OOOO I am tired.
But I can tell you all about National Incident Management Response framework and how it relates to the Incident Command System!
I just wrapped up five days of classes at Arizona Wildfire and Incident Management Academy for the second year in a row.
Before I get too far into this post, let me remind you really quickly what I’m doing here! I spend my summers working on wildfires as a Public Information Officer (PIO). In order to do that, I need to acquire federally-accepted formal qualifications, which I get through training.
I wrote an entire post about it here, which explains my role (and all the related fire-specific terminology) a little better!
I took the basic PIO class last year, basic wildland firefighting the year before that, and this year I had the opportunity to take two Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) classes: ICS-300 (Intermediate Incident Command) and ICS-400 (Advanced Incident Command).
I started my week with ICS-300, which was three days long.
ICS-300 and ICS-400 were both really interesting, because they’re “all-hazards” classes. When I talk about incidents, 98 percent of the time I’m talking about wildfires, because that’s the bulk of what I’m involved with as a Forest Service employee.
Not a whole lot of hurricanes out here in Arizona!
So, it was interesting to take a FEMA class and learn a little more about incidents outside of wildfires, like bombings, chemical spills, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, etc.
I’ve taken a few FEMA classes online — there were several ICS classes that were required as a prerequisite prior to these two classes — so I had a little bit of an idea how incident management teams are set up and how they operate (not to mention I’ve worked with them a bit during my Forest Service career), but we got really in-depth in-person, which was kind of cool!
ICS-300 basically reviewed the fundamentals of the Incident Command System before getting into some deeper info. It differentiated between event planning and incident planning, introduced us to the concept of a “unified command,” walked us through the operational planning process — including how incident action plans (IAPs) are created and how briefings are conducted — before explaining how resources are managed and how incidents are demobilized and transitioned into recovery.
We learned a lot about the “Planning P,” which lays out how incident operational periods are conducted step-by-step: After an emerging incident has found its footing, objectives are determined, tactics are established, an IAP is created and that plan is executed.
We went really, really in-depth into incident planning during ICS-300. We spent a good four hours on one day looking at a single mock incident, determining what kind of resources (ie: engines, hand crews, etc.) we would need to resolve that incident, and then filling out an ICS-215 (Operational Planning Worksheet) forms to determine how to communicate what resources we need to order for said incident.
A lot of what we learned was really familiar to me. I’ve spent two summers now working on local fires. I was able to work in a role as lead PIO a few times, like on both the Tunnel Fire and on the Committee Fire, so I’m fairly familiar with things like incident objectives, IAPs, and Command and General (C&G) staff meetings.
It was nice to see a lot of the stuff I’ve seen in IAPs worked through, and it was nice to get some context for situations I’ve been in before.
ICS-400, on the other hand, introduced SO many new concepts to me!
Our instructors liked to remind us that we, as students, are used to operating at a 0-foot level: On the ground of an incident and deep in the weeds. ICS-300 was meant to give us a 5,000-foot view of that incident, and ICS-400 took us up to a 30,000-foot view.
It was really, really broad and all-encompassing.
We went into complex incident management, learned about the concept of area command for incidents, and discussed some of the issues that arise from a lack of multiagency coordination. We talked about how the National Incident Management System (NIMS) framework can mitigate those issues, and learned a little bit more about various multiagency coordination groups, like Emergency Operations Centers, Departmental Operations Centers, National Operations Centers, Multiagency Coordination Groups, Joint Information Systems, Joint Information Centers, mutual aid and assistance agreements…
…so many acronyms.
ICS-400 basically zoomed way out and showed how organizational charts can be created during incredibly large-scale incidents. Like… Hurricane Katrina, which was a case study we had to read, review and discuss for homework.
We finished our second and last day of ICS-400 with a “capstone” activity. We were split into four groups and each group was given a role to play: Either the “Columbia State EOC/ MAC Group,” the “Liberty County EOC,” the “Turtle River Area Command,” or the “Central City Complex.”
My group was assigned as the “Liberty County EOC,” and we were tasked with sending ICS-213 General Message Forms to the other groups to resolve our incident.
It was really fast-paced and stressful, but was also a ton of fun.
ICS-300 and ICS-400 were both incredibly interesting! Knowing what other command and general staff do on a fire makes my job as a PIO a little easier, so it was really nice to spend a few days learning more about what goes into incident and wildfire operational planning, and even if this past week was a massive info dump, I definitely learned a lot!
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