National Multi-Agency Coordination Group

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Feb 19, 2013 - wildfire response and emergency management by providing information ... communities, local forests and in
National Interagency Fire Center 3838 S. Development Avenue Boise, Idaho 83705 February 19th, 2013 To Whom It May Concern, In the coming weeks, you may receive a communication from a North Carolina State University research group called the Fire Chasers. They will be working with 116 high wildfire risk counties across Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington to study community preparedness and coordination in response to large wildfire and disaster events. They hope to help improve wildfire response and emergency management by providing information that can inform how the many agencies, organizations, and groups involved in disaster preparedness and response can better organize themselves to create more disaster resilient communities. The NCSU Fire Chasers research project is funded by the National Science Foundation and the Joint Fire Science Program and is fully supported by the National Multi-Agency Coordination Group (NMAC) and National Incident Commander / Area Commander Council (ICACC). One of their core objectives is to produce a series of risk assessment and management tools to help local communities, local forests and incident management teams manage wildfires better. A central component of the project will be a comprehensive county-level assessment and survey involving approximately 40 organizations, community groups, and agencies key to wildfire incident response in all 116 counties. The assessment serves as the foundation of all subsequent research and its accuracy depends upon participation of these groups, including yours. The National Incident Commander/Area Commander Council has spoken with members of the Fire Chasers and believe that their work merits our support and participation. Every participating county, forest and district will receive copies of the assessment and all related reports. We believe that this information can help us better plan for and respond to wildfire incidents in our communities. We encourage you to complete and return the assessment sent to you by the Fire Chasers. The assessment should only take you 45 minutes to complete. For more information visit http://www.firechasers.ncsu.edu/ or contact Dr. Branda Nowell at branda [email protected] Thank you in advance for your participation,

John Segar John Segar, Chair National Multi-Agency Coordination Group

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