Michigan Prescribed Fire Council Quarterly Meeting
March 12, 2024
Online
Attendance:
Stephanie Diep (Kalamazoo Nature Center)
Jack McGowan-Stinski (Lake States Fire Science Consortium)
Julie Mclaughlin (DNR-Contractor)
Ben Savoie (District Forester)
Andy Henriksen (FPAC-NRCS, MI)
Dr. Greg Corace (Alpena Montmorency Conservation District)
Jarod Reibel (Ed Lowe)
Nathan Jeruzal (NWS Grand Rapids)
Frye, Amy (FPAC-NRCS, MI)
Jeb Barzen (WI PFC)
Laura Judge (FPAC-NRCS, MI)
Michele Richards (DMVA)
Mark Sargent
Steve Woods (Huron Pines)
Darwin Schultz
Vic Bogosian
Todd Aschenbach (GVSU)
Tina Stephens (Ann Arbor NAP)
Reviewing By-Laws Section 1:
One of the long term strategies is MPFC will partake in policy governance, reviewing a portion of the bylaws at each quarterly meeting and revising as necessary.
Jarod Reibel proposed to dissolve Article 1 and replace the objectives in the By-Laws with the objectives revised in the Strategic Plan just for reference but recognizing that objectives are not part of the By-Laws. We will also add wording in the By-Laws to refer to the Strategic Plan. The By-Laws are how we do business; the Strategic Plan lays out our goals for the next 5 years and how we plan to get there.
Richards, Michele (DMVA) Makes motion for changes.
Frye, Amy - FPAC-NRCS, MI seconds the motion.
An official vote for adoption of changes will take place during the next quarterly meeting.
Burning Issues Recap
Jarod Reibel
But overall, I think it was a really good event. We had a good turn out both online and in person. I feel like we had less virtual hiccups than we did last year. It shows where we're improving and growing on kind of how we're doing that overall. Feedback I heard was really positive from both the kind of content.
But overall, like I said, I feel like all the all the speakers were great as much planning as it takes to stand up that event. It's nothing without the presenters volunteering their time and knowledge.
Frye, Amy - FPAC-NRCS, MI
I would just say it's great to have some new people on board and thank you again to Ben for stepping up and joining a leadership role and yeah, great to see Nathan at the event as well as here now and anybody else who's just joining.
Jarod Reibel
A couple of years ago, I mean Lake States and and the tall grass have always been associated and have helped out a lot with the the burning issues and a couple of years ago they did kind of take a step back just from a logistical and and everything like that. And they are greatly missed. But we were able to kind of work through some things and they were able to be a big part of the planning team this year and I think it was a very healthy healthy relationship of the Council and the consortiums to where it was beneficial and show collaboration for for both aspects. So I talked with both Jack and Craig and they feel really well with kind of how that event when and I'm and I'm pretty positive that they'll be helping out in future years and and staying involved.
Jeb Barzen suggested working with universities to host annual meeting conferences as WI PFC has done.
Financial Update Quarter 2
Stephanie Diep: So the burning issues breakdown was the most successful event profit so far and the event profit margin is more than double the past two years. And I think that's mostly because the admin time took less time on my time. Now that I'm getting used to how it runs and had a lot of extra support this year from other people running ports of it and admin costs are being charged at half rate this year. So.
Stephanie Diep
And also know that 40% of our registrants made use of either our free promo code or half price promo code. So I think we should definitely keep providing those opportunities because they're definitely being appreciated and being used by people.
Subcommittee Updates
Outreach: Tina Stephens
Stephanie Diep: Meeting next week and if anyone is interested in joining that committee, let me know and I can put you in contact with Tina and they will be working a lot with our forest faucet grant and trying to see which organizations will partner with. We've already had a few organizations say they're interested in hosting learning burns and will cover most of the planning time, and so just mainly need some expenses covered. Maybe some supplies and volunteer time.
Tina: I'm gonna do a lot of brainstorming about what we as a committee wanna do and what we have the capacity for, and we've already had several requests for learn and burn, so that'll be one of the pieces of the business.
Training: Steve Woods
Some different irons in the fire.
First of all, it remind everyone about the prescribed fire training exchange that's gonna be taking place in May, May 5th to 15th. We filled the course with 35 people and we’re getting RSVP's from students.
Now each of the sections committees are meeting more regularly and you know, feel like things are on pretty well on course for that or by the end of this week, I really need to get together a list of sort of where our different training locations are and from that, uh, we'll, I'll be setting up time to go and visit with each of the landowners or property managers for the lands that will be involved in the training.
A lot of those are going to be locations for burning, but potentially there will also be some learning that we can do from by looking at sites that had burned prior to the TREX in in the spring.
Huron Pines in collaboration with the MI Prescribed Fire Council, have been working on establishing the Northern Michigan prescribed fire collaborative. And so the Michigan prescribed Fire Council as a named partner in that and trying to get all of our NGOs in the northern lower kind of together and elevate their level of literacy around fire and training. So, uh, incorporating Fire into their management plans, getting training for their staff basic, you know, 130/190 type training and doing consultations about where they can use fire on their properties and then ultimately implementing fire. So that MOU is being circulated for signature right now and then the next step is to develop a mobile fire cache.
So we've been actively buying tools and equipment for that mobile fire cache and kind of my first big benchmark with that is we're going to put on a Fire field day on May 30th at the Chippewa Nature Center near Mount Pleasant. I'll be sending out a save the date soon to everybody. Depending on response, we're gonna have to give some priority to people who are members of the collaborative, but I think that we're going to be able to get a good full class of people for that.
The other big initiative of the training and Qualification subcommittee is the training and qualifications MOU. If everyone has had the opportunity to review it and comment on it and it will facilitate anybody who signs the MOU participating in training and qualifications activities, including prescribed fire for the purpose of people gaining additional qualifications. Umm, so uh that is going to be uploaded to DocuSign by the end of this week and sent out to or a bunch of partners. I'll say that managing the signing process is an absolute bear. So, uh, just bear with me or us as we work through that.
The Forest Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service and DMV a have all indicated that they will sign the document, though that may take some time.
And then we would also like to have all of our prescribed Fire Council member organizations as many as possible, sign the document. So for each organization, I'm going to have to get the name and email address of who would be signing it as well as sort of a point of contact because often the executive director doesn't know anything about the training and qualifications or the Michigan prescribed Fire Council. So we kind of need an advocate within each organization to help usher the document through the signature process.
Steve Woods
And I guess I’ll introduced the idea now and you know it would be good to have some significant time on the agenda at our next meeting to probably discuss it in more detail. The number of us have talked about, you know, all along whether the Council itself should be a nonprofit and for reasons that we need to continue to remind ourselves that, you know, one of the advantages of not being a nonprofit was to help have better involvement from the agencies, namely (DNR) Fish and Wildlife and Forest Service. And so we made the decision not to. And one of the consequences of that is that. I'll we aren't eligible to apply for grants, and right now there's lots and lots of money out there for fire stuff. And you know, kind of the idea about whether the Fire Council should is really needs to do lots of things on their own or whether they're we serve as a supporting function for other organizations who are doing Fire related work, prescribed fire related work.
We, you know, some of us have had conversations about how we may be missing out on opportunities, we can't really have much staff capacity. Everything that we're doing is on a volunteer basis. How much activity we can kind of take on?
And you know the Kalamazoo Nature Center has graciously had staff involved in Stephanie as Administrator at a discounted rate and served a fiduciary role for the Council, but you know that's a local organization and we're a statewide organization. And so there's a little bit of misalignment with that, umm, so. We've, uh talked a little bit in in steering committee meetings before about the idea of having a nonprofit collaborator and one of the things that I've heard loud and clear from all agency partners is that there's a need for a nonprofit collaborator in fire in Michigan. And umm, there aren't very many organizations who are well positioned to be to operate at a statewide level and really be a nonprofit collaborator on fire and. In a lot of places, The Nature Conservancy serves that role. In Michigan. That's they've expressed that that's not going to be their role in Michigan, at least now. One organization that does that is tall Timbers Research Institute. And I reached out to some of the folks there to discuss whether they would have any interest in partnering with the Fire Council in that regard and they didn't say no, so it went up to their CEO and he's, you know, they kind of said, well, we would have to really gauge what that might look like and and what the Fire Council would want and that sort of thing. And so there's really two things. One is the administrative side of it in terms of being a fiduciary agent, being able to apply for grants and manage those, and the other is like on the operational Fire side of things, which is why having an organization that has a real backbone and fire is important.
There's all these things like incident qualifications, tracking and insurance and you know, knowing what the different training standards and options and obligations are and things like that.
So I guess where I left it I was working with their director of Private Lands and Umm, he said that this would kind of fall in his camp through their organization and that we should if we're interested in pursuing that start to put together kind of an idea of what that might look like and how.
Uh, we would ideally like to see a group like that support the Council and a growth plan kind of thing.
Jack McGowan-Stinski: The Coaliton of Prescribed Fire Councils is going to be available as a 501c3 fiduciary organization for any State councils. They are working on hiring a CEO now. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes now to make this happen with the Coalition of Prescribed Fire Councils going to be that umbrella organization. It goes beyond Tall Timbers private lands. Minnesota’s fire council is also not a 501c3 which has been a hold up.
Jeb Barzen
Umm it's it's hard to know how much of how you're configuring yourselves is just, you know, states just differ from each other in terms of assumptions, restrictions, laws, you know, you name it. So I don't know if this will apply or not, but in Wisconsin we have we are the Wisconsin prescribed Fire Council is a 501C3. And we have MOU's now with the Department of Natural Resources and with the Forest Service and with the NRCS. So I'm not sure how being a nonprofit will bar you from, you know, those sorts of interactions, but things might be different in Michigan, but they have not been a barrier for us in terms of doing the kind of work that we want to do. So I'd encourage you to maybe look into that a little bit more.
We have Forest Service grants through The Nature Conservancy in Wisconsin as sub-grantees. They’re getting money for it and we’re improving their grant by being a collaborator with it. So they're showing that they're working with other groups which are Forest Service likes to see they have a better chance of getting the grant and then their administration of the grant, they have to do it anyways. And so we just have to follow their rules, which you know is just reality.
So rather than having kind of an asking a big ask which is an organization to be your overall fiduciary for a nonprofit organization, we're asking the we're asking TNC to help us with a specific grant that they're involved with that we're also involved with. So it's kind of a a smaller ask and they get more benefit out of it. So they might be willing to consider that smaller ask and be willing to to work with you, but you can't do that unless you're a A501C3.
You know our nonprofit organization, so there might be ways of of working around, but I, you know we've we've benefited greatly for from the non or being a nonprofit, but we are slowly trying to build our capacity to try and start hiring staff because the other part of what I'm hearing behind all your statements is that this is all hell of a lot of work and to do it as a volunteer is harm and and Steve, I bet you're putting in 10 hours a week or 20 hours a week on this kind of stuff and you. Know that's not a sustainable thing as a volunteer. By and large, you know, we gotta kinda get that stuff done. And so at some point you do have to, you know, consider getting more staff to try and do some of this and figuring out how to pay that staff as a volunteer nonprofit organization is no easy task.
So there's no free lunch, but umm, we're we're at least finding that being a nonprofit is is certainly creating more opportunities than it is, umm, creating more obligations that we have difficulties meeting.
Richards, Michele (DMVA): So you know that I work for Army National Guard and each state has their own Army National Guard.
And it's under the governor. And when they get federalized, they become actual army people. But the governor has an army. And what we're we all function underneath state laws and the, you know 10,000 foot perspective of that work is that you know there's 54 States and territories and 54 different ways of doing things. I think that applies to The Nature Conservancy as well. There's been a political uh issue inside of our TNC for a long time and it is really unfortunate because it has stymied the Fire programs inside of that organization that, you know, sometimes it looks like there's sunshine, sometimes it doesn't. But TNC is not an option for us and I think we could reopen the conversations with our our agency partners. It was primarily (DNR) and Forest Service who were big.
Jarod Reibel: It’s a good Ave to continue to talk about in June. I'm hopefully when everyone's got their voices and we can kind of research into this a bit more. But yeah, definitely something to to consider and kinda dig deeper into moving forward. So I'll get that added to the agenda for June and we'll
Strategic Plan – Tribal Acknowledgement
Jarod Reibel
And then I did have a spot for the strategic plan, even though it was adopted and it was just last month. But we did kind of leave it open ended and knowledge that we have to kind of work on some of the tribal aspects of that.
Mark Sargent
At the burning issues, I talked to a couple people and said. More or less, this may not be my strong suit to reach out to the tribes and was trying to find somebody who might step up to do that. I have heard no response yet, so it's probably at the point where I need to reach out to them a little bit more and say hey, have you thought about that? It will not be a simple commitment. To reach out to all the tribes and interact and try to format an item that they all can agree upon. And in what direction that goes, I don't know.
So the group and the comments from our membership wanted to make sure that we strategically strategically outline that we are gonna outreach to the tribes. We want to make sure they have a chance for input.
Hopefully we can make it simple, but we're gonna have to reach out to a dozen plus tribes to find out what their input is and what their concerns and issues are and how we would describe that action item, that objective that they feel supportive of.
Stephanie Diep
Part of it, too, is acknowledging the historical use of fire on the landscape by tribes historically as well.
The Nature Center has gone through a process with some of the local tribes around here to create a Land Acknowledgement Statement. So I do have the procedures and process that they went through for that which might help inform whenever we start that process as well.
Richards, Michele (DMVA)
I would just second Mark's assessment on the level of time that it takes to do the engagement. Definitely finding someone who has the chops and the time to do it is important and it will take a lot of time.
Mark
I will add that. We're walking into prescribed burn season. We're walking into the TREX training. I don't think our bandwidth is wide enough to address this probably until June. If we could get a champion by June, I would be tickled pink.
Jarod Reibel
So this is probably gonna take time, which is OK, we're in the process of of, of working on it.
DNR Burn Boss Program Update
Jarod Reibel
Basically it happened while we were at burning issues or I guess just after, but the (DNR) had created their fire specialist position, prescribed fire specialist position which to my understanding is gonna basically also serve as a member to the Council. They'll be with us and that was named as Jeff Corser. So hopefully that means that the certified Burn management program is kinda gonna get some feet and and get going here and the near near future.
I did reach out to Jeff just by Email. I'm kind of congratulating him on the new gig and looking forward to working with him. So he has every intentions of coming to future meetings with him, kind of having previous roles in there being some gaps within the (DNR) that is gonna need filling. It does sound like it's going to be a bit of a transition to things he's covering. But I would imagine, hopefully by June Jeff will be able to start joining us at some of these meetings.
Mark
So for those that don't know, Jeff, he's early on and I'm not gonna go through his whole career, but he early on. He was a wildlife assistant for wildlife management at Saint Charles and was really active with our wildlife burn program. And then went over to of FRD and got involved with their burden program and got up. To be what we call 50, which is our regional for force Fire person, he's a go getter.
Hard driving. Really really supports the use of prescribed fire, so I think they picked a good candidate and I think at some way we can really strongly work with. So kudos to the (DNR).
Partner Updates
Nathan Jeruzal-NWS Grand Rapids
I just wanted to kind of throw out there to everybody that we had our fire weather partner agency meeting coordination meeting couple weeks ago with all the state and federal agencies in lower Michigan and one of the things that came out from that that I think everybody should be just kind of aware of is that red flag warning criteria is going to be adjusted a little bit for lower Michigan and how that's going to be adjusted is essentially we're going to be taking the temperature criteria out of the criteria. And it was suggested by the Forest Service and we all agreed upon it.
OK, So what the thought is this is a chart that was developed just by experience from the Forest Service, the Manistee National Forest. And you know, it's essentially a chart with sustained wind speeds at the top and then RH values on the left side. And you can see, you know it goes from green that you know, usually that's not a concern at all.
1To elevate it, fire conditions in the yellow and in the red that would be red flag warning criteria.
So instead of just, you know three, you know, distinct criteria, you know, 20 mile per hour winds, 75 degrees and RH is 25% or less. It's more of a, you know, variable chart here and I want to, you know, stay this with the caveat that the emphasis will be much more on the fuel conditions and will be coordinating the fuel conditions with those agencies before red fight morning or a fire.
Weather watch would be issued so you know it's gonna be a little bit of a change and it's kind of a test period this year, but we've all, you know agreed that you know this is the good way to move forward this year and then we'll evaluate it at the end of the year.
Jeb Barzen
But that's always the challenge is that you know, right when we're being able to get some of the fire effects that we want all of a sudden there's a red flag warning and everybody shut down. And so it's a constant engagement that we have with in our case (DNR), but presumably as well as with federal UM laboratories in terms of uh, how we go about dealing with this. And in part, our certification program is intended to try to adjust that of developing more professional prescribed fire practitioners so that they can interact more with (DNR) and perhaps broaden that zone in which prescribed fire is allowed. You know, as opposed to shutting down for people who are not certified but allowing certified burners to continue burning to some extent.
Nathan Jeruzal-NWS Grand Rapids (Guest)
And you know, essentially what we've decided is that we really need to put a bigger emphasis on the coordination with the agencies. And so hopefully you know that with if all the coordination is going on, as should you know, be that nobody should be surprised by anything coming out or you know anything like that.
I'm definitely up for feedback or any kind of comments that you know there are on this though.
Michele Richards
Why was temperature taken out as a criteria?
Nathan Jeruzal-NWS Grand Rapids (Guest)
And so what is gone on the last few years is that the Forest Service and the DNR has gotten kind of antsy, you know, as we approach criteria and, you know, the question always, I don't know what that was with, you know, they've gotten concerned as we approach criteria, but we weren't hitting it.
And so then, you know, with our pre coordination meetings each year or preseason coordination meetings each year we we ask you know is there a need for a change in the red flag conditions.
And I think with you know, turnover in the agencies and some you know thoughts on you know that it was decided that you know it's actually we would go to this new set of criteria and one of the things that was brought forth by a couple people is that they kind of surveyed all the Great Lakes states, all the neighboring States and what they found is that only Michigan and Wisconsin have the temperature criteria and you know again with discussions with the partners you know this was totally a partner thing.
It's not the Weather Service trying to, you know, change things, but that it was decided that, you know, we should give this a try this year, so. And you know, it's good to have any kind of feedback from all of you too, cause and that's you know why I'm, you know, bringing this to everybody.
Richards, Michele (DMVA)
And also, as I'm sitting there reading the information in in your document, it makes me wonder you guys use the National Fire Danger Rating system, right as you?
Nathan Jeruzal-NWS Grand Rapids
Well, officially we do. But you know, with the coordination with the agencies, as you guys probably know, that it's a lot of the Canadian fire danger system that they use, you know, for their fire danger each you know day and how they make decisions just because of the lay of the land here in Michigan compared to you know further South. And so you know, that is something that is considered, you know, in the whole process and again hopefully you know, I feel confident with the people that we coordinate with from those agencies that they have, you know, good heads on their shoulders and you know, looking at realistic situations and common sense and things like that versus just kind of pie in the sky type stuff. So.
Mark
I feel it's a little bit of forest driven, northern driven. And our light fuels, I think tincture has a little more impact than soils.
Nathan Jeruzal-NWS Grand Rapids
If there's concerns, we definitely wanna know and take those things into consideration so.
Mark
My my other comment is in Southern Michigan, most of our permitting is issued granted from the (DNR) to the local fire department.
So I think if they're, if you're calling in to do a burn and they're looking at this chart and they see green, they'll be like, ohh Yep, green good. And if they see red, they'll be like, don't red’s bad? I saw that you had RX and the yellow where it was like a subclause like our ex would be OK in the yellow.
I just don't know what those look local fire departments are gonna do with that. And they have been a a hindrance for professionally and trade prescribed fire folks to get work done.
I I'd love to test this, but I also want to make sure that we're getting good feedback from a variety of people and and modifying and and then I don't know how to do the training cause in some cases it's well my my local fire department is Charlotte is 8, paid professionals in 29 paid volunteers.
Nathan Jeruzal-NWS Grand Rapids
Right. You know, I totally hear what you're saying about, you know, that it might be more forest geared.
Umm, one of the things that we definitely talked about and this this goes with the fuels discussion is that you know the fuels are gonna be determined by the different regions.
And for example, last year when we had the smoke issues when it was really dry, you know in June, you know we were kind of in drought conditions, we weren't issuing red flag warnings and that was, per the (DNR) enforce service for like the Southern 2/3 of Lower Michigan because they were not concerned about the fuels at that point.
But they were concerned about the jackpine, and so the red flag warnings. We're really, you know, limited to where that jackpine is.
And so that that is gonna be, you know, definitely taken into consideration that and I think with the (DNR) involved with this, they'll know you know what, we're not worried about the, you know, grasses down South yet, but the Jack pine is, you know more susceptible more you know volatile right now or you know different situations.
And so it's going to be a very dynamic decision and that's where the coordination is going to be very important when you know we and the Weather Service might see, you know, concerning weather conditions.
But the, you know, fire agencies will say, you know what, the fuel conditions are just not right for, you know, High fire dangers. So don't go with the red flag warning or the fire weather watch.
So I think those things are definitely, you know, taken into consideration and you can't just go by the chart, you know by itself so.
Nathan Jeruzal-NWS Grand Rapids
And you know, this is an opportunity for us to, you know, move forward and see if it's, you know, a good way to, you know, kind of change things up or if we find that it just doesn't work, you know, then we can, you know, discuss that at the end of the year and everything.
Mark
I'm gonna go in there in a little bit different direction and maybe it is, but is that something that we could put on out? Is there any way we could get on Thursday afternoon and just get the a 5 minute?
This is what the weather forecast is for the next week. This is what we see for fire weather and maybe that's available already. I don't know about it or is it something we could create?
Nathan Jeruzal-NWS Grand Rapids
Let me check into that I have to make sure that I follow the laws and regulations that the federal agencies love to have. The other thing that we may be able to get around that is that we may be able to, you know, we always send out the briefing afterwards.
Maybe they're even might be a way that we could post it to the web and then we get around it that way. I definitely wanna help everybody out as much as possible, you know, cause I'm here to, you know, be a good partner and team member with everybody and we'll see what we can do.
So I will, I will look at that as I'll take that as an action item and look into making something happen. So that's made available somehow within the laws and regulations, so.
And you know, again, once once it's out of our hands to our partners, you're able to do whatever your agency says you can do so.
Jarod Reibel
So yesterday I drove up to Lansing, and Ben Beeman of Pheasants Forever and Adam Bump with the (DNR) or bumpa are basically kind of standing back up.
What I think originally was the Michigan doesn't restoration initiative.
It sounded like you were probably involved in that Mark, but they've kind of shifted that gear to be the Michigan Grassland coalition to kind of sorry talking about some grass and then shoes and make some goals.
And this was the first meeting of that I've attended.
I think it was their second one, but just kind of hearing what a lot of people are saying is, yeah, there's a lot of people that are may not be a part of the Council, but when it comes to grassland management and burning, a lot of people are are talking about just capacity issues.
So I think a lot of the stuff that we're trying to do, whether it be with training or or different avenues I think is gonna help a lot of folks.
So just kind of wanted to share share that there's other stuff going on.
It sounds like we'll probably meet quarterly or a couple times a year to kind of start talking about that.
I think he's kind of considering like, yeah, how to how to get Pheasants Forever more involved and and try and get some some fire on the ground where I think there could be some.
Mark
So what I'm once I retired, I was able to shift some of my interest to some other things, including the Prescribed our Council, but to my county funds forever.
Who they do 8 to 15 burns a day a year and they have they have no process procedures, no PPE's.
I mean, really pretty much some good guys working hard with a backpack sprayer and a torch.
Ohh so I'm bringing them up to speed and there is a there is a PF national policy that they have to meet six or seven requirements to fall under the national Pheasants Forever liability clause and one is 13190.
So Eatontown is going through that, but I'm gonna promote that broader with other county chapters.
So prescribed fire Council is a big process that they may will be there for Field courses.
Get more training etcetera. So.
It might be a new Ave to bring new partners into the fold.
And Bruce Miller, I just talked about it the other day because he's been approached as well from uh, went away county Pheasants Forever and the other item I had my list was I think I look forward to our discussions about going towards a nonprofit organization.
I do think we should take a little bit time to figure out what the pros and cons are.
Uh for some agency people that once you become a nonprofit, the agency cannot be an active member.
If I remember right and I don't know if those were personal judgment calls or those were actual agency.
Protocol, but we might wanna wear that.
Puts a mirror into having that discussion to make sure that, yeah, we get grants, but it also means then the military or (DNR) or the Forest Service can no longer be a member.
Think it's something we should really put some thought into as we go forward?
Next meeting in June hybrid with in-person somewhere in Northern Lower.
