05/31/2016 Professional Development: Mentoring and Coaching for NIMO Employees

One of NIMOs missions is to develop future leaders of Fire and Aviation Management and the Forest Service.  As such, it is important that employees within the NIMO program also take advantage of opportunities to develop themselves into better leaders and/or mentors.  Since the Forest Service already has an active Mentoring/Coaching program in place, the Workforce Development Workgroup has taken on a project to facilitate mentoring and coaching for NIMO employees.

Mentoring will come from within the Forest Service, however may extend beyond the boundaries of the NIMO program.  The mentors will take advisory roles; offering options and career advice based on their experience.  The mentor will work with the mentee to help define and achieve the mentee's career goals based upon a path they both agree to.  The average life span of the mentorship is one year, but can be extended for additional time, if needed.

Coaching is predominately identified as a "learning coach" within the Forest Service.  They are typically outside of the employees work unit and serve as a catalyst for the employee.  They don't offer advice but they let the employee make their own decisions using probing questions that spur the employee to ask and answer all the "right" questions for themselves, regarding how they achieve their career goals.  This, also, has a term of one year, but can be extended if necessary.

Individuals who participate in the mentoring and/or coaching programs are tracked by HRM.  Participation in these programs is also included as part of the employees yearly Performance Appraisal.  The link below provides the workflow process for the Forest Service Training & Employee Development's USDA Mentoring Portal Process Flow.

USDA Mentoring Portal Process

If interested in signing up for the Forest Service Mentoring and/or Coaching, see the following links:

HRM Mentoring Program
HRM Coaching Program

5/23/2016 Little Bighorn Battlefield Staff Ride

The Boise NIMO Team participated in a Staff Ride of the Battle of Little Bighorn facilitated by OMNA International on May 22-23, 2016. Prior to the actual visit to Little Bighorn Battlefield Boise NIMO Team members read "A Terrible Glory" by James Donavan and "The Last Stand" by Nathaniel Philbrick. The pre-reading set the stage for the visit to Little Bighorn Battlefield.

Schedule of Stands Visited and Themes of Each

The staff ride started out in Sheridan, WY and followed the route Custer and the US Cav took, along the way a series of stands were visited where active discussions took place that connect leadership actions and decisions from Little Bighorn to today's world.



Little Big Horn River from Reno-Benteen Hill

Discussions centered around:

• Understanding Dynamic Decision-making
• Reacting Effectively to Change
• Understanding Decentralized Decision-making

Boise NIMO Team at Weir Point discussing Responsibilities of Lookouts

 The Staff Ride concluded with an Integration Dinner where each Team Member shared their "Nuggets" that they will carry forward this upcoming fire season.


Link to OMNA International




05/19/2016 Missoula Technology and Development Center Wildland Firefighter Projects

On May 19, the entire NIMO organization had the opportunity to take a tour of the Missoula Technology and Development Center (MTDC) in Missoula, MT.  During this tour we were exposed to several projects which are being worked on for improving the safety and well-being of the wildland firefighting community.  Below are several of the projects that we were presented with and how they can help out in the field.

Figure 1 - Bengi Hegg, EMT, Explaining
Wildland Medical Kit Standardization
Project

 One of the first projects we were introduced to was an overview of the project standardizing the individual and field medical kits (Figure 1).  The items contained in the kits are varied which make it difficult for a person to go from one geographical area to the next and know what is available in the kits.  The project is taking information provided from subject matter experts and field going personnel; then modifying those kits available through the cache system.

Imagine being out in the field, being smoked in, and running low on supplies.  The helicopters are not able to fly, and there are no roads to your camp.  This is not an unusual scenario.  The MicroFly automated cargo delivery system (Figure 2) may allow for this to be a thing of the past.  This

Figure 2 - Gadot Apuzzo, Equipment
Specialist, Explaining MicroFly Cargo
Delivery System

system can be dropped out of a plane flying at a safe height (above the inversion).  It has a GPS guidance system in which it will direct the package to be delivered to a location identified by the recipients.  The MicroFly has been tested (by the T&D group) and performed well in field test cargo drops (landing within 100 yards of targeted drop spot).  After the successful field testing, it was successfully tested on the Bear Lake Fire on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest in 2015.  To date, there is only one functional system, however the plan is to have at least one located at each of the Smokejumper bases.

Figure 3 - Gadot Apuzzo,
Explaining MicroFly
Cargo Delivery System

Each year, there are certain projects that are based around reviewing and potentially improving the personal protective equipment (PPE) for use in the field.  The MTDC are currently looking at improvements to the neck shrouds (Figure 3), fire shelters (Figure 4), and chaps.  In the near future, the MTDC team will begin looking at improvements to the wildland firefighter’s helmet.  If you are interested in learning more about the Fire Shelter project, you can refer to the Fire Shelter page on the NIFC site.

Figure 4 - Tony Petrelli, Equipment
Specialist, Explaining Fire Shelter Project

Short haul extraction (Figure 5) is another project that the MTDC personnel are working on, in an effort to improve the safety of the gear and the survivability for the injured firefighter.  Having all of the equipment needed for extractions in one, easy to use, package is critical.  The MTDC project is reviewing the equipment and making improvements as necessary.

Figure 5 - Gadot Apuzzo, Equipment
Specialist, Explaing technical details of
Short Haul Project

It is imperative that we learn from the elements that wildland firefighters are exposed to during any given day/assignment.  The MTDC Physiologists are working on projects to study items like heat stress, smoke exposure, and hearing exposure on the wildland firefighting communities.  They have developed specialized sensing equipment that is designed to track information such as air quality/particulates (backpack sensors), heart rates and core body temperature (Figure 7 – the “purple pill”), and other physiological information.  Information gathered will likely be used to make improvements to existing technology and/or safety gear and will be used to make physical training safer and more effective for the wildland firefighters.

Figure 6 - Joe Domitrovich,
Exercise Physiologist, Explaining
Heat Stress, Smoke Exposure,
and Hearing Exposure Projects

The MTDC is looking for Incident Management Teams (IMTs), Crews, or individuals who are willing and interested in assisting with this testing; so if you are interested, please contact any of the individuals identified above or contact Joe Domitrovich, Exercise Physiologist.

Figure 7 - Heat stress core temperature
measurement capsule

05/11/2016 GMUG Risk Management Workshop

Students learning about Strategic Risk
Assessment (SRA).

 Members of the NIMO Risk Management Workgroup provided line officers, staff officers, and fire management personnel on the Grand Mesa Uncompahgre and Gunnison (GMUG) National Forests with a Risk Informed Decision making session.  This session provided participants the opportunity to learn about Strategic, Deliberate, and Time Critical risk management processes and tools using a simulated fire case study.

5/13/16 A New Primer On Risk Terminology

Risk management is being increasingly promoted as an appropriate method for addressing wildland fire management challenges. However, a lack of a common understanding of risk concepts and terminology is hindering effective application. In response, this General Technical Report provides a set of clear, consistent, understandable, and usable definitions for terms associated with wildland fire risk management. The material presented herein is not brand-new or innovative per se, but rather synthesizes the extant science so that readers can readily make a crosswalk to the professional literature. The broad objectives of this effort are to provide context and information to support application of risk terminology across all levels of risk management, and to facilitate clear exchange of data, information, and ideas among fire management officers, staff, and scientists. 2016 Risk Terminology Primer Download

5/12/16 NIMO Risk Management at CA IMT Meetings

Left to Right, NIMO LSC Zeph Cunningham,
Steve Parr and  NIMO SOF Tom Johnson

"Firefighter safety, and the safety of the public, is a core value and is intrinsic in all areas of wildland fire management." (www.nifc.gov ) Risk Management has been a key focus area for NIMO.  NIMO is working with others in the coordination,collaboration and development of the next iteration of Risk Management. 

 

The NIMO Risk Management Workgroup assisted with coordinating  an Interagency Risk Summit last December.  The goal of the Summit was to clarify and establish a collective course for incorporating risk management as an integral component of wildland fire management, both within the Forest Service and the greater wildland fire community.  It summarized existing science- based risk management definitions into a set of clear,relevant and understandable definitions.

The workgroup was  tasked to attend all of the National and GACC IMT Meetings and to share information about the Summit.   Zephaniah Cunningham,Tom Johnston and Kit Bailey presented the Interagency Risk Assessment matrix, Line of Duty Death (LODD) response, and Coordinated Response Protocol (CRP) to the eleven Incident Management Teams in Region 5 (California).  The information was well received and the question and answer session was lively. One of the “problems” facing IMT’s is how to get the risk levels (high, moderate, low), mitigations and the risk processes to the ground at the engine operator and crew person level.  It is critical that everyone has a conversation about risk before and during tactical operations.