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Fire Environment Continuing Education Subcommittee

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Mission Statement

Mission Statement

The Fire Environment Continuing Education Subcommittee (FCESC) provides leadership and technical expertise to the Fire Environment Committee for continuing education, technology transfer, training on technical tools, case studies from the field, and outreach of new research.

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Primary Objectives

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  • Nurture new knowledge, stimulate innovation, and share new skills.
  • Bring people together with peers and other fire environment professionals and researchers.
  • Facilitate development of standards of practice, guidelines, knowledge repositories, technical problem-solving discussions, working papers and strategies.
  • Provide continuing education opportunities that support the Fire Environment as a whole.

2022 FireGuard Webinar

Date: August 10, 2022

Target Audience

Fire Managers, Fire Behavior and Fire Weather Specialists including Fire Behavior Analysts, Long-Term Analysts, Geospatial Analysts, fire behavior Technical Specialists, IMETs, and Predictive Services personnel.

FCESC FireGuard Fire Detection Workshop with Sean Triplett

Time: 38:58

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2022 Spring Webinar

Date: April 6, 2022

Target Audience

Fire Managers, Fire Behavior and Fire Weather Specialists including Fire Behavior Analysts, Long-Term Analysts, Geospatial Analysts, fire behavior Technical Specialists, IMETs, and Predictive Services personnel.

Strategic Operations with Brad Pietruszka

Time: 24:09

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New Tools and Teams for Climate-Era Fires with Geoff Marshall and Joaquin Ramirez

Time: 33:54

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2022 FlamMap Webinar

Date:  July 13, 2022

Target Audience

Fire Managers, Fire Behavior and Fire Weather Specialists including Fire Behavior Analysts, Long-Term Analysts, Geospatial Analysts, fire behavior Technical Specialists, IMETs, and Predictive Services personnel.

“FlamMap How To” with Chuck McHugh 

Time: 1:34:10

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2021 Fall Webinar

Date: November 10, 2021

Target Audience

Fire Managers, Fire Behavior and Fire Weather Specialists including Fire Behavior Analysts, Long-Term Analysts, Geospatial Analysts, fire behavior Technical Specialists, IMETs, and Predictive Services personnel.

Part 1 : Development and Use of the Fires Comparison Spreadsheet with Rick Stratton and Benjamin Gannon

Time: 22:10

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Part 2 :National Fire Decision Support Center Review with Mark Hale

Time: 26:37

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Part 3: NIROPS Summary and Fire Imaging for Incident Assessment and Awareness with Tom Mellin and Zachary Holder 

Time: 24:49

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Part 4: 2021 British Columbia Wildfire Season Summary with Dana Hicks 

Time: 19:10

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Part 5: Questions and Discussion

Time: 12:27

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2021 Spring Refresher Webinar

Date: April 7, 2021

Target Audience

Fire Managers, Fire Behavior and Fire Weather Specialists including Fire Behavior Analysts, Long-Term Analysts, Geospatial Analysts, fire behavior Technical Specialists, IMETs, and Predictive Services personnel.

Session 1: Introduction

Time: 2:52

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Session 2: Fire Environment Poster and IRPG, Brent Wachter

Time: 18:58

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Session 3: Smoke Management Lessons Learned from 2020, Peter Lahm

Time: 23:18

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Session 4: Fire in the 3rd Dimension, Russ Parsons

Time: 24:21

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Session 5: Risk Management Assistance (RMA), Rick Stratton

Time: 23:25

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Session 6: Next Generation of WFDSS and Q&A Session, Wesley Hall

Time: 14:59

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2020 Fall Fire Environment Post-Season Lessons Learned Webinar

Date: November 4, 2020

Target Audience

Fire Managers, Fire Behavior and Fire Weather Specialists including Fire Behavior Analysts, Long-Term Analysts, Geospatial Analysts, fire behavior Technical Specialists, IMETs, and Predictive Services personnel.

Introduction: Fall 2020

Time: 5:42

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Part 1: Satellites, Todd Lindley.

Time: 23:38

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Part 2: Applications, Robert Ziel and Casey Teske

Time: 18:31

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Part 3: WildfireSAFE Application, Matt Jolly.

Time: 22:40

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Part 4: Fire Environment Mapping System (FEMS), Shelby Law.

Time: 15:34

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Questions Session

Time: 14:29

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2020 Spring Webinar

Date: March 5, 2020

Target Audience

Fire Managers, Fire Behavior and Fire Weather Specialists including Fire Behavior Analysts, Long-Term Analysts, Geospatial Analysts, fire behavior Technical Specialists, IMETs, and Predictive Services personnel.

Part 1: Spring 2020 Pre-season webinar introductions, Tami Parkinson.

Time: 16:10

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Part 2: Overview of the FlamMap 6 desktop program for geospatial fire behavior modeling, Chuck McHugh.

Time: 28:18

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Part 3: Updates to fire weather forecasting, Larry Van Bussum (Changes coming for the Red Flag Warnings); Darren Clabo (Perspectives on the Lightning Activity Level); and Brian Potter (Problems with the Haines Index).

Time: 28:58

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Part 4: Risk Management Science for wildland fire decision support , Kit O’Connor. Spring 2020 Webinar questions and discussion from 20:46.

Time: 32:14

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2019 Fall Webinar

Date:  October 17, 2019

Target Audience

Fire Managers, Fire Behavior and Fire Weather Specialists including Fire Behavior Analysts, Long-Term Analysts, Geospatial Analysts, fire behavior Technical Specialists, IMETs, and Predictive Services personnel.

AFELU 2019 Hot Topics Webinar

Time: 5:46

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2018 Fall Webinar: Season AAR

Date:  November 7, 2018

Target Audience

Fire Behavior and Fire Weather Specialists including Fire Behavior Analysts, Long-term Analysts, Geo-spatial Analysts, fire behavior Technical Specialists, IMET, and Predictive Services personnel.

Summary

Whether you worked this season or have been away for a while, this webinar will highlight some important topics as we conclude the 2018 fire season and prepare for what 2019 has to offer.

Presentation 1: AFELU 2018 Webinar Introductions and back ground on the AFELU unit

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Time: 06:05

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Presentation 2: Vita Wright Science Application Specialists RMRS – Overview of the Northern Rockies Fire Science Network.

Time: 13:26

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Presentation 3: Overview of EDDI - Evaporative Demand Drought Index: Research Applications for Wildland Fire Management, Dan McEvoy

Time: 34:35

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Presentation 4: 416 Fire, Cary Newman and Brad Pietruska.

Time: 32:14

If you would like presentation materials in a pdf, please contact chair Wes Hall at wahall@usda.gov

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Webinar:  Fire Season Primer 2018

Date: February 28, 2018

Target Audience

Fire behavior and fire weather analysts.

Presentation 1:  Infrared data products - watch the presentation at https://youtu.be/VPG3dj0XIvk

Presentation 2:  Unmanned Aircraft UAS on Incidents - watch the presentation at https://youtu.be/8R1KPUjq9Vs

Presentation 3:  EP curve assessments - watch the presentation at https://youtu.be/Re4TwMUZC0U

Presentation 4:  NFDRS 2016 Rollout - watch the presentation at https://youtu.be/QqS7PMD0zY8

Presentation 5:  Weather forecasting changes - watch the presentation at https://youtu.be/1Dgh1ZVec9E

If you would like presentation materials in a pdf, please contact chair Wes Hall at wahall@usda.gov

View the Webinar Questions Log.

Webinar: “Fire Season 2017 Hot Topics”

In the spring of 2017 the Advanced Fire Environment Learning Unit asked Mark Finney to provide some thoughts regarding different topics related to fire behavior modeling. There are pitfalls analysts can run into when running the models, Mark has provided some thoughts on model settings, calibrating, why use FSPro and what it takes to be a good analyst. These videos can be used as standalone refresher content for continuing education or included within established fire behavior curricula. There are 4 videos

Presentation 1:  FSPro Settings

Mark Finney provides some considerations when setting up FSPro analyses - What is it you want to know from the analysis - is it the likely hood something is going to happen or is it the potential something is going to happen? These are different questions and the analyst can approach them differently or use different suites of tools to inform the decision makers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr_v2HBm3_Q&t=15s

Presentation 2:  What makes a good fire analyst: What makes a good analyst

Some thoughts from Mark Finney and his perspective of what makes a good analyst. An analyst is curious about fire behavior, they use judgement and interpretation to communicate and validate models in relation to the actual fire behavior. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIS27uMdfG8&t=17s

Presentation 3:  Why use FSPro?

This tool was developed to help inform risk based decisions associated with values at risk and probability of fire impacts to those values. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TilrOpDuJc&t=86s

Presentation 4:  FSPro Calibration

Why is calibrating the fire behavior models important to predicting fire behavior - an interview with Mark Finney a Research Scientist at the RMRS Fire Sciences Lab. Mark highlight's considerations an analyst should make when validating fire behavior models to fire behavior. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-emPLE8j_Y&t=56s

Webinar: Sharing Fire Behavior Practices & Lessons Learned: Fire Season 2016

Date: November 2, 2016

Target Audience

Fire Behavior and Fire Weather Specialists including Fire Behavior Analysts, Long-term Analysts, Geo-spatial Analysts, fire behavior Technical Specialists, IMET, and Predictive Services personnel

Summary

As the fire community aspires to promote firefighter safety and best practices, this webinar strived to share information regarding lessons learned from the 2016 wildfire season. Every fire season there are parts of the country that receive a lot of fire activity and consequently numerous fire specialists begin focusing on these areas to ensure fire-fighter safety and to develop short-, mid-, and long- term fire behavior assessments to support these efforts and management decisions. An incredible amount of knowledge is gained and shared during these short periods of intense focus; yet often these practices and lessons learned are stored away, and not shared beyond the incident.

Presentation 1: Fire analysis and assessment in Alaska using https://akff.mesowest.org

Robert Ziel (Zeke) is the Fire Analyst for the Alaska Fire Science Consortium after working 4 years at the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center with Predictive Services. He is an NWCG qualified FBAN since 1994 and LTAN since 2002 and spent 34 years as a forester and fire manager in the Great Lakes states. Zeke has presented several times on our webinars and workshops and is an institution in the Fire Behavior community.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZB-bMcgXO4

References for this presentation

Presentation 2: Using IRAWS observations and alternative NWS point forecasts in Near Term Fire

Cary Newman is the Fire Planner for the San Juan National Forest in southern Colorado. Cary is a Long Term Fire Analyst who used some different methodologies for modeling fire behavior on the Soberanes Fire in California during the 2016 season. Working with geospatial fire behavior models for more than a decade he has learned that in spite of model limitations or inferior data there are often alternative methodologies that can be used to improve modeled results. Cary has presented at our events before and has been a pioneer in exploring new approaches to unique problems in fire behavior modeling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ykg0c17ZpQQ

Presentation 3: The evolving role of the IMET and their interaction with other intelligence folks

Ryan Walbrun is the Fire Weather Program Leader and Incident Meteorologist for the National Weather Service office in Monterey CA since 2003. Ryan received his degree in atmospheric and oceanic sciences from the University of Wisconsin in 1996. Currently he is on the teaching cadre for the S-590 course taught at NAFRI in Tucson. He has been deployed on over 40 wildfires in the western US as an Incident Meteorologist (IMET).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESbqISHdudg

Webinar: “Sharing Fire Behavior Practices & Lessons Learned: Fire Season 2015”

Date: November 16, 2015

Target Audience

Fire Behavior Specialists including Fire Behavior Analysts, Long-term Analysts, Geo-spatial Analysts and fire behavior Technical Specialists

Note: The webinars were taped for these informational sharing sessions. Due to the length of the sessions the webinar taping was split into 2 sessions, one for the Alaska Fire Behavior Modeling and the other for the Crown Fire Methods.  Please review the attached links for the full presentation.

Summary

As the fire behavior community aspires to promote best practices amongst a range of fire behavior experience, this webinar strives to share information regarding lessons learned from fire behavior prediction on 2015 wildfire incidents. Every fire season there are parts of the country that receive a lot of fire activity. Fire-fighting resources are assigned and consequently numerous fire behavior specialists begin focusing on these areas to ensure fire-fighter safety and to develop short-, mid-, and long- term fire behavior simulations to support these efforts and management decisions. An incredible amount of knowledge is gained and shared during these short periods of intense focus; yet often these fire behavior practices and lessons learned are recorded, stored, and not shared beyond the incident.

Some considerations worth exploring/sharing or discussing on the webinar include

  • What were some unique circumstances that influenced your fire behavior forecasts such as unusual fuels or weather events and how did that change your forecasts?
  • What information would you want to share with future Fire Behavior Specialists who are working on an incident in the same location/same unit?
  • What modeling techniques are you using most often when assisting with strategic planning?
  • What worked as far as model calibration for the area you were working in? Common fuel model changes? Adjustment of dead and live fuel moistures?

Outcomes

  1. Information sharing and recording amongst the fire behavior specialists’ community.
  2. Summary of lessons learned for attendees.
  3. Improved fire behavior analyses in the future.

Presentation 1: Analyst considerations in Alaska (concepts applicable to the lower 48); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7E6og43F8k

​Presentation 2: Finny versus Scott and Reinhardt crown fire methods in FSPro. (applicable to other fire spread models); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh__DlPBXsE

Below are four PowerPoint presentations that were used in the webinars

 

Chair: Wes Hall

NWCG Coordinator: Dave Schultz

Parent Committee: Fire Environment Committee

Meeting Schedule: TBD

Page Last Modified or Reviewed:

NWCG Latest Announcements

NWCG Equipment Technology Committee Releases Safety Warning: 24-001 Stihl Chainsaw Toolless Fuel Cap Spill Prevention

Date: November 14, 2024
Contact: Equipment Technology Committee

The Equipment Technology Committee (ETC) has released Safety Warning: 24-001 Stihl Chainsaw Toolless Fuel Cap Spill Prevention. Misaligned toolless fuel caps on Stihl chainsaws have led to recurring fuel spillage, fuel ignition, and burn injuries during wildland fire management operations.

This Safety Warning is intended to highlight the details and recommended procedures for the installation of a Stihl chainsaw toolless fuel cap, as well as how to identify and correct a misaligned, damaged, or broken fuel cap to help prevent fuel spillage.

References:

NWCG Safety Warning: 24-001 Stihl Chainsaw Toolless Fuel Cap Spill Prevention

Advertencia de equipos 24-001: Prevención de derrames de la tapa de combustible sin herramientas de la motosierra Stihl

NWCG Alerts

The Incident Position Standards and Next Generation Position Task Book are now available for Equipment Time Recorder (EQTR)

Date: November 13, 2024
Contact: Incident Business Committee

NWCG is excited to announce that the NWCG Incident Position Standards for Equipment Time Recorder, PMS 350-51 and NWCG Position Task Book for Equipment Time Recorder (EQTR), PMS 311-51 are now available.

The Performance Support Package, which for EQTR, includes the Incident Position Standards and Next Generation Position Task Book were developed through the Incident Performance and Training Modernization (IPTM) effort. The Performance Support Package will support trainees, those qualified in the position, and evaluators.

References:

NWCG Equipment Time Recorder Position Page

NWCG Incident Position Standards for Equipment Time Recorder, PMS 350-51

NWCG Position Task Book for Equipment Time Recorder (EQTR), PMS 311-51

The Incident Position Standards and Next Generation Position Task Book are now available for Personnel Time Recorder (PTRC)

Date: November 13, 2024
Contact: Incident Business Committee

NWCG is excited to announce that the NWCG Incident Position Standards for Personnel Time Recorder, PMS 350-53 and NWCG Position Task Book for Personnel Time Recorder (PTRC), PMS 311-53 are now available.

The Performance Support Package, which for PTRC, includes the Incident Position Standards and Next Generation Position Task Book were developed through the Incident Performance and Training Modernization (IPTM) effort. The Performance Support Package will support trainees, those qualified in the position, and evaluators.

References:

NWCG Personnel Time Recorder Position Page

NWCG Incident Position Standards for Personnel Time Recorder, PMS 350-53

NWCG Position Task Book for Personnel Time Recorder (PTRC), PMS 311-53

NWCG Risk Management Committee Releases Safety Bulletin: 24-001 Use of Respirators on Wildland Fires

Date: November 7, 2024
Contact: Risk Management Committee

The Risk Management Committee (RMC) has released Safety Bulletin: 24-001 Use of Respirators on Wildland Fires. As wildland fire respirators are available through several established vendors, wildland fire personnel need to understand regulations and limitations of respirator use in the workplace.

Safety Bulletin 24-001 outlines the following topics regarding respirator use for wildland fires:

  • Requirements for Respirator Use
  • Voluntary Respirator Use
  • Current Respirator Options
  • Unknown Risks of Respirator Use

This bulletin also provides mitigation recommendations to help reduce smoke exposure for wildland firefighting efforts.

References:

NWCG Safety Bulletin: 24-001 Use of Respirators on Wildland Fires

NWCG Smoke Management Guide for Prescribed Fire, PMS 420-3

VIDEO: Protecting Wildfire Personnel from Smoke - How Incident Management Teams Address Smokes Risks

VIDEO: Smoke, Knowing the Risks