Barnstable County Report Barnstable County Report By George R. Heufelder, MS, RS
Director, Barnstable County
Department Of Health & Environment
What do a raging wildfire in Wyoming and a hurricane on Cape Cod have in common? Both of these events are widespread and may require the coordination of many agencies from different jurisdictions to respond.
For a week of training during June, some 30 officials and individuals in Barnstable County representing services such as fire, police, health, utility companies, and public works learned how to implement the Incident Command System (ICS) to respond during emergencies. The ICS helps assure that resources responding to an emergency are efficiently directed and organized.
ICS was developed during the 1970s in response to a number of wildfires and natural disasters on the west coast. Following those events, a task force of local, state and federal agencies called FIRESCOPE (Firefighting Resources of California Organized for Potential Emergencies) was formed to develop a standard incident command system that could be used during emergencies to coordinate multi-agency responses. The task force realized that effective command systems must be organizationally flexible to meet the needs of incidents of any kind and size and be sufficiently standardized to allow personnel from a variety of agencies and diverse geographic locations to meld rapidly into a common response strategy.
A unique and useful aspect of ICS is that it uses common terminology so that joining responders from anywhere in the United States are immediately integrated, enabling them to rapidly understand their specific roles in the response.
In a sense, incident command is not new. A type of incident command is used daily by fire and police departments for small events. The basic need during an emergency is to establish a single command entity, set objectives to address the emergency and to assign assets to carry out the response in an organized way. As incidents grow in size and complexity, however, the issue of "span of control" further shapes the response strategy.
The "span of control" concept acknowledges that one person can adequately supervise and/or account for three-to-seven individuals during an emergency. If the response warrants more individuals (perhaps even from different agencies), under ICS an organizational structure containing standard titles and responsibilities begins to emerge.
As the event requires even more personnel, they are assigned under an organizational structure to areas of greatest need.
Appointment of the "boss" or Incident Commander for an emergency and assignments to various functions during a multi-agency response are based on expertise and experience, not necessarily on rank in their respective organizations.
During the 1980s ICS made the transition from fire response to a national program called National Interagency Incident Management System (NIIMS) and was to be further developed to address a broader range of emergencies. This transition recognized that wildfires have the same characteristics as many emergencies including the fact that they give no advanced notice, they develop rapidly, unchecked they grow in complexity, they often require many agencies with some on-scene responsibility, they can become multi-jurisdictional, they pose a risk to individuals and property, they incur costs, and they may have high public and media visibility.
Because of its importance, ICS and NIIMS training is required to some extent for all emergency responders and is attached as a prerequisite to obtain certain emergency preparedness grants to the towns.
In recent years, officials in Barnstable County have come to realize that large emergencies such as hurricanes, hazardous waste releases, terrorists-caused disasters, and widespread disease events would quickly overwhelm a town's local resources. Your officials are actively preplanning the coordination with other local state and federal agencies for emergencies using ICS as the backbone of the response.
During the recent training, various individuals from a variety of disciplines received their initial training to enable them to assist any area of the county as a team. Far from just coming in and taking over this response, the teams were trained to understand all the various roles during a large scale emergency and to be able to step in on request to fulfill these roles.
To learn more about Incident Command visit http://www.nimsonline.com/ics_history.htm or search the web for other ICS resources (including training that you can take). In any event, what it means to you is that public safety and health emergencies are coordinated in their response to efficiently coordinate resources for the purpose of saving lives and protecting property.