Welcome to Jo Ann Fites-Kaufman - 120 day detailer with WFM RD&A

Jo Ann Fites-Kaufman, Regional Planning Ecologist for the US Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region, will be joining us for a detail beginning August 25. As developer and lead of the Fire Behavior Assessment Team, she has conducted monitoring and assessments of fire behavior during active wildfires across the country for over 10 years. The team specialized on measuring effectiveness of fuel treatments and crown fire. She developed a simple application for the canyon fire acceleration model from Dr. Viegas in Portugal, testing and applying to sudden changes and extreme fire behavior on near miss and fatality fires. While head of the Adaptive Management Services Enterprise Team, she led teams working on fire management planning, fuel monitoring and assessments, and fire effects assessments. Currently, she is working on a team revising three forest plans under the new 2012 planning rule in California. This includes incorporating plan components that can be moved directly into WFDSS as strategic objectives and plan requirements, designed to work on managed fires. During her detail, she will be working with other members of the WFMRD&A group to: evaluate past and existing incident objectives; find good examples; develop good examples; and create training material or a user's guide to improve development of incident objectives that are specific, useful, and tier to unit plans.

Tell Us Your Best Fire Story!

Understanding Wildland Fire Behavior Project

This project is to find out how wildland firefighters experienced unexpected or extreme wildfire behavior in the past through right now, in this current fire season.

To do this, we need your stories about wildfire behavior and to answer questions about your stories to understand how wildfire behavior has changed and what that means for wildland firefighters. 

This project comes out the phrase that many of you have probably heard, along the lines of  "I've never seen a fire act like that before" or "I see a lot more of that kind of fire behavior now."

This will take about 5 minutes or so, and if you want to know more about the stories we collect and what we find out, there is a link at the end of the questions to submit a request for information.

Thanks for taking the time to tell us your story

You can tell us your story via website or download the mobile apps for iPhone/iPad or Android
Website url:  us.sensemaker-suite.com/Collector/collector.gsp?projectID=EFB&language=en

Mobile Apps for both IOS and Android:IOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sensemaker/id572505949?mt=8Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cognitiveedge&hl=en      
                                              

NPS Mentee Jennifer Adams

Jennifer Adams, Fuels Specialist for the Everglades National Park worked as a mentee with the WFM RD&A from July 27th through August 9th.  She is a GSAN, GISS, and LTAN(t) and assisted with project work and fire analysis.  Jennifer provided a review of WFDSS related NWCG coursework materials.  She also completed Short Term Fire Behavior analysis to support contingency planning for a planned Type 1 burn on the Nez Perce N.F.   She provided timely analysis to the Staley Complex (Willamette N.F.) the Avocado Creek Fire (Everglades N.P.), and the East Mountain Fire (Idaho Dept. of Lands).  Analysis included Short Term Fire Behavior, Near Term Fire Behavior, and FSPro.  Jennifer was a great mentee and did an outstanding job.  Thank you for the excellent work Jennifer- we hope to work with you again.