We were all taught that there is a separation between federal, state, and local governments. That being said, the federal government has more then one way to control state and local governments then enacting legislation. The federal government controls much of the publicly available funds and therefore controls who receives them and what they have to do to get them. With recent events in mind, the federal government will be requiring ‘NIMS’ compliance along with NFIRS requirements on fire and preparedness grants.
The federal government will be requiring NIMS compliance in FY 2006 for all fire and preparedness grants. I can hear the collective groan from here… “We are volunteers and don’t have the time, effort, money, etc, etc, to comply with another $#!* program…” Do not worry, NIMS is not so bad, and will actually be good for everyone to be involved in.
What is NIMS? NIMS stands for the “National Incident Management System”. The President directed the Homeland Security Council to develop a system to “…prepare for, prevent, respond to, and recover from domestic incidents, regardless of cause, size, or complexity”. Wow, if that isn’t the federal government trying to accomplish everything, I’m not sure what it is…
Obviously this program was designed with disasters like 9/11 in mind, but it is meant to be used in any and all large scale emergencies. This includes natural disasters such as the hurricanes that have been hitting Florida. A read of the program, available at http://www.fema.gov/nims/ will show you that while it does have a terrorism slant, it definitely would be useful in other emergencies.
At a quick look, many people notice that the Incident Command System (ICS) is at the core of NIMS, but the program is much more comprehensive. ICS is a large part of the program, but that is out of necessity. One of the key problems at large scale emergencies is communication and control. My column on mutual aid, “Y’all Come”, http://www.volunteerfd.org/archive/yall.php highlights the problems when you have multiple agencies working together.
Those departments who have a wildland interface understand the importance and the core principles of ICS as they are great at it. ICS is a scalable system for incident management and control that uses common terminology, structures, and plain language to facilitate working together. While is may be ‘cool’ to use 10 codes and run things the way you have for 50 years, it does not scale well. As was demonstrated in my local area, I told the PD I had a ‘signal 12’, to which they looked at the DOA and said “Nope, doesn’t look a grand theft auto to me.”
When you really look at the program, you will realize that NIMS is so much more then just ICS. The next segment they address after command is “Preparedness”. NIMS asks departments to look at their existing resources, possible problem areas and establish mutual aid and training programs in advance. Further, NIMS wants you to train with your mutual aid companies and “participate in realistic exercises”.
What NIMS looks at as preparedness is just a way of formalizing pre planning, training and testing the system. Departments should make efforts in this area without the NIMS program, but if NIMS is what it takes to get them to do it, then I am all for it. You may look at your area and say there is no threat of terrorism, but you cannot say there is no threat of natural disasters or catastrophic industrial incidents.
The NIMS program does not leave the federal government off the hook when it comes to preparedness… The program outlines that training needs to be freely available and resources need to be made available throughout the country. This is quite a challenge when it comes to the 27,000+ volunteer fire departments throughout the country. (Something VolunteerFD.org was created to help with.)
Resources and resource management are a large part of the NIMS program. Specifically they look at how do you find resources, get resources, use them, and then get them back to where they belong. Once again, our wildland brethren have been doing this for years. Think about your local area… If you needed 15 tankers, cranes, bulldozers, whatever, where would you get them from? Even more important to a volunteer organization, if you got the resources, how would you pay for them?
The remainder of the program looks at the crux of all these programs which is communications. We all know that communications is a problem, has been a problem, and probably will always be a problem. NIMS tries to establish ways to work around the problem and make sure that we can talk to each other. This not only includes terminology, but includes all facets of sharing of information from the information itself to the communication method.
NIMS is a program that can actually help the departments that use it. While it may look like another hoop to jump through, the benefits outweigh the costs, time, and effort that it will take to implement. The government has given us until FY 2006 to comply, but there are steps we need to take in FY 2005.
This topic was brought to me by our good friends at ChiefGrants.com, and there is more information on their website at http://www.chiefsupply.com/grants/fund_finder04_09_24.html. You will recognize Kurt Bradley as the local ‘grant expert’ and his outlook is on the program’s effect on applications. If you are interested in applying for grants, be sure to check it out.