Interagency Wildland Fire Management Efficiency Assessments

The Way Forward

August 2008

The three "management efficiency assessments" (Aviation, Dispatch, and Training) are the products of federal interagency teams and contain a number of recommendations to the leadership of the federal wildland fire agencies. Those recommendations cover a wide range of aspects of each of these important interagency components of our wildland fire program, covering business processes and rules, location and management of facilities, and development or refinement of management systems and tools. Overall the recommendations are designed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our wildland fire operations. At this time the recommendations remain simply that, recommendations.

The heads of those five federal wildland fire agencies have asked the Fire Executive Council (FEC), in partnership with the National Association of State Foresters and other non-federal partners, to review the recommendations and to prepare a proposal for a systematic, integrated, multi-year approach to implementing the recommendations. In developing this approach the FEC recognizes that many activities related to some of the recommendation are currently underway, that many of the recommendations will require budgetary investments in future years, and that there are inter-relationships between and among the recommendations in each of the studies. The FEC expects that as the implementation proposal is developed some of the recommendations may be modified, refined, or not be accepted by agency leadership.

In the fall of 2008 the FEC expects to appoint an interagency, intergovernmental steering committee to evaluate the recommendations from the three management efficiency assessments and prepare a proposal for agency leadership for integrated, multi-year implementation. We expect that the steering committee will remain in place for an extended period to guide and oversee specific actions. The committee will be comprised of representatives from the various affected "business" communities within wildland fire, all the agencies (federal and non-federal), and management as well as fire staff.

• Management Efficiency Assessment on Aviation Activities in the USDA Forest Service – Executive Summary
• Management Efficiency Assessment on Aviation Activities in the USDA Forest Service – Full Report
• Management Efficiency Assessment of the Interagency Wildland Fire Dispatch and Related Services – Executive Summary
• Management Efficiency Assessment of the Interagency Wildland Fire Dispatch and Related Services – Full Report
• Management Efficiency Assessment of the Interagency Wildland Fire Training and Related Services – Executive Summary
• Management Efficiency Assessment of the Interagency Wildland Fire Training and Related Services – Full Report