September 2008

Early-adopter Progress Report: Twenty early-adopter Fire Planning Units have completed the series of twelve Live Meetings* that demonstrated the FPA system user interface. The FPUs had the opportunity to ask questions and clarify their understanding of the FPA system. These meetings have been productive from the FPA team's perspective as the feedback from the early-adopters is used to develop and refine system training materials. *Live Meeting is a tool used for participants to jointly view the FPA user interface over the internet and then provide feedback over a phone line.

The FPA Deployment Wave! The FPA system deployment is being organized in three waves to be more supportive to end users. The deployment waves will ensure the new system will allow the FPA team to be more responsive when FPUs request help.

FPUs have been organized into the three waves based on:

• Completion of Project's "training" the Large Fire Module to model fire behavior based on each FPUs unique landscape.
• Representation of all agencies and ecosystems in each wave

FPUs will have 5 months, from start to finish, to complete their analyses. Click here for National Wave Map. This is a large file so it may take some time to load.

• The first wave begins October 1 with analyses due March 1, 2009. (Includes FPA Prototypes, Early-adopters.)
• The second wave begins November 1, 2008 with analyses due
  April 1, 2009. (This is not an April fools!)
• The third wave begins December 1, with analyses due May 1, 2009.

Catching the Wave: FPA Tutorials and User Guide. To Bridge the gap between when the contractor developed online training will be available; the FPA team members are developing tutorials to be available on the FPA web site.

These tutorials will be developed in a variety of formats. The tutorials will be in the form of webinars, Live Meetings, or PowerPoint presentations. All can be copied to CDs for those agencies that do not have access to the web.

• The first tutorial is a "Quick Start" instruction guide. The Quickstart instruction guide walks FPUs through the initial FPA process with reference and instructional links.
• Each topic within the FPA User Guide will be available on the FPA web site as it is completed.
• The Early-adopter PowerPoint presentations and questions and answers for the Live Meetings are also available.

As is true with all new systems, learning the FPA system will have its own challenges. Below are the help resources to tap into as needed.

• FPA system helpdesk at fire_help@fs.fed.us
• Contact your GA lead or FPA representative
  

Surfing the Wave! For the first two weeks of each wave FPU Planners can:

1. Initiate collaboration with FPU partners regarding the roles, responsibilities, and agreement of how they will work together to complete the analysis
2. Identify FPU team members and get user access to the system
3. Verify and update fire resources
4. Create dispatch logic
5. Assign attributes to Fire Workload Areas
6. Create their Preparedness option to calibrate the Initial Response Simulator for their particular FPU conditions.

What's Next:

• October 6-8:Interagency Science Team sub-team meeting in Boise
• October 28: First four of six on-line training modules available
• Early- to Mid-October: Government Accountability Office final report out for formal agency review
• November 1: FPA Version 2.02 release for second "Wave" of FPUs