BY MICHAEL S. TERWILLIGER
Unified command is one of those phrases under the glossary of terms for the incident command system (ICS). After traveling many miles with overhead teams and assisting with many all risk-type incidents on a local and regional level, I don't think very many of us have a grasp of what unified command is or how to make it work for us. Moreover, addressing the crux of this article, we fail miserably to get involved in unified command on extended attacks and major wildfires. Conversely, I believe many of us think we are using unified command when we are not. So often, we become confused when it comes to differentiating between cooperating and assisting agencies and those agencies that have jurisdictional authority.
And then there is that new buzzword I've been hearing, interoperability.
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