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National Fire Plan Success Story

Spring Advanced Academy, Southwest Fire Use Training Academy
Albuquerque and Ruidoso, New Mexico
2008

The seven graduates of FUTA 2008 Advanced Academy.
Graduates of FUTA 2008 Advanced Academy:
Back row (left to right): Mario Gomez, Robyn Woods, John Lange, Julian Affuso.
Front row (left to right): Morgan Pence, Travis Dotson, Steve Franke.

The Southwest Fire Use Training Academy (FUTA) is in its eleventh year of operation, graduating 714 participants in 20 sessions. As a national training academy, FUTA’s mission is to prepare its participants for leadership in future fuels management programs. As FUTA has matured, training needs and personnel in prescribed fire and wildland fire use have changed as well.

In Spring 2008, FUTA staff replaced the traditional 7-week spring session (February to April) with an Advanced Academy in February 2008 based on National Wildfire Coordinating Group 400-level coursework and a Leadership Management Project. The Project offers programmatic-level assistance to a unit requiring prescribed fire leadership to develop or sustain prescribed fire programs, along with exposure to nationally recognize prescribed fire and wildland fire use programs.

To pilot the Advanced Academy concept, FUTA staff offered three 400-level courses at the Fire Use Training Academy facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico—L-480, Incident Management Team Leadership; S-490, Advanced Wildland Fire Behavior Calculations; and S-491, Intermediate National Fire Danger Rating System. Courses were open to the seven applicants selected for the Advanced Academy along with non-FUTA students.

For the Leadership Management Project, the seven students were tasked with producing a District Prevention Plan meeting all national requirements based on historical fire occurrence statistics. They also modeled and analyzed a fire in a specified location using historical weather data and made recommendations for Appropriate Management Response based on their findings. In 3 days, they completed both tasks for Lincoln National Forest’s Smokey Bear Ranger District in Ruidoso, New Mexico. Forest staff asked that the Advanced Academy concept be used for similar projects in the future. They felt the seven students provided much needed data analysis and established specific thresholds to assist in decision-making.

The students felt the pilot Advanced Academy concept advanced FUTA’s mission. Target audience for the Advanced Academy includes current and aspiring decision support specialists, burns bosses, fire use managers, fire behavior and long-term fire analysts, and fire and fuels managers needing experience and training.

Contacts: Travis Dotson, FUTA Fire Operations Specialist, (505)-842-3455, tdotson@fs.fed.us; OR Mary Zabinski, Public Affairs Specialist, (505)-842-3897, mzabinski@fs.fed.us.