L-580 and "Escape: The Great California Fire"

(Great pre-reading assignment by Sandra Millers Younger)

(View above Country Estates)

Greetings,

The International Association of Fire Chiefs is pleased to announce open registration for the San Diego County Megafires: An All Hazards Interactive Case Study; November 13 – 15, 2017. This program is certified as a National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) L-580 Leadership is Action course and limited to 40 participants.

IGNITE: Together!

None of us can accomplish alone what is possible when we are working together! - Chery Gegelman

[Photo: Plumas IHC/USFS]

Are We There Yet?

(Photo: Wikimedia)

This is the retracted version of "Are We There Yet?" The original article could have been taken as bashing Millennials and rightly so. That was truly not the intent, and for that I apologize. 

You have the car packed and the family strapped into their seats. This is going to be the best vacation ever. The singing, car games, and DVD have worked well for about an hour; and then from the back seat you hear, "Are we there yet?" You still have miles and miles to go and the "littles" are done. They want to be at the destination NOW.

IGNITE: Mistakes Lead to Discovery

He who never made a mistake, never made a discovery. - Samuel Smiles

IGNITE the Spark for Leadership. LIKE and SHARE throughout your networks. #fireleadership #fireminis

[Photo credit: Kari Greer/USFS]

IGNITE: The Resilient Team

Resilient teams practice behaviors that reinforce situation awareness, communication, and learning. - Leading in the Wildland Fire Service, p. 55

[Photo: BLM and Oregon Department of Forestry]

Building Resilience

(Photo credit: Ron Porter/Creative Commons)

Resilience isn’t something you have or not. It’s something that you build every day as you move through the storm. We are all born with muscles but none of us are born strong. We have to build strength by exercising those muscles, by feeding those muscles and by letting those muscles recover after the strain. This is how we build our resilience; so that when we are next tested, we will be strong enough to bend.

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Ben Iverson is currently a Training Specialist for NWCG Training Development at NIFC. All expressions are those of the author.

IGNITE: Commitment Begins with Involvement

Involvement is the foundation for commitment. - Leading in the Wildland Fire Service, p. 54

[Photo: BLM/Southern Nevada District Fire Program]

IGNITE: Discover the leader within you.

Discover the leader within you.

[Photo: Kari Greer/USFS]

Leading Authentically: How Do I Tell the Emperors?

(Photo: By Alfred Walter Bayes, Dalziel Brothers [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

Timeless leadership is always about character, and it is always about authenticity. ~ Warren Bennis

I take pride in being a squeaky wheel, a BS caller, a canary in the coal mine. I’ll tackle the hard topics, often saying what many are thinking but don’t want to speak up about. I like that about myself, but not everyone likes that about me. As I have matured as a person and an employee, I’ve gotten better at being a bit gentler with it than I used to—at least when the situation warrants it. I’m still not great at sugar-coating things, and I feel that I shouldn’t have to when addressing my peers and my higher ups.

IGNITE: DUTY - RESPECT - INTEGRITY

DUTY
RESPECT
INTEGRITY

[Photo: Dan Ng/NPS]