11-14-15 NIMO Blog Still Under Construction

Thanks for taking a look at our blog. We've just started it and we're still working on it so there are many empty spaces right now but more content is coming. Please check back over the next few months as we add things. We'd also welcome suggestions if there are learning tools you'd like to see here.

11-14-15 Learning & Innovation Workgroup FY 16 Focus Areas

NIMO’s are asked a lot about what we DO when we are not on fires, so we plan to begin sharing that information on both this site and on this blog. (The blog is a project of our workgroup as a platform for sharing ideas,  but is still a work in progress so please be patient!)   

NIMO’s are employees of the Forest Service Washington Office (in D.C.) and we answer to AD for Operations Steve Gage and up the chain to Fire Director Tom Harbour, so we take our direction from them. Each year we are given Leader’s Intent regarding what we will be working on over the next year. A couple of years ago, we began to change how we do business a bit. We are now more of an organization, rather than individual teams. We still function as teams on some occasions like wildfires, but the rest of the year we work in workgroups. There are four workgroups: Risk Management, Cohesive Strategy, Workforce Development, and Learning and Innovation and each is given specific direction.

Today, we’re sharing the work of the Learning and Innovation Workgroup. Having just met and defined the “focus areas” for FY16, we thought we’d share our plan. These are not all specific “tasks” but rather general areas where we are free to figure out how to accomplish a measureable end state. Please feel free to give us some feedback, other ideas or any connections you might have to help us accomplish our work.

1. Write a concept paper to develop an International Wildland Fire Coordinating Group that has representatives from across the world and can work on International ICS accreditation and access for resources internationally.
2. Solicit new concepts and ideas from the wildland fire community and work preseason with selected, current IMTs (including NIMO), to get commitments to act as “hosts” for these new concepts and approaches. This will be an ongoing project for development of new processes for IMT’s.
3. Create incentives to push NIMO’s to pursue challenges that push them out of their comfort zone and lead to new ideas and processes that leave the customers they serve better than when they arrived.
4. It is the program’s duty not only to try and implement the above new ideas, but to share the results, successful and unsuccessful, with the greater wildland fire community. Each new concept, approach, technology that’s written and approved by the NIMO Executive Council. is published on NIMO web platforms and the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned site. These platforms will also be used to engage the larger wildland fire community in conversation about projects and ideas still in development.

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