TEAM SIZE/CONFIGURATION Small modules

Small - single resource Medium - modules Medium - single resource Large - per Mob Guide No preference Other 3.7 FEMA/DHS No role Surge capacity With Type 1 or 2 Teams Routinely support Routinely manage No preference Other 3.14 PERFORMANCE Yes, all fire funded Yes, all who respond Only for full time No, evals as current No preference Other

appear by agency and incident position. The most frequent choices for the large fire agencies (BLM, NPS, NFS) was No Role; for BIA and USFWS it was Surge Capacity, and for local and state selected With Type 1

or Type 2 Teams. Responding ICs are more positive about a FEMA/DHS role, with just over 30% seeing a

role for DHS/FEMA teams in conjunction with a Type 1 or Type 2 Team. Only 24% those who identified themselves as command and general staff do so, with an even lower (16%) for other incident positions. The percentages nearly reverse for those preferring No Role for FEMA/DHS teams: Command and General Staff being 30%, Other Incident—33%, and ICs being 21%.

Concerns expressed in comments focus on training, experience, and roles, citing need to clarify training, cross-training requirements, and responsibilities—noting that similarly named key positions currently differ significantly in their responsibilities, and that fire has a very specialized operational and planning environment requiring fire specific skills and experience. Clarifying the similarity and differences and roles between an IMT Type 3 and a NIMS Type 3 was also said to be important.

3.14–Performance: Should position descriptions and performance standards reflect the expectation for incident participation (applies only to Federal employees)?

Survey responses and narrative comments both indicate a widely held desire for position descriptions (PD) and performance measures to reflect an expectation for incident management participation (68% noted Yes in some form). The question really, is who should this apply to: only fire, only full-time fire, or anyone who responds?

Concerns expressed include the need for supervisors and line officers to make participation a priority for their staff, particularly given that performance standards alone rarely change behavior or interest. This was the major reason provided in comments in support of including incident participation in position descriptions and tracking in performance measures. The impression is that formalizing these allows both employee and supervisor the opportunity to formally acknowledge and track participation and trade- offs. On the other hand, some respondents noted that since most fire-qualified people are trained and interested in operations and employed in vegetation management, the requirement to participate on formal teams might lead to cannibalization of local capacity and an inability to meet fuels targets.

Strong Support for Change; Direction Unclear

Perhaps ironically, for two Building Blocks—NIMO/NIMO-like Full-time Teams, and Workforce

Development—respondents are overwhelmingly in support of changing the status quo, but very much

divided about which direction to take (figure 22). There were many negative comments about NIMO as currently understood, but support for considering full-time teams. Similarly, more than 75% of

respondents would like to see something done about workforce development, but few provided thoughts on how to proceed.

3.4–NIMO/NIMO-like: How many Teams should be NIMO or NIMO-like (full time teams composed of Command and General staff and funded out of wildland fire emergency funds)?

While the None category seems to dominate, when options that include NIMO or NIMO-like Teams are summed together, there is actually a more even split: none = 377; some (all, half, at some level, and current) = 313. Fully 20% suggested an Other, often a percentage of all teams, or number or percentage for each geographic area.

Comments in support of Full-Time Teams focus primarily on the resolution this brings to the tension between day-jobs and home unit workloads and fire assignments, and on the opportunity to focus these

some Full-Time Teams if team members where located on local units and the teams were assigned to a geographic area and accountable to local agency administrators.

The main concerns expressed are the cost and workload, in particular a question about whether there is sufficient work to keep them busy, and if so, what it is they will be tasked with and by whom. This highlighted the lack of general knowledge of how current work assignments are determined and

whether and how they assist the fire program. Considerable skepticism was voiced over how the current full-time teams manage incidents, particularly cost effectiveness if a ‘core team’ would be expected to order a type 2 team in order to function. Other concerns include that full-time teams may crowd-out opportunities for others, increase specialization and stove-pipe instead of seeking to broaden participation by non-fire staff, and eliminate the value of integration and connection with other disciplines and the field created by having a local day-job.

Figure 22. Responses indicating strong preference for change, but no clear consensus on direction for change, as proportion of total response

Note: Darker bars indicate status quo; diagonals indicate summation of all change options.

Moderate Support for Change, Implementation Tactic unclear

The final grouping of Building Blocks represent a suite of issues—Participation, Governance, and

Compensation for which the status quo is clearly not preferred, but for which there is no real clear

direction or perhaps even interest (figure 23). In the first case, there is nearly universal support for encouraging any and all employees of land management to participate in incident management in some way, at some time, in their employment; it’s just not clear whether and for whom this might be

Mandatory or remain Voluntary. In the second case, there appears to be a significant interest in stronger

national presence in team governance, but no consensus over how to do that. In the last, Compensation, there were nearly as many No Preferences to changing compensation strategies as there were any other selections. 0% 25% 50% 75% 100% 3.4 NIMO/NIMO-like All Half None No preference Other Change 3.12 WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT As is Build on existing Develop nat'l strategy No preference Other Change

3.13–Participation: Should incident management participation (at some level, not necessarily holding an Incident Qualification Card, including Initial Attack through Area Command, Agency Representative to Multi Agency Coordination Group) be voluntary for employees of NWCG member agencies?

Respondents want all public land management employees to Participate in IMTs, but are divided about whether or not that should be Mandatory. Interestingly, agency fire personnel seem to favor a

Voluntary system over those outside of fire and the agency. For instance, looking at breakdown by

functional area, all non-fire functions (Line Officer/Agency Administrator, Other Agency, Non-Agency) selected No, All Should Participate most frequently while the fire functions all selected Yes, Voluntary for

All. By incident position, ICs felt most strongly that participation should be Mandatory for all, with

Command and General staff split almost evenly between Voluntary and Mandatory for all personnel. To paraphrase one respondent, ‘the option should be voluntary, but once someone has volunteered (and received training), participation should be mandatory.’ This seems to capture the concerns voiced that making any system Mandatory is likely to result in challenges of interest and capability. Formalizing this expectation is thought to provide support to both employee and supervisor, similar to performance. Comments opposing Mandatory participation generally revolve around wanting only those who are truly interested and the potential safety and efficiency concerns with staff less than fully engaged. Others note that incident management involves more than just IMTs, and that there are many ways to participate. Who pays for training was another consistently raised issue; if suppression pays, it might make it easier for others to play.

3.1–Governance: What is the best way to govern teams? (State teams will still be governed by their respective states.)

More respondents suggest using a combination of Geographic Area and National Involvement in team governance than for retaining the current Geographic Area structure, though the status quo was a close second. Cross-tabs show that there is somewhat more support for NWCG and GACCs among younger respondents.

Comments suggest a Combination may be preferred because it would maintain the local ties yet also ensure greater consistency across the country.

3.15–Compensation: How should team participants be compensated?

With the most frequent selection being Other (25%), the relatively high percent of No Preference (21%) and the lack of any consensus, responses suggest that this question is poorly scoped (i.e., the full suite of acceptable answers were not provided in the survey), that this may not be an important issue, or that more discussion is needed. Fully 11% volunteered a choice something along the lines of As Is, or No

Additional Compensation Needed. That there were numerous variations submitted under Other also

tends to support an interpretation that more discussion is needed within the community to better scope the issue, solutions, and priority of solutions. Because of this, we re-categorized and recombined the survey data, using comments submitted under Other to create an As Is response, and to parse

suggestions for Other Types of Details, Grade-based Pay, and Cash or Pay Awards to their respective bins (figure 23). This new graph indicates that the largest segment of respondents—still just over 25%—think

Provide Cash Awards or Providing Pay Incentives would be a beneficial path forward.

The notion that this issue is either not widely recognized as important, or that the survey question was poor, is underscored by looking at the demographic break-downs, in which BIA, NPS, and State

Government respondents more frequently chose No Preference, and BLM and USFS who most frequently chose Other.

The relatively high number of comments (almost as many comments as for the NIMO/NIMO-like question), suggests there is both energy and lack of consensus about how best to proceed. The overall sense received is that while additional compensation might assist with recruitment, the issue is more with making changes to minimize barriers to incident participation. Several comments suggest that establishing Position-Based Pay and providing details would enable incident participation to become true developmental opportunities.

Figure 23. Responses indicating moderate preference for change, but no clear consensus on direction for change, as proportion of total response

Note: Darker bars indicate status quo.