Meeting was called to order at 1804 hours. President Todd Grave presided with Secretary/Treasurer Danielle Sims.
Minutes from last meeting were read by the secretary. Motion to accept the minutes as read by Dan Shaw, seconded by Jacob Weigley, motion passed.
President Graves asked Danielle to share the Treasurers Report: January 1 – November 30, 2025. Account Balances are: STCU Checking: $12,117.96, STCU Savings: $97,573.50, QB Checking: $9,697.42, PayPal: $56.93. (PayPal balance is transferred to STCU Checking monthly). $60 is outstanding in account receivable at the time of this report. Final balance is $119,505.81. Danielle then reviewed the Profit and Loss report. Danielle let the members know that we don’t use Metro Fax service anymore and asked if we should cancel it. Motion to cancel Metro Fax by Greg Barker, seconded by Vitas Labanauskas, motion passed. No discussion on the treasurer’s report. Motion to accept by Greg Bailey, second by Greg Barker, motion approved.
Jacob Burkhart asked if we were going to share the details of the bad debt with the members. President Graves approved so Danielle shared that we had a bad debt from Omar Ortiz, Diamond Back Forestry. She shared the timeline of the events after the Field Day training on August 2, 2025. Omar disputed the charges after we had inspected his records and sent him the cards. On November 8 PayPal closed the dispute in favor of Omar and took the funds that had been held. Danielle reached Omar that day and he said he would take care of it. By this meeting date we have not heard from Omar and the debt remains. Discussion followed.
Training Committee Topics: RT-130 Development Change. Danielle shared that she does not want to create the RT-130 anymore. President Graves had accepted her request and took the roll on to create the refresher. Danielle will remain to help finalize and distribute the refresher. Instructors are invited to participate in creating content for the next refresher to be sent to Todd. Charlie Curtis thanked Danielle for all her work and that it was a pleasure working with her.
Under Old Business Danielle shared the updates to the Database Updates are ongoing and we have paid $6770 so far.
President Graves shared that the Fire Defense Committee had started meeting in person and he has not been able to attend. In the future he would like to be sure that a board member will attend when he is not able to.
DNR relationships and the State Fire Marshall’s office – President Graves shared that there are two divisions in DNR – prevention and suppression. He asked Greg Baily to share what he had learned over the summer, but he had been called to a structure fire so Todd shared the information that was discussed with Russ Lane. We need to be aggressive in keeping relations with the DNR and State Fire Marshall. More discussion followed.
No other Old Business.
New Business:
Aleesha Roedel from APEX joined the meeting to share information about the new changes to VIPR and HUB Zones. She will be attending a Train the Trainer on VIPR soon and will share a date for her session. She shared about how to get a HUB Zone ranking. She helps contractors through the entire process. It can make a real difference in DPL Ranking. She stayed for the meeting as was able to answer a few questions and was very helpful.
Cross-carding / Trainee Cards $$ – We decided to remove the fee for cross carding. We discussed trainee cards and the need for those to be designated on the cards per the contract. Discussion on the lack of follow through at the fires, basically no one is checking.
NWSA Conference Reno – March 10-12, 2026. President Graves presented the offer for himself, a board member and possibly a member attending this year. The cost last year was $3900 for one. The members were told that we will put the names of those who text their interest to go to Danielle in a hat and draw one. She will contact the winner and be sure they can go and notify the others that the drawing has been concluded.
All the following topics will be discussed at the later general meeting.
- Impact of DOI and DOA combining forces, (Wildland Fire Service) how will that affect the Contract firefighting world?- President Graves reminded everyone to check the email he has shared before the meeting. Greg Barker shared the information he got from Debbie Miley at NWSA, we will be looking at 2027, 28 before this is implemented.
- Fire Shelters – President Graves share looking through his shelters an found 5 or 6 that needed to be replaced. They were able to find some used ones online. He suggested to shop early to find used one and avoid the $600-$700 price each.
- Replace – (Pre-2006 Fire Shelter Degradation and discontinuation of use. This advisory recommends all pre-2006 fire shelters should be removed from service by January 1, 2026).
This advisory recommends firefighters and fire managers to: - Inspect fire shelters immediately, replace and destroy any pre-2006 shelters (identified by white or pink insert label), order replacements as needed.
- Replace – (Pre-2006 Fire Shelter Degradation and discontinuation of use. This advisory recommends all pre-2006 fire shelters should be removed from service by January 1, 2026).
- Making a concerted effort to Lobby the State Lawmakers when it comes to using contract resources. – President Graves shared that we have a newly formed committee that needs to start working on this. Wildfire Contract Committee. Tim Logozzo – interim chair, Jacob Burkhart, Todd Graves and Greg Bailey will assist.
- Use of Chainsaws: didn’t seem to change any as far as Teams using contract water-handling resources. President Graves shared that things didn’t really change this year. Turns out they required one of his crews to use saws to build line. Reed Gracie would like us to write to the contracting officers for clarification. Aleesha said she would be happy to help to be sure we weren’t blown off. Charlie Curtis asked if we should find out why the wording was changed and fight to get it back to the way it was before. Jacob Weigley said we should work through it in a professional manner. We must stick to the contract for liability reasons. Teams should not encourage contractors to go against their agreements.
- Any other New Business
Spring Meeting TBD
Meeting Adjourned 2015 hours. Motion to adjourn by Jacob Burkhart, seconded by Jacob Weigley, motion approved. Meeting adjourned.