By Angela Copple
In a wildfire, catastrophic flood, hurricane or any other large-scale emergency, the need for specialized personnel, equipment and expertise can quickly exceed what is locally available. Interstate mutual aid exists to fill that gap — and the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) is how states make it happen.
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EMAC origin and purpose
EMAC is a nationwide mutual-aid framework for mobilizing resources across state lines through an established system of resource sharing that addresses legal protections, operational coordination and reimbursement.
It was ratified by Congress in 1996 and enacted by all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Today, EMAC’s advanced, integrated technology ecosystem connects resource identification, advanced planning, deployment coordination and financial accountability. Together, these capabilities enable states to pre-identify resources, anticipate needs and streamline assistance long before an emergency occurs.
Mission-Ready Package: Identifying resources
When a state requests assistance, it needs specific capabilities within a defined timeframe. Understanding what a resource can accomplish, how quickly it can mobilize and its estimated deployment costs allows the Requesting State to make informed operational and financial decisions.
Assisting States and Resource Providers must identify qualified personnel, equipment and logistical requirements while ensuring deployments do not compromise daily operations. These details should be addressed before an emergency, not while another community is waiting for help.
Recognizing this need, the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) developed the Mission Ready Package (MRP) concept in 2006, establishing a standardized approach to pre-identifying and documenting deployable resources. An MRP defines the personnel, equipment, qualifications, logistical requirements, deployment considerations and estimated costs associated with a specific resource capability.
MRPs must be developed in accordance with the Resource Provider’s established jurisdictional policies and procedures, including personnel compensation, overtime, travel, equipment rates and other reimbursable expenses. Documenting the specifics within the MRP before the resource is needed helps ensure accurate cost estimates, clearly understood reimbursement expectations and fewer delays once the mission is complete.
A detailed, complete MRP eliminates much of the administrative and logistical preparation during an emergency, allowing Resource Providers to focus on confirming availability, reviewing mission requirements and mobilizing resources.
MASS: Making resources visible
EMAC’s Mutual Aid Support System (MASS) is a GIS-based resource inventory that serves as a repository for Resource Providers to develop and maintain their Mission Ready Packages.
Once an MRP is completed and published to the state, the State EMAC coordinator can review and approve it for visibility to other EMAC members. Upon approval, the resource capabilities, logistical support needs and estimated deployment costs are readily accessible.
It’s important to stress that visibility does not mean availability. Resource Providers and appropriate state officials retain authority over whether resources can be released for deployment. Maintaining an MRP in MASS does not obligate an agency to deploy.
With resource capabilities, logistics and costs already documented, offers of assistance can be developed in minutes rather than hours, reducing administrative delays when time matters most.
Planner+: Anticipating needs
Knowing what resources may be available is only part of effective mutual aid. States must also anticipate what they might need. EMAC’s Planner+ system allows state emergency management agencies to develop pre-scripted resource requests based on anticipated operational needs.
Consider states preparing for a major hurricane. Before landfall, emergency managers can anticipate resource needs, develop pre-scripted requests in Planner+ and link them to Mission Ready Packages in MASS. Planner+'s catastrophic planning tool allows states facing the same threat to coordinate anticipated resource requirements and identify competing demands for limited resources before an incident occurs.
When an incident occurs, pre-scripted requests linked to MRPs can be imported directly into the EMAC Operations System (EOS), streamlining the request and offer process. What once took hours can now take minutes.
EOS: Connecting requests, offers and deployments
When interstate assistance is needed, the EOS provides the digital environment through which states coordinate resource requests, offers, agreements and mission activity. The EOS supports targeted requests to specific states, broader requests to EMAC members, electronic offers of assistance and Resource Support Agreements (RSAs). Integrated electronic signatures streamline the execution of resource agreements and reduce administrative processing.
States can identify potential resources, communicate mission requirements, evaluate offers and formalize agreements within a coordinated digital environment. The system provides greater visibility of mission activity while reducing the need for disconnected emails, spreadsheets and manual processes.
Equally important, EMAC’s technology supports operational flexibility. When immediate action is necessary, states can authorize and mobilize resources through verbal agreements, allowing deployments to begin while formal documentation is completed.
Technology supports the mission. It does not replace the judgment of the officials responsible for protecting their communities.
Speaking the same language across state lines
Effective interstate mutual aid requires a common understanding of resource capabilities. After all, a resource description familiar to one agency may mean something different to an emergency manager hundreds of miles away. This is why EMAC incorporates National Incident Management System (NIMS) resource typing and job position qualification information into all applications.
Through integration with FEMA’s Resource Typing Library Tool, EMAC supports nationally recognized resource descriptions and qualifications, helping states identify and request resources using consistent terminology. For specialized capabilities without nationally established resource types, clear, plain-language descriptions are essential.
Mutual aid doesn’t end when the mission ends
One of the most common sources of reimbursement delays is incomplete or inconsistent documentation submitted after deployment. Missing expense records, unsupported personnel or equipment rates, and costs that do not align with established jurisdictional policies can require additional review, clarification and corrections before reimbursement can proceed. Many of these delays are preventable.
Resource Providers that establish their reimbursement policies, develop accurate cost estimates through Mission Ready Packages and maintain complete expense documentation throughout deployment are better positioned for timely reimbursement.
To further strengthen accountability and transparency, NEMA is developing EMAC RITE — the Reimbursement Information and Tracking Exchange. RITE is designed to provide Resource Providers, Assisting States, Requesting States and NEMA with greater visibility of reimbursement submissions, documentation requirements, review status and outstanding issues.
While technology cannot replace accurate documentation or established reimbursement policies, it can help identify problems earlier, reduce unnecessary back-and-forth and improve coordination throughout the reimbursement process.
Are your resources mission ready?
Fire departments, EMS, search and rescue teams, law enforcement agencies, public health organizations and other Resource Providers invest heavily in specialized personnel, equipment, training and operational readiness. Yet even the most capable resources may be overlooked during an interstate emergency if their capabilities have not been documented and made visible through the appropriate state processes.
Every Resource Provider should consider three questions:
- What capabilities could our agency realistically deploy? Identify specialized teams, equipment and personnel that could support another jurisdiction while maintaining essential local services.
- Have we developed Mission Ready Packages for those capabilities? Define what each resource can accomplish, the logistical support needed to deploy it and what the mission is expected to cost in accordance with established policies.
- Are our MRPs maintained in MASS and coordinated with our State EMAC Coordinator? Review and update completed packages, and make them visible through the appropriate state approval process.
MRPs are not simply administrative documents. They transform local capabilities into resources that can be quickly identified, evaluated, requested and mobilized through EMAC’s interstate mutual-aid system.
Resource Providers should begin by working with their State EMAC Coordinator and reviewing NEMA’s Mission Ready Package guidance.
Putting the technology to work
Consider a state requesting an urban search and rescue (USAR) task force following a catastrophic disaster:
- The Assisting State has already worked with its Resource Provider to develop a Mission Ready Package in MASS, documenting the team’s capabilities, qualified personnel, equipment, logistical requirements and estimated deployment costs.
- When the request is published in the EOS, the Assisting State confirms the resource is available and uses the existing MRP to submit an offer of assistance in minutes.
- The Requesting State reviews and accepts the offer, and both states electronically execute the RSA.
- With the operational and financial details already established, the team can mobilize quickly.
What could have been a lengthy administrative process becomes a coordinated, streamlined deployment because the preparation was completed before the disaster.
The future of mutual aid is built on preparedness
Technology alone does not deploy a fire engine, staff a search and rescue team, provide emergency medical care or protect a community. Those outcomes depend on people, relationships, operational readiness, and decisions made by local and state leaders. EMAC brings those elements together through a proven nationwide legal framework supported by advanced, integrated technology readily available to states and Resource Providers.
The personnel, equipment and expertise needed during the next major disaster may already exist within your organization. The question is whether those capabilities have been prepared, documented and positioned to support a mission when another community needs them.
The next disaster will not wait for your organization to get ready. Neither should you.
Learn more about EMAC’s technologies.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Angela Copple is the Emergency Management Assistance Compact program director for the National Emergency Management Association, overseeing nationwide interstate mutual-aid operations, preparedness initiatives, training, policy development and the advancement of EMAC’s integrated technology systems.
