Southern Area Coordinating GroupMeeting Minutes
December 12th, 2013
- Call to order
Pete Kubiakcalled to order the meeting of the Southern Area Coordinating Group at 10:30amon December 12th, 2013 @ SACC.
- List of Attendees
The following personswere present:
Southern Area Coordinating GroupMeeting Minutes
December 12th, 2013
- Pete Kubiak
- Kai Olsen
- Danie Carter
- Dave Frederick
- Samuel Larry
- Jon Lee*
Southern Area Coordinating GroupMeeting Minutes
December 12th, 2013
*indicates participation via conference call
- SACC Master Agreement/2014 Addendum (Soon Fletcher)
Discussion:
The Master Agreement is good for 5 years; if there ARE NO changes to the Southern Area Operating Plan the SACG will not require any signatures; if there ARE changes, the SACG will require the necessary signatures.
SGSF addendum costs are already being covered through partial payment for FS personnel salaries.
Action/Decision:
*US FWS, needs to sit down w/ Soon Fletcher and Shardul to go over the FY’12 & FY’13 in kind costs by Jan 30th
*Kai and Soon to work with FS on the IMT allocation to see if there is existing business rules.
*Kai will send out a draft signature page for the FY’15 AOP to the SACG by January 15th.
*SACG would like to have an annual review of the upcoming FY SACC budget costs at the Dec. meeting.
- EIM/National Teams Hosted by SA
Action/Decision:
The SACG members will review the NWCG/ EIM memo submitted Oct 2013, and provide comments to both Pete and Kai via email by Jan 5th.
- S420 Course proposal from (Mission Centered Solutions) MCS
Discussion:
Everything is working well, the course is moving along. Jan Britt is developing a list for the cadre.Kai, Pete and David, plan on attending the course to assist with simulation.
- Weather Outlook (Kevin Scasny)
A short break in the wetter weather of the last several days as very stable, but cold temperatures and generally sunny skies for most of the South remain the short term feature for most of the Southern Area. While RHs dropped below a reference 35% threshold in our east (Florida and southeast Georgia) larger areas covering the Gulf Coast and the ARKLATEX remained in the 40s and 50%s. Minimums today should cover a broader area east of the Mississippi but lasting effects of the recent rain/snow and higher soil moistures will continue to provide a significant brake to fire risks. As we continue to highlight, though, elevated ignition potential will peak today on areas of the Florida peninsula as min RHs fall to around 30% in places and northerly wind speeds increase to the 10 to 15 mph range with some higher gusts. West of the Mississippi some warming continues today (but still below average) with rain also now beginning to develop in the Trans Pecos of West Texas. This will continue to expand through the day and will end up becoming and developing into the next significant rain event (and some winter precipitation to eastern Kentucky/Tennessee, Virginia, and the central and northern Appalachian Mountains) for the South over the weekend.
Expect robust and fairly widespread accumulations from this event to end up in the 0.5 to 1inch plus range. Looking further into December another weather system arriving Christmas week will likely produce additional snow fall for at least areas of the Ohio Valley and northern Appalachians as potentially another very strong arctic air mass drops into the eastern half of the U.S. But this cool down will follow what will be a brief but strong warm-up from around Monday the 16th to the 20th. Still moderately strong topical easterlies moving across the Caribbean will keep Puerto Rico (especially the northern and eastern municipalities) in almost daily light rain activity and conditions will remain moist. No fire risk concerns. A higher rain fall period is expected in and around the period 20 through 23 Dec.
NFDRS model managers are reminded to adjust wet flag settings to take into account snow/ice covered fuels when this condition occurs. Fog will remain a high level RX threat into the weekend for especially our deeper areas of our southeast – but will also remain a threat generally elsewhere.
- SA IMT/C&G Meeting (January 2014)
Discussion:
FWS will host the meeting; Due to the new FS procedures for Meeting’s Management, a meeting justification package is being prepared and submitted by Danie for the FS employees/ team member’s approval to attend the meeting.
Action/ Decision:
The SACG Chair will ensure that the SA IMT Team selection dates are coordinated 2 months in advance.
- Fire Activity Reporting (Agency Updates)
BIA – No activity fire; fire personnel are mostly in a use or lose situation; staffing will be minimal over the holidays
NPS –Whale issues; illegal taking of a FL panther, it’s believed that someone shot it. Light initial attack near Murfreesboro, TN; about 9-16 acres around Stone River Park. No structures were impacted.Biggest fire for 2013 was the Huckabee fire; no severity for 2013. David Horn has been selected as the new Chief Ranger. Jordan McKnight has been selected as FMO. Tom Nickels will retire in Jan.
SGSF – Fire activity has been light; AL State Forester will be leaving, and Greg Pate has been selected as the new date forester.
FS –In Nov: AL Red Mtn fire 566 acres in wilderness on Talledega NF; NC Tablerocktwo weeks, 2,579 aces, T2 Team; VA Landfill 1,507 acres and South Fork 609 acres were the biggest fires and have been the most activity that the SA has received all year long. SACC at PL-2. RO activated a small WDFSS/Decision Support to assist with the fires.
FEWT met last month in NC. Had a good productive meeting
DWT met at the Dispatch Workshop, they’ve chosen a Chair and vice-chair.
Chair – Scott Swendsen – USFS AR
Vice – Kathleen (Lori) Rich – BIA NC
FWS –Completing some RX burns; 2-6 Rx burns per wk; for FY 2013 100 wildfires for the season; no significant large fires; Several severity packages were in place; Quite a few fires in PR a rough estimate of 15+. FWS is still working with the budget cap, shifting, and juggling things around to make it work.
The next team meeting the SACG will meet with SACC staff; have committee reports; and will transfer delegation of authority for the SACG Chair.
Next meeting Jan. 30th, 2014 @ 8am
Meeting Adjourned @ 15:10pm