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Incidence Command System

Applying Incidence Command System (ICS) in Fire Emergency Response Operations

Student Name

Course Name and Number

College Name

Term/Year
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Incidence Command System

Purpose of Study

Fire incidences are one of the most common emergency situations that occur on a daily

basis. Whenever fire emergencies occur, the public incurs immense losses in a very short period

as the fire burns property very fast and if the fire emergency occurs in a built environment

occupied by people, lives are likely to be lost. With this in mind, there is a need for a quick,

effective response from the fire department to put out the fire in good enough time to reduce the

damages. Quick and effective response to a fire emergence involves different operations that

need to be undertaken concurrently by the firefighting brigade and other emergency response

units. The complexity of fire emergency incidences and the need for multifunctional and multi-

agency involvement in such incidences calls the need for a single standard management system

that can be applied by fire emergency department. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the

impact of the incidence command system in fire emergency response operations. The paper also

identifies the standard operating guidelines for are applied during the establishment of command

at a fire incidence. The findings of this research are meant for fire emergency response

departments that have not adopted the Incidence Command System as well as the institutions

offering courses on fire emergency response.

Opening Statement, Assumptions, or Hypothesis

The implementation of the ICS has faced resistance from small-scale fire emergency

departments that assume that the system is only applicable for large-scale fire emergency

departments that respond to large fire incidences. Most of these departments that are reluctant to

implement the ICS in their fire emergencies response believe that guidelines and principles of

ICS do not apply in fire emergency incidences of their scale. I disagree with this believe and it
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Incidence Command System
guides the hypothesis of this study as Incidence Command System can be expanded or

contracted depending on the scale and complexity of the incidence and therefore, it is applicable

in every fire emergency response regardless of the scale of the fire incidence. When conducting

the research study, an assumption that the Incidence Command System is only applied in large

structural fire emergency responses.

Discussion of Findings

Erik Auf der Heide (1989) defines the ICS as, “a set of personnel, policies, procedures,

facilities, and equipment, integrated into a common organizational structure designed to improve

emergency response operations of all types and complexities.” This implies that the ICS in a fire

incidence provides the guidelines for organizing the assets and resources available to respond to

an incidence and also provides the process to manage the fire emergency response through the

successive operations. The author claims that the ICS was designed and developed to ensure that

each agency involved in the fire incident response would retain control over they're designated

fiscal and legal responsibilities, organizational procedures, and agency roles. With this design in

place, the ICS would work efficiently even in fire incidences that involve the participation of

essentially different agencies and agencies from any level of government such as the federal,

state, regional, county, or city.

Before the design and development of the ICS by the Firefighting Resources of

California Organized for Potential Emergencies (FIRESCOPE) in 1980, fire emergency response

managers faced numerous challenges that made the response operation very difficult and the

whole process inefficient. These challenges faced during fire incidence response operations

include:
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Incidence Command System
i. Unspecified and unclear incidence response objectives

ii. Differences in the command terminologies used by the agencies involved

in the response operation.

iii. The undefined line of authority that caused confusion and increased the

complexity of the response operation.

iv. Lack of the necessary structure for coordinated planning between the

participating agencies.

v. Incompatible and inadequate communications.

vi. Lack of adequate and reliable incident information.

vii. The difference in the fire emergency response organizational structures for

the participating agencies.

viii. There were too many people and personnel reporting to only one

supervisor which adversely affected the coordination and decision making of the

supervisor.

According to Gainey, (2015), FIRESCOPE, an interagency task force, addressed these

challenges by designing the ICS with fours critical functional areas. First, the system is

organizationally flexible and therefore, it meets the needs for a wide range of fire emergency

incidents of any kind and scale. Second, the system can be used by the participating agencies on

a daily basis both for routine operations and major fire emergency incidences. Third, the system

is sufficiently standard to be applied by personnel from the different participating agencies and in

diverse geographic locations as the system easily and rapidly molds the personnel and incident

locations into a common management structure. Fourth, the system is cost-effective and

therefore, it is as feasible to apply the system in small scale fire emergency incidences as it is for
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Incidence Command System
medium and large-scale fire emergency incidences. Over the years of implementation, the ICS

proved to be efficient in achieving the objectives of its initial critical functional areas and has

been adopted across the United States, outside America, and in other fields outside fire

emergency incidences. For example, the ICS is widely used by fire agencies in Canada and is

being adopted by emergency and event management agencies, public health and safety

institutions, and law enforcement agencies across the United States.

In the article published on the Columbia Southern University’s Fire Rescue website under

the title, “Applying ICS to All Departments – Big & Small: Command Leadership,” the author

establishes that the ICS is vital to efficient and safe fire emergency incident operations (Klassen,

2009). The author supports his argument with the recommendation offered by the National Fire

Academy that all fire agencies should use the ICS and also the 2003 Presidential Directive by the

Department of Homeland Security that required the use of the CIS as part of the National

Incident Management System. On simple or small-scale fire emergency incidences, the agency

that arrives first to the scene of the fire emergency scene conducts management of the scene

operation by going into Investigative Mode, as per the ICS guidance, thus sets the stage to

expand the structure.

On a more complex incident, the first agency that arrives on the fire emergency scene is

required by the ICS guidelines to go into a Fast-attack Mode or Rescue Mode, and the agency

officer is the established as the Incident Commander. From this point on, Incident Commander

establishes the command structure and gets into a Mobile Command Mode and commands the

rest of the agencies that arrive afterward. For more complex fire emergency incidences, the

commanding officer of the first agency that arrives first on the scene gets into a Command Mode

and establishes themselves as the Incident Commander. The Incident Commander is required to
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Incidence Command System
start organizing and assigning any resources that arrive on the scene thereafter. This structure is

the basic principle of the ICS that aims at establishing a solid initial command structure and

strategy that effectively mitigate the fire incident.

Klassen (2015) listed several benefits of applying the ICS on all the levels of fire

emergency incidents. They include;

i. The system allows the participating agencies to expand the system while

at the same maintaining an efficient span-of-control ratio as the fire emergency incident

expands or contracts. The proper span-of-control promotes safety during the response

operation.

ii. The system allows the fire emergency response personnel to communicate

effectively especially in incidences that face-to-face contact and communication is not

clear or possible. It also promotes and confirms interoperability of the equipment used for

communication by the participating agencies.

iii. The system provides a model that promotes effective accountability of the

personnel involved and further provides a well-structured system of Personnel

Accountability Report (PAR) reporting as it requires all the agency division supervisors

to account for their responding members participating on the incident.

iv. The system also frees up the radio traffic at the scene of the fire

emergency during the response operation.

v. The system allows division and group supervisors to monitor the tactical

aspects of the incident and further frees the Incident Commander to focus on the strategic

objective of the response operation through the delegation of responsibilities.

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Incidence Command System
vi. The system ensures a unified command structure while working with other

participating agencies such as the law enforcement and mutual aid.

Recommendations

Recommendation One: All fire emergency agencies should consider training their

personnel especially the command officers on the guidelines and provisions of the ICS model.

Recommendation Two: All institutions offering fire technology courses should

incorporate the ICS model as a course unit into their curriculum to ensure that learners are

knowledgeable on all the concepts of the model.

Recommendation Three: All fire agencies should adopt the ICS model and ensure that

they apply it effectively to all fire emergency incidents regardless of the scope and size of both

the fire agency and the fire incident.

Conclusion/Summary

The Incident Command System was designed to help mitigate the challenges that were

faced by fire agencies when responding to fire emergency incidents. The system has been

applied in many fire incidences and has been observed to achieve its principal objectives by

establishing an efficient span-of-control at the scene of the fire emergency where multiple

agencies are involved in the response operation. The study confirmed the hypothesis that the CIS

could be applied by fire agencies of all scopes and sizes in mitigating fire incidents of all scopes

and sizes because the studies showed that system is flexible for expansion and contraction

depending on the magnitude of the incident.

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Incidence Command System
The most significant implication of the study derives from the finding on the scope of

applicability of CIS on other disciplines that face challenges in control of operations that involve

multiple stakeholders.
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Incidence Command System
References

Auf der Heide, E. (1989). Disaster response: Principles of preparation and Coordination. St.
Louis: Mosby.
Careless, J. (2007). Incident Command System. Retrieved from
https://www.firefightingincanada.com/ics-ims/incident-command-system-2007
FIRESCOPE Task Force. (1992). Incident command system for fire department structure fire
operations. Sacramento, Calif.: State Fire Marshal
Gainey, R. (2015). Fire Service Incident Command System. Retrieved from
http://www.firerescuemagazine.com/articles/print/volume-10/issue-10/command-and-
leadership/fire-service-incident-command-system.html
Jensen, J., & Thompson, S. (2015). The Incident Command System: a literature review.
Disasters, 40(1), 158-182. doi: 10.1111/disa.12135
Klassen, K. (2009). Applying ICS to All Departments--Big & Small. Retrieved from
http://www.firerescuemagazine.com/articles/print/volume-4/issue-8/command-
leadership/applying-ics-to-all-departments-big-small.html