Meeting Minutes
Boise, Idaho

October 26, 2007

BIA - NIFC North 2: (David Potter)

• BIA-NIFC is still working with BLM to have a new modular building built on the fire center. FWS, NPS, and NWS may join BIA in the building. Total occupancy expected to be 50-60 people.
• FY2007 funding did not work out; everything is on hold while hoping for FY2008 funding; currently delayed by continuing resolutions.
• There are new network issues to be resolved regarding BIA-NIFC's access to the Internet.
• Barbara Ruffner is the Project Manager for this effort.

SLA for Systems in O&M:

• No Updates.

I-COOP:

• No Updates.

System/Project Status Reporting: (Mike Barrowcliff)

• BLM provided information to Mike Barrowcliff.
• New format may group bullets by system/project and then by agency instead of by agency and then by system/project (this will mean more work for Mike Barrowcliff).

Helpdesk Interoperability Study: (Mike Barrowcliff & John Gebhard)

• No Updates.

Template for Plan for Transitioning Projects to O&M: (David Potter)

• No Updates.

SCG Charter: (David Potter)

• Recommended modifications to SCG Charter be proposed to IRMWT:
  • Remove AMD (Department of the Interior - Aviation Management) from charter.
  • Reduce quorum from six to five voting members.
  • Changed "Research/JFSP" to a slightly more generic "Fire Research".
• Amended charter sent to voting members seeking their concurrence. Will be sent to Shari Shetler if all voting members of SCG concur.

SCG Meeting Schedule: (David Potter)

• We have attempted to hold meetings every 4th Friday; participation has been sparse.
• Suggested return to either 1st Thursday or 1st Friday of each month. Potter will poll SCG members seeking their preference. The 30-Nov-2007 meeting is still on schedule; the first likely change will be skipping the December 2007 meeting and holding one on either the 3rd or 4th of January 2008. [Editor's note: As of 30-Oct-2007, we have two members preferring Thursday and two not expressing a preference.]

Round Robin:

John Noneman (BLM Project Manager):

• US Forest Service has expressed its intention to adopt WildCAD as a fire community standard for USFS (BLM has already done so for BLM). It needs a noteworthy amount of effort to transition it from being a functional tool to being an enterprise-class system (much the same path I-Suite took). Likely next steps include taking a proposal to NWCG and/or IRMWT.

John Gebhard (BLM):

• IQCS's staff has moved from the BLM's Idaho State Office to NIFC (Bldg 410-A).
• People in the eastern states are concerned about a scheduled outage of ASCADS as BLM-NIFC installs a CMMS upgrade in the next few weeks; they have concerns due to their current fire danger situation. [Editor's note: BLM is using Maximo Asset Management, a portion of IBM's Trivoli product.]
• ASCADS may need a business study in 2009; the last business study is almost twenty years old. ASCADS already needs a software refresh. BLM is uncertain about interagency partners' intentions for ASCADS. [Editor's note: ASCADS has served the fire community very well for many years, kudos to Al Borup for his programming work in the early '90s.]
• IQCS is facing a 2013 deadline due to Oracle scheduling withdrawal of support for the PeopleSoft product. The IQCS CMB and BLM (as Managing Partner) are aware of the situation. [Editor's note: IQCS is build upon PeopleSoft, that is built upon Oracle, that runs on Windows server. Oracle would like PeopleSoft users to migrate to their middleware product called Fusion.]

Bill Rush (USFS):

• Mike Barrowcliff is the USFS's Project Manager on an effort to review/redesign how fire funding is given to the States via USFS grants. Proposal is to distribute funding based upon ecological needs.
• GTG is interacting with NWFEA about GIS applicability in existing fire community systems. GTG will assess known fire applications and systems.
• Work on NESS (National Enterprise Support Services) is continuing; currently focused on Interim Authority to Operate (IAO) and Certification and Accreditation (C&A) paperwork.
• InciWeb (web-based Incident Information System) is "holding its own" during the current fire activity level in southern California. InciWeb is an interagency system, part of fire's IT portfolio, and is primarily used by Public Relations to communicate information from the fire community to the general public.

David Potter (BIA): Nothing.

Future SCG Meetings (David Potter):

Tentative dates for future SCG meetings are:

• 30-Nov-2007 (delayed one week because of Thanksgiving Day holiday)
• 3-Jan-2008 or 4-Jan-2008 (pending approval of SCG membership)
  

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