Guide to Understanding ICS

Introduction to the Incident Command System

Incident Command System: the essentials

• Offers a standardized approach to the command, control, and coordination of emergency response, across the U.S.
• Codifies emergency management best practices for fire and non-fire agencies alike 
• Can be applied to non-emergency response scenarios (planned events: concerts, festivals, trainings, etc.) as well as business-as-usual operations
• Key feature of the U.S. National Incident Management System (NIMS)

Explaining the Incident Command System

ICS: the history

Over the last half century, one of the key developments in emergency management has been the creation of the Incident Command System (ICS), an operational incident management structure that provides a standardized approach to the command, control, and coordination of emergency response for organizations across the U.S. 

The system’s longstanding success-it’s been in practice for over 40 years-stems directly from its genesis, created as it was, in the aftermath of a string of catastrophic wildfires that struck California in the 1970s. Eventually, fire suppression agencies were able to tame the fires, but only after the loss of tens of lives, hundreds of homes, and hundreds of thousands of acresⁱ. 

The response itself was deemed suboptimal. But when researchers and practitioners went back to review the missteps, they discovered something curious. The flaw in the response hadn’t been too few resources, as is often the case, nor had it been poor tactics in the field. In fact, the major shortcoming was poor management and synchronization. Researchers assembled a list of the operation’s primary limitations:

• Lack of common organization
• Poor on-scene and inter-agency communications
• Inadequate joint planning
• Lack of valid and timely intelligence
• Inadequate resource management
• Narrow prediction capabilityⁱⁱ

Going forward, response agencies would have to cooperate, communicate, and coordinate better. But how? There didn’t yet exist a standardized incident management framework-a scalable structure that would help multiple response organizations work together, as the incident dictated.

Enter the Incident Command System, developed shortly thereafter as an inter-operable incident management framework for fire suppression agencies in California. And though ICS first adopters were localized to fire response, it didn’t take too long for non-fire organizations to begin using the system as well. As we’ll see, that adoptability wasn’t sheer happenstance either. Flexibility was a matter of intentional design.

What ICS does: core concepts, principles, and benefits

At its core, ICS is meant to enable the effective and efficient management of incidents, irrespective of jurisdiction, kind, complexity, or size. The system codifies emergency management best practices into a unified approach to incident response, integrating a combination of facilities, equipment, personnel, procedures, and communications, which then all operate under a common organizational structure. 

One of the reasons ICS is so successful is because it offers a common incident management vocabulary for all organizations involved in incident response. As a result, personnel from multiple agencies can communicate using the same language, rather than their own agency-specific terminology. The system thus lets incident managers set up a unified, centrally authorized, emergency command structure quickly, without fear of miscommunication in the field or in the incident command centerⁱⁱⁱ.

Nor are flexibility and standardization the system’s sole attributes. ICS creators developed the system with 14 core features in mind. Those features fall into the following types: standardization, command, planning structure, facilities and resources, communications and information management, as well as professionalism. The features are described as:

Source: Federal Emergency Management Agency

How ICS can bolster your response efforts

So why exactly should you adopt ICS, especially when many emergency incidents never cross jurisdictional boundaries and don’t necessitate a multi-agency response? The short answer is many others do. What’s more, despite first appearances, small to medium-scale emergencies often are beyond the capacity of one single agency to tackle alone; whereas multiple agencies working efficiently in tandem can handle the situation with relative ease. A FEMA position paper puts this best: “There will be instances in which successful domestic incident management operations depend on the involvement of emergency responders from multiple jurisdictions, as well as personnel and equipment from other states and the federal government. These instances require effective and efficient coordination across a broad spectrum of organizations and activities”^iv. 

And that’s when ICS provides its greatest value. The system facilitates the easy mobilization of outside resources, designed as it is so that everyone knows what’s going on. But the system doesn’t just come in handy during an incident. It also helps organizations unite, plan, and simulate their responses before the incident breaks out in the first place. 

ICS also provides a rich stockpile of best practices. Having experienced some of the ruinous effects of inadequate joint planning up close, ICS creators took the imperatives of coordinated planning very much to heart. And that’s why, ICS, as it stands today, offers a pretty thorough process for incident planning, culminating in the development of the Incident Action Plan (IAP).

The IAP documents incident goals, objectives, and strategies, as well as contains tactics and vital information for managers and responders. Far from a static document, the IAP is meant to evolve as incident parameters change and facts on the ground shift, thereby giving agencies an important means by which to disseminate critical information before, during, and after the incident^v. 

ICS and the National Incident Management System (NIMS)

Pretty much as soon it was developed, ICS surged in popularity, adopted far beyond the fire suppression context and replicated across the globe (see, for example: the Austral-asian Inter-service Incident Management System --- link to the guide). No doubt, one of the most important milestones in this trajectory was the decision to include ICS as a key feature of the U.S. National Incident Management System (NIMS), when that system was created in the 2000s. In fact, we might say that that single decision helped spur greater (non-fire) adoption of ICS than anything else.

Put out by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, NIMS lays out a standardized approach for tackling all-hazard situations, offering a consistent nationwide approach for federal, state, tribal, and local governments to use when working together to prepare for, prevent, respond to, and recover from domestic incidents of any cause, size, or complexity.

Like ICS, NIMS incorporates existing best practices after all, it was developed after close collaboration between state and local government officials and representatives from a wide range of public safety organizations-into a comprehensive national approach to incident management. The approach taken by NIMS is based on a few core concepts, not too dissimilar to ICS’: 

• A consistent method for identifying, acquiring, allocating, and tracking resources
• Standardized systems for classifying resources to improve the effectiveness of mutual aid assistance agreements
• Coordination to facilitate the integration of resources for mutual benefit
• Use of all available resources from all levels of government, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector, where appropriate
• The integration of communications and information management elements into organizations, processes, technologies, and decision support
• The use of credentialing criteria that ensures consistent training, licensing, and certification standards

NIMS essentially boils down to proper planning before an incident, during which time organizations should inventory and categorize their resources by kind and type, including size, capacity, capability, and other characteristics. 

Source: U.S. Department of Homeland Security 

A final word: inter-agency coordination is hard. Poor communication, a lack of shared situational awareness, and a failure to grasp the structures of peer organizations too often doom incident response. By design, ICS was set up to solve each of those challenges and set agencies up for success.

As an additional benefit, the system also provides logistical and administrative support for operational staff and contributes to lower overall operational costs, as fewer efforts get duplicated. Lastly, communication, coordination, and accountability being prerequisites for efficient business-as-usual processes, organizations have also found great success using ICS to effectively allocate their BAU resources.

Appendix: ICS functional areas, organizational structure, and incident team

ICS establishes a full Incident Management team grouped around five functional areas, Command, Operations, Logistics, Planning, and Administration/Finance (depicted below):

ICS organizational structure

ICS key roles and responsibilities

Source: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency

Citations

i. For reference; see the Laguna fire of 1970, California’s then-third largest wildfire.

ii. Robert L. Irwin: Disaster Response: Principles of Preparation and Coordination. Available at https://web.archive.org/web/20080423021922/http://orgmail2.coe dmha.org/dr/DisasterResponse.nsf/section/07?opendocument&home=html.

iii. Federal Emergency Management Agency: NIMS and the Incident Command System. Available at https://www.fema.gov/txt/nims/nims_ics_position_paper.txt.

iv. Ibid.

v. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services: Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response: What Is An Incident Action Plan? Available at https://www.phe.gov/Preparedness/planning/mscc/handbook/Pages/appendixc.aspx.