# Presentation: 717977

## Joint Action Group for the National Wildland Fire Weather Needs Assessment

- 12 Oct 2006, 12:30 – 4:30 EDT
- Cochairs: Dr. Al Riebau, Mr. Eli Jacks
- OFCM: Lt. Col. Dave Andrus

- Telecon # 888-391-6569, pass code 55381#
- GoToMeeting _[https://www.gotomeeting.com/join/490110788](https://www.gotomeeting.com/join/48732412)_, ID is 490-110-788

## Agenda

- Welcome and administrative remarks
- Approve record of actions from last meeting
- Review goals, timeline, and open action items
- GOES DCS operational requirement update
- 3rd International Fire Ecology and Management Congress session plans
- Fire Congress survey question discussion
- Open discussion
- Plans for next meeting
- Review of new action items

## Welcome and Administrative Remarks

**Welcome!**
- Federal Coordinator for Meteorology, Samuel P. Williamson
**Administrative remarks**
- Attendance roster
- Facility information
- GoToMeeting use

## Primary Goal

- The Western Governors urge NOAA to:
- • **Complete a National Needs Assessment Report**, by NOAA’s Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorology, **of federal, state and local fire managers needs for weather information in their wildfire and prescribed fire decision making processes and a framework to meet those needs by the NWS and Predictive Services. **

## JAG-Established Goals

- Comprehensive assessment of weather and climate needs of providers and users in their wildland fire and fuels management activities
- Assessment of provider agency capability to deliver weather and climate information to fire managers and other users
- Raise the critical nature of fire weather to a new level of community awareness

## JAG-Established Functional Areas

- Data collection, integrity, processing and archival
- Fire weather research and development
- Forecast products and services
- Modeling, prediction, and data assimilation
- Information dissemination and technologies
- Education, training, outreach, partnering and collaboration
- User response, decision support, and resulting user impacts
- Funding and human resource considerations
- Socioeconomic impacts

## Timeline

- Oct 12 -- Update members and refine Fire Congress questions
- Oct 31 -- JAG update to FENWT meeting in Athens, GA
- Nov 8 -- Deadline for Fire Congress survey development
- Nov 14 -- JAG panel at 3rd International Fire Congress
- Nov 30 -- Deadline for responses to Fire Congress surveys
- Dec 7-8 -- Meeting to review responses, frame assessment issues and agree to assessment reportables
- Jan -- JAG drafts assessment report
- Feb 1 -- Deadline to submit draft assessment to editor
- Mar-Apr -- Revise report based upon editor comments
- Apr 18 -- JAG meeting to review final publication pre-print
- Jun 10-12 -- Findings and recommendations presented to WGA

## Action Item Update (1/2)

- Action 06-1.3  Assessment Functional Areas – Gathering information.
- Status:  Done
- Action 06-2.2  Assessment Functional Areas – Gathering Information. Part II.
- Status:  Done
- Action 06-3.1  Workshop for Stakeholders’ Review
- Status:  Session established during 3rd International Wildfire Ecology and Management Congress.  Topics and speakers identified.  Short survey being developed for use during the session.

## Action Item Update (2/2)

- Action 06-3.3  Assessment Information Gathering Tool (amendment to 06-2.1).
- OFCM will review the functional area documents and produce a draft of the “survey” or “questionnaire.”  This tool will incorporate the changes provided at the meeting, along with the clarification of positions from Action 06-3.2.
- Status:  Done

## GOES DCS Operational Requirement Update

- Mr. Charles Kazimir, NIFC, BLM, DOI

## 3rd International Fire Ecology and Management Congress Session

- Mr. Bob Dumont, OFCM

## Fire Congress Survey Questions

- Strategy
- Design a short survey for participants and make available to other fire weather stakeholders
- Focus survey on primary and established JAG goals
- Keep survey short enough to encourage voluntary completion with short turn-around time
- Phrase questions clearly, so that respondents can reasonably answer intended questions
- Phrase questions positively so that respondents are encouraged to respond without negatively impacting associates
- Phrase open-ended questions to encourage thoughtful and meaningful responses

## Open Discussion (1/3)

- Appoint functional area lead agents and teams for survey question refinement.
- Final questions needed by 8 Nov.
- Additional survey distribution plans

## Open Discussion (2/3)

- NWS briefing at next JAG meeting
- Available NWS fire weather products and services
- Fire weather products and services issues NWS is currently aware of due to previous outreach and customer feedback
- Predictive Services briefing at next JAG meeting
- Available PS fire weather products and services
- Fire weather products and services issues PS is currently aware of due to previous outreach and customer feedback

## Open Discussion (3/3)

- Document requirement for GOES DCS data flow within the data functional area
- Plan to provide draft report to editor by 1 Feb
- Functional area drafts
- Misc draft topics
- Document job descriptions of common fire duties
- Others?
- ???

## Next Meetings

- 3rd International Wildfire Ecology and Management Congress (13 - 17 Nov)
- Panel discussions, 14 Nov
- Survey distribution and collection
- JAG Meeting, 7-8 Dec at OFCM
- Briefings from NWS and PS on their products and services, to include their assessment of wildland fire community products and service needs
- Review brief analysis of survey responses
- Partition assessment work throughout JAG

## New Action Items

## Agenda

- Welcome and administrative remarks
- Approve record of actions from last meeting
- Review goals, timeline, and open action items
- GOES DCS operational requirement update
- 3rd International Fire Ecology and Management Congress session plans
- Fire Congress survey question discussion
- Open discussion
- Plans for next meeting
- Review of new action items