DHS Approves National Management System

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge on March 1 approved the National Incident Management System, the first national standardized plan to manage all emergency incidents, including wildfires. NIMS creates “a unified chain of command for federal state and local lines of government for incident response,” said Ridge.

It essentially provides an incident management template for emergency responders at all levels. Although the centerpiece of NIMS is an incident command system that should already be familiar to most wildland fire incident commanders, NIMS is also a national system that will continue to evolve and one that fire service leaders will need to keep abreast of to work with federal agencies at major incidents.

Homeland Security Presidential Directive 5, which directed Ridge to develop NIMS as well as the National Response Plan, also directs federal agencies to make adoption of NIMS by state, tribal and local organizations a condition for federal preparedness assistance beginning in FY 2005. Ridge states in his introduction to NIMS: “Compliance with certain aspects of NIMS will be possible in the short term, such as adopting the basic tenets of the Incident Command System identified in this document. Other aspects of NIMS will require further development and refinement to enable compliance at future dates.”

NIMS follows the approval of the Interim National Response Plan in October 2003, an interim plan agencies can use while development continues on the final National Response Plan, expected to be complete in the summer of 2004.

Representing the International Association of Fire Chiefs, Chief John Buckman of German Township (Ind.) Volunteer Fire Department is a member of the DHS State, Tribal and Local Advisory Board, which provided input in the development of NIMS and the INRP since August.

Buckman said fire incident commanders will be on a shorter learning curve to adopt NIMS than leaders of other response sectors. He also believes NIMS will help the fire service take an important step forward in its evolution.

“The NIMS document that we have before us today is the first step in trying to bring consistency to the management of incidents — from everyday, routine incidents to the most complex disasters,” said Buckman.

At future emergency incidents, NIMS should make it easier for fire service incident commanders to work with the various response forces to manage and recover from emergencies of all sizes, said Buckman. “The way it is today, we have agencies that respond to assist who don't have a command structure to operate in emergency systems. They may have everyday command systems, but those are significantly different from the command systems we use. In their everyday business, it may take days or weeks to make a decision. When we're dealing with an emergency in which lives are at stake and property is threatened, we have to make decisions in minutes.”

But NIMS contains new roles and a new framework that differs from the way FEMA has worked at incidents in the past. For one thing, the Principal Federal Official will be above the Federal Coordinating Officer in FEMA regions, said Buckman.

“The Principal Federal Official will be the coordinating authority for the federal government,” he explained. “So if you get on scene, and you need anything from the federal government, the Principal Federal Official has the ultimate authority. If you need resources, whatever those resources are — whether it be the FBI, the CIA, the military, the ATF, or the U.S. Fire Administration — the PFO can either make it happen or will tell you it can't happen.”

Another new federal entity you'll need to know is the NIMS Integration Center. The Integration Center will keep all response agencies informed of what protocols, procedures and standards need to be maintained for NIMS compliance; and it will study how NIMS is working at emergency incidents and make refinements to the system in the future.

The NIMS document also hints that NIMS compliance may require state and local organizations to implement interoperable voice and data communications systems. But Buckman was remains skeptical that such a requirement would be realistic in the near future. “That would be correct in a dream world,” he said. “But that area will have to be explored very slowly and very softly. Because if the federal government was to demand interoperability at the state and local level, they'd have to be willing to pay for that. And nobody has been willing to pay to reduce the interoperability challenges that state and local governments have.”

See the complete NIMS document online at www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NIMS-90-web.pdf.