Since 9/11, many, if not all, municipalities have changed or altered the way they do business. As a result, the fire service has expanded training and preparedness to deal with the threat of terrorism, while still completing our core mission of fire and life safety.
Emergency workers are mission-oriented and extremely successful at overcoming obstacles to successfully conclude an operation. Major incident readiness is no different, but it adds additional considerations to the equation.
Although firefighters continue training on core missions such as fire suppression, search and rescue, and emergency medical care, they are now tasked with preparing for terrorism. The good news: Effective training on core competencies builds leadership and decision-making skills that carry over into the realm of terrorism events. The challenge: Although major incident preparation may sound simple for big-city emergency services, it presents unique challenges to smaller emergency service departments as well as volunteers. We ask our volunteers to provide a service day in, day out–and now we must ask them to do more.
Understanding the threat environment in your area and how to deal with it effectively will help you design an organized approach to terrorism or other major events when they occur. The only way to overcome many of the obstacles involved in a major incident is to provide good leadership through an organized and comprehensive preplan. Departments throughout the country must achieve a level of preparedness with limited resources and, in some cases, limited qualified personnel. If this sounds familiar to you, following are some tips that can get you started.
Threat Assessment
Although most fire service training is conducted according to national standards, emergency personnel in each individual area of the country must conduct their own threat assessment. Conducting this assessment identifies the threats and the necessary training for the wide range of possible challenges facing your area.
Regardless of the cause of the incident, departments must rely on their core capabilities to mitigate the situation. For example, my department’s core competencies encompass fire suppression, pre-hospital emergency care, structural evacuation, search and rescue, chemical/ biological/radiological/nuclear (CBRN) hazmat life safety and decontamination, and arson investigation. Individual departments must identify their core competencies. If you identify deficiencies, you must establish a system of mutual aid by partnering with other entities to provide the services you lack.
Operational Readiness
Individual departments throughout the country must be able to provide a unit or system to fully execute the mission. This requires giving your members the training, equipment and support to do their jobs in a safe and successful manner.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) identifies several elements that are required to fully develop capabilities to achieve operational readiness: planning, organization and leadership, equipment, training and exercises and evaluations. Let’s take a closer look at each of these elements.
Planning: Probably the most important element is a plan of action supported by all elements of the National Incident Management System (NIMS). Departments should have standard operating procedures/guidelines (SOPs/SOGs) for specific tactics and for technical rescue and hazardous materials. For special events exclusive to your area, develop an incident action plan and ensure all involved agencies understand and execute that plan. You should develop emergency response plans for all-hazard and complex incidents as well. Communicating this information to all involved agencies is essential to a coordinated response.
Organization and leadership: Departments should identify individuals with leadership potential throughout their department, then nurture them for vital leadership positions. We can have the best leadership in the world today, but if the information and experience are not passed on, and a catastrophic event occurs, you’re right back to square one. There will be no experienced leadership to assist in the rebuilding process. Many of my department’s senior leaders were killed on 9/11, debilitating our level of experience. You must identify and develop leaders who are not only technically capable but also possess the leadership and interpersonal skills to operate during a crisis or major event.
Equipment: The right supplies and equipment must be made available to emergency workers to successfully operate at major incidents. State-of-the-art equipment should be made available especially when responding to CBRN/hazmat incidents. The safety of our members is of paramount importance and there is no such thing as collateral damage at these incidents.
When identifying needed equipment for your department, take into account the cost of the equipment, initial training and equipment maintenance, as well as the costs of continuing education on using the equipment. Many departments throughout the country have detection devices acquired through grant funding sitting on shelves because they failed to budget for maintenance and continued training costs. Remember to take this into account when determining what type and how much equipment you need and when applying for grant funds.
Training: Training should always receive priority when funding is discussed and prioritized. Training initiatives should focus on and enhance core capabilities, meeting or exceeding national standards. Using national standards allows for coordination when operating beyond your jurisdiction; indeed, it guarantees that resources can respond rapidly from anywhere around the country and ensure a more coordinated operation.
Counterterrorism should also be a focus of training and must be integrated with your SOPs/SOGs. Providing this training will likely enhance situational awareness, a key component in today’s emergency services climate. Use the threat assessment model for your jurisdiction to develop pre-fire plans for critical sites, and provide personnel with on-site training so they’re familiar with the area.
The last important point to focus on: continuing education. It’s great to have your members certified in many skills, but if you don’t continually train on these skills, the abilities will disappear, ultimately leading to chaos and unsafe operations.
Exercises and evaluations: Emergency agencies should regularly conduct exercises to test their training and skills. Of course, unknown issues will always rear their ugly heads at major incidents, but exercises can reveal issues that you can address before the event occurs. Conducting such exercises as tabletop drills and small- and large-scale exercises allows you to test your readiness as well as identify deficiencies in resources.
In addition, such training exercises bring the players into the arena and allow them the chance to interact, building mutual respect–something necessary for successful command staff. If you wait until game day to see who the players are, you will have total chaos. Lack of cooperation among command staff and emergency personnel will negatively impact the operation. Remember: We all have egos; major incidents require that we park them at the door.
Personnel
Although it’s not one of the areas specifically addressed by the DHS, it’s important to remember that all personnel in your emergency system play a vital role at major events. Because some personnel might not be as experienced as others, it’s the responsibility of commanders to properly utilize personnel. Once members are in place and understand their role and how they fit into the organizational chart, you have the formula for a successful outcome. Never downplay the importance of your personnel. They make the difference between success and failure at major incidents.
Conclusion
The above factors are just a few of the important considerations when building a major incident response plan. Success starts with preparation and ends with recovery. If you continue to properly prepare and train, you will have an organized approach to a major incident, no matter how large.
