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Wildland-Urban Interface
Discussion Center GeneralEstablishing unified command, avoiding "too many chiefs"
Author
(Job Category)
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Comment
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turnerj
(Operations)
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Posted 9/1/2005
charlesvia nailed it on the head! Pre-plan so that all available resourses know thier roll. Train if needed.
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charlesvia
(Incident Management)
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Posted 4/13/2005
PREPLAN!!!!!!!! Its too late when an incident happens to get a UNIFIED COMMAND set up. Need to train, preplan with ALL local cooperators. In my district we have set up WUI TASKFORCES made up of local cooperators on a county level.We train, get grants etc for local cooperators in a county
who volunteer to join the WUITF. So we have a greatly reduced problem with ICS etc after starting one up in those counties.
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cbraun
(Training)
Originator
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Posted 5/10/2004
In 2003, a fire started on the property of a small private forester. The fire quickly spread toward a small cluster of homes which were ultimately lost. The rural fire district responded with its volunteer fire crews while sheriff’s deputies continued to evacuate homes in the fire’s path. The initial fire was reported in the early afternoon. In six hours several homes, outbuildings and other improvements were lost within the community. During this time, county volunteer firefighters were joined by private individuals offering dozers, tankers, and engines from the local lumber company. As the day progressed, it was clear the fire would move onto US Forest Service land. A local Type II team was called and arrived late that day and was faced with the task of managing the incident. The briefing the team received was scattered at best. A decision to establish a unified command was made as the fire grew in size and threatened more homes and federal land. In the words of the IC, “Trying to establish a unified command was the most frustrating activity! Too many disconnected resources. Too many 'chiefs', too little communications and too much fire!”
Given your experience with wildland-urban interface fires, what concrete steps should be taken before the next incident like this one to improve the coordinated activities of responsible agencies?
Given this situation, what actions should the arriving team take to ensure the safety of the firefighters and the public? Provide a list of things the team should do to address this situation.
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dbattreall
(Incident Management)
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Posted 7/7/2004
My friend Mr Gage laid it out very well. Understanding the roll of Liaison and Agency Reps will greatly enhance the ability for the IC to breakdown barriers. Just because there are co-operating and assisting agencies at scene does not automaticly scream Unified Command.
As far as pulling everyone off an incident (firehoser15) just because of a team transition seems like a strange concept. All resources on an incident should always be in an ICS mode and be ready to expand as necessary. There are many reasons to pull resources off an incident but if everyone is pulled off your situational awareness will suffer. Also much of the work accomplished may be lost while everyone is at a meeting. It's like not having a night shift, a waste of valuable time and many times doubles the effort and extends the incident.
An IC needs to remember the fundementals of Command and Control: Command sets objectives and gives orders, Control is when those orders are followed and the objectives are met.
If the appropriate Command Climate exist then Command and Control will follow due to the trust established. If the Climate is not there then there will be no Command and Control. Preplanning and AAR's help establish that trust.
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firehoser15
(Operations)
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Posted 7/2/2004
Curt,
Interesting conversation piece! Let me just start out by saying that the speed of the leader is the speed of the team. The IC system is the finest available when applied and managed properly. Many years ago, on a small combination department, we had a similar incident. Thank God we had a great chief, who although did not always get along well with all the other agencies, was a firm believer in the IC System and its application on the unfied chain of command. The first thing he has trained himself to do in these situations is pull everybody off the fire and into a meeting. His rationale being, that it is VERY HARD, if not, "Impossible" to get everybody on the same page and implement the IC system after a small incident becomes large. Also, at that meeting after discussing the IC system, all the logistical and safety info gets shared as well. At the behest of his leadership, I now always take care on my incidents to manage them appropriately so as not to allow too many chiefs and not enough firefighters to occur. Speed of the leader s definately the speed of the team. As ICs we cannot be passive in these functions and fall victim to the confucion and action or inaction of others. Take charge, take the lead, and will everything starts falling apart (if it does), recollect your resources, meet, re-plan, and reorganize. I hope this was helpful. I tend to babble!
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pfleming
(Operations)
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Posted 6/29/2004
I read your post about a week ago, and really didn't have any kind of information to help you. Since then, I've had a similiar urban interface scenario in my own backyard. We are in the process of conducting a series of AAR's locally here, to sort out some of the issues. My first suggestion, would be to get everyone involved to meet together and go through this AAR process. Our group found this to be very valuable, and we did it soon enough to really capture some good information. It's still to early to really discuss the contents of our findings at this point, but I hope that our final AAR will posted with the Lessons Learned Center as an AAR Rollup.
I do however agree with everything that Mr. Gage has posted, and would add that if we had done the planning up front, things would have been alot easier. We will be spending a fair ammount of time planning out a future unified command structure for our urban interface zones. I think we will also be spending a fair amount of time Jointly training together, and hopefully doing some simulations, to test the Unified Command structure.
Urban Interface is one of the scariest environments I've worked in, Chaos and the unexpected can bring out some real safety concerns. When you have a broken ICS organization thrown into the mix, your looking at a deeply troubling scenario.
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sgage
(Incident Management)
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Posted 6/23/2004
The first step is to determine who has legal responsibility for the incident. Only those 'Chiefs' who have either geographic or functional responsibility need to be included under unified command to manage the incident. The goal is to establish a common set of objectives for the incident so no one is losing or abdicating authority, responsibility or accountability. In the example presented the type 2 I/C, acting under the authority of the local Ranger, and the Chief or Chiefs of the local fire districts would be a part of the unified command. Th folks lending assistance with equipment and/or services are under the direction of the local fire department and not a part of unified command. If an incident is going to involve many agencies who have a legal responisibility to be involved the the use of the Liaison Officer would help the I/Cs. As the incident progresses through the jurisdictions the key players to the unified command can change. The type 2 I/C should ask the local FS folks to help sort out who the key player should have been.
Pre-planning is always a huge payoff when having to deal with an incident that may involve a number of agencies. If people can agree on some basic overall incident objectives for their areas prior to smoke being in the air it would go a long way toward fixing the 'too little communications' issue. The set on common objectives could be as simple as everyones agreement that life safety followed by property conservation are the top 2 objectives. Pre-plan the number and type of resources that maybe needed for areas under not normal fire conditions, evacuation routes and relocation centers, who will handle the ordering point and who should be represented under a unified command incident. Also the big question these days 'Who's going to pay for what?' should be talked about during the pre-planning phase. If the work is done ahead of time the type 2 I/C could have had a less frustrating activity.
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