The Right Thing and the Right Way

As a young man, I was taught that a gentleman never discusses religion or politics in polite company. As firefighters, we may want to add NIMS (National Incident Management System) to that list. It’s interesting what we firefighters are allowed to question and, even more so, what we are not allowed to question. The fire service’s new 800-pound gorilla is NIMS. Right up front, I want to make it clear that I have always supported the use of a NIMS for the coordination of resources to ensure successful and safe operations. Let me also be very clear that most fire service operations are local in nature. And finally, this is not an editorial on the value, importance, or credibility of NIMS—those are not in question.

NIMS began in the 1970s when several California firefighters used their military backgrounds to create the FIRESCOPE model of incident command for wildland firefighting. FIRESCOPE worked extremely well and brought in a new era of command and control to the management of large-scale incidents. A few years later, Chief (Ret.) Alan Brunacini of the Phoenix (AZ) Fire Department created the Fireground Command system, based on his exposure to FIRESCOPE. And for the next 30 years, American cities by and large adopted, adapted, and in some way began to use some type of hybrid combination of Fireground Command ICS and FIRESCOPE ICS, and these two excellent systems served us well.

9/11之后,我们决定火就是ce needed to use one incident management system. The result was Presidential Directive Number Five: “To enhance the ability of the United States to manage domestic incidents by establishing a single, comprehensive national incident management system …. To prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from terrorist attacks, major disasters, and other emergencies, the United States Government shall establish a single, comprehensive approach to domestic incident management ….”