at next JAG meeting
• Available PS fire weather products and services
• Fire weather products and services issues PS is
  currently aware of due to previous outreach and
  customer feedback

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Open Discussion (3/3)

• Document requirement for GOES DCS data flow
  within the data functional area
• Plan to provide draft report to editor by 1 Feb
• Functional area drafts
• Misc draft topics
• Document job descriptions of common fire duties
• Others?
• ???

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Next Meetings

• 3rd International Wildfire Ecology and Management
  Congress (13 - 17 Nov)
• Panel discussions, 14 Nov
• Survey distribution and collection
• JAG Meeting, 7-8 Dec at OFCM
• Briefings from NWS and PS on their products and
  services, to include their assessment of wildland
  fire community products and service needs
• Review brief analysis of survey responses
• Partition assessment work throughout JAG

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New Action Items
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Agenda

• Welcome and administrative remarks
• Approve record of actions from last meeting
• Review goals, timeline, and open action items
• GOES DCS operational requirement update
• 3rd International Fire Ecology and Management
  Congress session plans
• Fire Congress survey question discussion
• Open discussion
• Plans for next meeting
• Review of new action items