First Intelligent Fire Detection Cameras Installed on Idaho Mountaintops
Thanks to the support of the Land Board and $50,000 in funding provided by the Idaho Legislature, IDL's first intelligent fire detection cameras have been installed and are now transmitting live images.
The cameras replace mountaintop lookouts and use AI technology to identify likely smoke on the horizon and report the smoke to human operators in dispatch for verification before firefighting resources are deployed.
The two cameras that are now live are part of a pilot project to test technology capable of recognizing smoke quickly so fires can be aggressively suppressed before they grow in size and cost. This is the first of an estimated 14 cameras that should be installed this year.
The cameras have advance features available to IDL fire managers and other authorized users including 40x optical zoom with additional digital zoom capabilities. Given public interest in wildfire, live feeds from the cameras are available online and will soon be embedded in IDL's website. Knowing that privacy is a key concern for many Idahoans, the system can be configured to blur private property that falls within cameras' lines of site.
The system IDL is testing also supports importing camera feeds from existing sources. For example, feeds from cameras maintained by other agencies or jurisdictions can be analyzed by the system's algorithms to look for smoke. This functionality opens the door for increased cross-agency collaboration to detect wildfires early and keep suppression costs low.
Because the system can identify land within camera viewsheds by ownership, entering into cost sharing agreements with public and private landowners may be possible, extending the state's investment in the technology even further.
If the system performs as expected, additional cameras will be added in the future.
IDL will soon launch a news release about this pilot program and make the camera feeds available to the public on www.idl.idaho.gov.
Using the Public Camera Feeds
The example of the live feed below is from the Lewiston Hill camera:
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The upper left hand box provides a read-time and time lapse view. The time lapse covers periods from 5 minutes to 12 hours.
- The upper right hand box shows the swath of land visible to the camera.
- The bottom halve of the screen shows a panoramic view. Using the sliding bar at the bottom allows the viewer to see a 360 degree panoramic view for the camera.
40th Anniversary State Forestry Contest
The 40th annual State Forestry Contest was held Thursday at Farragut State Park. About 350 students, 95 coaches/chaperones and 150+ volunteers participated.
Recognizing the contest as a training ground for future foresters, Director Miller addressed the entire group of students saying, "the Idaho State Forestry Contest helps Idaho students learn the skills to grow and harvest timber like we do at the Idaho Department of Lands, where we manage forests to generate funding for Idaho public schools.”
Chairman of the House Resources and Conservation Committee, Representative Ron Mendive (District 5 - Coeur d'Alene), and Representative Sage Dixon (District 1 - Ponderay) also joined Director Miller at the event. IDL is grateful they attended to show their support for the students.
During the contest children in grades 5 through 12 competed for scholarships and cash prizes in basic forestry and resource management.
Up for grabs was a $1,000 scholarship for first place individual and $500 for each member on the winning team. Other cash and scholarship awards were given for second and third place finishers.
First Place in the Senior Division went to Alanna Hinkle with Whistle Stop 4H and First Place in the Rookie Division went to Braden Burrows with Selle Valley Carden School.
A full list will be posted at the Idaho State Forestry Contest Official Website.
For the Big 40 there was special recognition of contest chairs spanning the last four decades, as well as an expanded job fair for the students.
Many leaders from Idaho's forestry industry have competed in this event over the years. The contest is a steppingstone leading to great careers that help generate $2.5 billion for Idaho's economy.
The contest is sponsored by the Idaho Department of Lands, Bonner Soil and Water Conservation District and the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and hosted by the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation.
Spring Fire Meeting
Last week IDL team members participating in the agency's wildfire response convened in Coeur d'Alene for the annual Spring Fire Meeting. Attendees included those with dedicated fire responsibilities and staff who primarily work in other areas, but participate in fire seasonally.
The meeting's agenda focused heavily on safety, mirroring the leader's intent guidance Director Miller provided to fire personnel. He wrote, "While Idaho's citizens and leaders expect the Idaho Department of Lands to suppress fires quickly with an eye for limiting costs, safety cannot and will not be compromised. It is imperative that you rely on your training, experience, and best judgement to ensure everyone's safety this fire season while conducting aggressive initial attack."
Dr. Randy Brooks, Extension Professor of Forestry with the University of Idaho, presented on wildland firefighter sleep and fatigue, and why it matters. Related to mitigating risks in this inherently dangerous profession, IDL's own Bryan Durkin, Assistant Fire Warden for the Southwest Forest Protective District, spoke about using the risk matrix to improve employee safety. Evans Kuo, a Type 1 Incident Commander with the U.S. Forest Service, also presented on data-informed strategic risk assessment
The theme of interagency collaboration continued with presentations from staff with the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) and National Association of State Foresters (NASF).
Katie Wood, NWCG Program Manager, outlined the role her organization plays in fire response and highlighted priorities, including modernizing how training is delivered. Jim Karels, NASF Fire Director, covered fire resource allocation and the role of the National Multi Agency Coordinating Group (NMAC). NMAC prioritizes and allocates resources during critical shortages of national resources such as smokejumpers, airtankers, or Type 1 Incident Management Teams (IMTs).
IDL Employees of the Year Announced
Employee of the Year for Quality Contributions - Chris Haines, GIS Analyst III, Boise Staff Office
While not always visible as the public face of the agency or the program he works in, Chris Haines is a main player in the success and accomplishments of the agency over the last year. He can always be counted on to approach problems methodically while delivering high quality products. On July 1, 2022, the Timber Sale Webpage went live. Chris worked with the timber bureau, built the database, developed “pro tasks,” and delivered training to internal and external customers. He grew as a presenter during this time on top of his already impressive GIS skills.
Besides developing this efficient and effective tool, Chris also utilized his automation skills on multiple projects. Most remarkable was his work with the new Arcade programming language, allowing the extension of ESRI data via attribute rules. These rules allow for the auto-filling of data elements and were used extensively in the timber sale datasets and the new Regulatory Notification application. Chris also worked on automating the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) and endowment reports for fiscal year-end reporting, and upgrading the GIS tool that produces legal descriptions for timber sale and leasing documents. He authored over 15 separate web apps and dashboards and was a key figure in increasing the professionalism of maps that go before the Land Board and our used in public facing materials.
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Employee of the Year for Cohesiveness - Keith Zalewski, Resource Specialist Sr. - Forest Management, Priest Lake Supervisory Area
Keith Zalewski represents pride, duty, and stewardship on the lands he manages and inspires loyalty and dedication among his peers.
Having a high-profile forest management unit that encompasses the community in which you live lends itself to criticism and difficult conversations. Keith defends endowment land management and the agency mission, while being both transparent and empathetic. Although some members of the public may not agree with endowment land management, Keith is well-respected within his community.
Having an employee in your office that can bring people together to generate ideas and confront projects or obstacles is a powerful thing. Keith constantly reminds his teammates that everyone is there for the same thing, the land entrusted to our agency.
Keith is a remarkable employee and a huge asset to our agency. His character, integrity, and work ethic are why he was chosen as IDL’s Employee of the Year for Cohesiveness.
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Employee of the Year for Stewardship - Scott Hayes, Deputy Chief-Plans, Coeur d'Alene Staff Office
The Stewardship EOY category recognizes the employee who makes decisions and takes actions that positively affect the long-term financial returns for the agency and enhance/protect the health and resilience of Idaho’s natural resources.
Scott Hayes has earned this award.
The Idaho Master Wildfire Agreement, which after an intense three-year negotiation process was recently signed, required an extensive amount of behind-the-scenes work analyzing fire records data, tabulating costs, spending hundreds of hours working with GIS staff to build maps, and working to extract theoretical outcomes for the many iterations proposed by our federal partners and IDL leadership. Scott rolled up his sleeves and provided the crucial information IDL needed to make decisions throughout the negotiation process.
In addition to the hundreds of hours dedicated to the Master Agreement effort, Scott continued to perform the duties of his “day job” assisting in IDL’s cooperative effort with the Department of Environmental Quality to develop a statewide smoke management plan; researching remote fire detection cameras for future acquisition, adapting to ongoing changes in radio communications, serving as a technical expert to USFS communications staff at Interagency Dispatch Centers, and supervising staff that led the 2022 wildfire arson investigation in North Idaho that resulted in the arrest and conviction of the guilty party.
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Employee of the Year for Service - Audra Dau, Administrative Assistant 1, Clearwater Supervisory Area
Throughout the year, Audra Dau has continually demonstrated her value as an employee for the Idaho Department of Lands, not only on the Clearwater Supervisory Area, but throughout the agency. Her participation is habitually above and beyond her job duties. She is always active in all aspects of the department, continually demonstrating her knowledge of agency programs and caring about her co-workers and the department.
Audra is an ambassador for our agency and makes our customers feel good about state government and more specifically, the Idaho Department of Lands. She treats external and internal customers in a respectful and professional way. Audra has built positive working relationships throughout the agency, cooperating agencies, industry, and with the public. She consistently goes the extra mile when dealing with issues that affect people or the agency. She is always the first to help.
Whether it is helping during fire season, training new staff, or helping with hosting/planning an event or meeting, Audra consistently goes above and beyond to help us all, and always with a smile.
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Employee of the Year for Accountability - Brooke Heasty, Administrative Assistant 1, Coeur d'Alene Staff Office
The Accountability EOY category recognizes the employee who has invested in and helped to create an organizational culture that equips and entrusts its staff, makes good decisions, and gets things done.
Brooke Heasty embodies these characteristics and many more. She is a service-oriented person who cares that internal and external customers receive the highest level of assistance. She hires and onboards more than 90 AD and seasonal employees every year and knows them all by name – assisting them as needed throughout the wildfire season.
Brooke serves as primary contact and administrator for the Volunteer and State Fire Assistance grant programs, overseeing allocation, expenditure and tracking for hundreds of thousands of federal grant funds. She assists fire business staff in tracking bureau allocated general and dedicated funds and provides regular and always accurate guidance on which funds to use for a wide array of expenditure. Brooke also serves as the fire bureau fleet manager, travel coordinator, and schedule manager for the always on the go fire management bureau chief.
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Overall Employee of the Year - Jeremy Shawver, Lands Section Manager-Timber Sales & Contract Administrator, Coeur d'Alene Staff Office
Jeremy Shawver stepped into a newly created role and took on the monumental task of implementing major change and modernization of the timber program. He has been in a leader in IDL of leveraging ESRI tools to increase efficiency and transparency to internal and external customers. The Director’s Report for Land Board has been produced in a timely manner with exceptional quality. The format has been drastically simplified from the multitude of IDL’s Excel spreadsheets and workbooks with multiple points of duplicate data entry. To track all the salvage sale volume, Jeremy created a table to show the effect that salvage sales had on sale plan volume and value to help Land Board understand implications of the salvage sale program.
Due to some challenging health situations in the upper tiers of his chain of command, Jeremy stepped up to take the lead on rule making for how the state sells timber, including presenting multiple times to public meetings, legislative committees, and the Land Board. Additionally, he presented multiple timber sales to the board that landed outside IDL's approval policy and helped educate staff and board members on how we do business, including explaining how we handle timber sales that do not sell, appraisals, and bidding.
Jeremy has done all of these extra duties with class and dignity, projecting an air of professionalism that exemplifies IDL’s values. On top of this he has kept his family a priority with the extra travel required and has been an example of how to communicate through change and difficult situations.
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Have You Heard How Many Timber Sale Notifications IDL Sent Last Year?
IDL sent more than 3,800 timber sale notifications via email and SMS/text messaging in the final six months of last year.
On average, each supervisory area has 170 Timber Sale Notification subscribers.
Inspired by the agency’s development of a Wildfire Alert system using the GovDelivery platform, the same system used to distribute this Director's Update newsletter, IDL launched a greatly improved Timber Sale Notification initiative in July of last year.
Under the new program, anyone can sign up to receive notifications for IDL timber sales via a self-serve form on the agency’s website.
Notifications are sent by both email and SMS/text messaging for endowment and Good Neighbor Authority (GNA) sales. The messages provide quick links to timber sale documents and connect users directly to the GIS-enabled timber sale app. Users can subscribe to receive notification from one of IDL’s ten supervisory areas or all.
The new system has been well received by industry. Because it also automatically posts the notifications to IDL’s website using an https://www.idl.idaho.gov/timber-sale-notifications-archive/, purchasers can easily find sales information online without having to delve into the online app.
Beyond ensuring potential bidders know auctions are scheduled, advertising timber sales more broadly helps the public understand the agency’s endowment mission and see how GNA authority helps improve the health of Idaho’s forests.
Women in the Woods Opportunity – Training for Forestland Owners
Men in beards and flannel move over, women are headed into the forest for a Women in the Woods workshop on May 19 in Sandpoint. While the event is open to everyone, Women in the Woods provides a wide range of training geared for women by women foresters to give them hands-on experience, inspiring more active participation in managing family-owned forests.
Women landowners play an increasingly important role in forest management decisions, but they are often in the minority at forestry education events in Idaho. The Idaho Department of Lands (IDL) hopes to change that trend by hosting women-centric forestry trainings.
This is the second event taught by women foresters from IDL and the University of Idaho Extension (UI Extension).
“We had a fabulous event in March with 40 women participating in Connecting Women in Forestry,” said Erika Eidson, IDL Forest Health Specialist and workshop co-host. “This is another opportunity for women forestland owners to interact with professional women foresters. We will work in small groups so it’s easy to ask questions and gain confidence in managing family forests.”
There is no cost to participate. Attendees will be out in the woods, rotating through different exercises covering forest assessment and forestry work on the ground.
2023 Safety Award Update
The March 10, 2023, edition of IDL Safety News announced the creation of the Safety Program Employee Recognition Award. Originally, the plan was to award this recognition along with the Employees of the Year. Underscoring the importance of safety to the agency, the Executive Team chose to move this award cycle to the fall, so it could stand out more.
Nominations for the Safety Program Employee Recognition Award will open in the fall and the recipient will be announced in October.
Safety Program Employee Award Criteria:
- Demonstrates commitment to the health and safety of employees by identifying safety issues within their home office or for all IDL employees.
- Takes actions and makes recommendations to prevent employee injuries or illness.
- Recognizes unsafe conditions or practices and works to resolve issues.
- Consistently makes safety a priority.
Master Fire Agreement Signed
IDL is pleased to report the Master Fire Agreement with its federal partners has been signed. A joint news release was sent out May 2, 2023.
IDL greatly appreciates the Land Board's unwavering support through the negotiations, Governor Little's extraordinary outreach to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Forest Service Chief Randy Moore, and the strong support of Idaho's congressional delegation and Idaho's forest products industry. The Idaho Legislature also deserves the agency's thanks; finalizing this agreement would not have been possible without the Legislature's support of fire modernization funding.
Employees Leaving IDL
We wish departing team members the very best in their new endeavors.
- Adrienne Morrow, Coeur d'Alene Staff Office
In Case You Missed It
One Team One Voice Webpage
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