04/20/2016 Region 3 - Santa Fe/Carson NF Risk Management Session

Risk Management is critical at all levels of our organization.  Learning how each of the levels of the organization shoulder the risk and communicate to the other levels is one of the objectives of the newest versions of the Risk Management sessions that the National Incident Management Organization (NIMO) is providing to sites throughout the organization.

Students having discussions over the
strategic risk assessment exercise.

April 19-20 the Santa Fe and Carson National Forests held a combined Risk Management session in Espanola, NM. Participants included 160-200 personnel; which included Forest Supervisors, Deputy Forest Supervisors, District Rangers, Forest Fire Management Officers, Engine Crews, Hotshot Crews, and many other levels of the organization.

Students analyzing the map while
assessing the deliberate risk.

The session objectives included an introduction to the Strategic Risk Assessment (SRA) (Agency Administrator level of risk), Deliberate Risk Assessment (Incident Management Team level of risk), and Time Critical Risk Assessment (fire crew/real time risk on the ground); and the various tools associated with each of level of the risk assessment.  Each of the Districts and Hotshot Crews were broken up into separate groups and were required to work through the scenarios and perform a report out for the entire audience.


Santa Fe NF Forest Supervisor,
Maria Garcia

Carson NF Forest Supervisor,
James Duran

The two Forest Supervisors each laid out their leaders intent for the session which included opening up the communication lines between all levels of the Forest/District organization, and providing a basic knowledge to grow from for the rest of this pre-season, and into the remainder of this season.

R3 Deputy Regional Forester,
Jim Upchurch

Region 3 Deputy Regional Forester, Jim Upchurch attended the session and had a candid discussion in regards to the Life First initiative which is going to be presented to all Forest Service employees in the near future.

NIMO Cadre (left to right): John
Prendergast, Terri Knauth, Jaci
Stimach, Brian Watts

Brian Watts, Terri Knauth, John Prendergast, and Jaci Stimach provided the training throughout the two days to this large group of eager students; some of which were being introduced to the Risk Management process for the first time.