Incident Command in the Buncefield - Case Study Example

Running Header: Incident Command Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Name & Code: Date of Submission: Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Effective Incident Command 4 Levels of Command 5 Risk assessment 7 Public Agencies involved 8 Media roles in Incidents 10 Conclusion 11 References 13 Incident Command Introduction The Buncefield oil storage and transfer depot explosions took place on Sunday 11 December 2005. There were subsequent fires that destroyed large areas of the Buncefield oil storage and transfer depot. Unfortunately, there were 43 people who were injured with no one seriously hurt or fatalities reported as illustrated by Buncefield-investigation (2010). However, there was significant damage to commercial and residential properties. The fire burned for five days destroying most of the sites and properties. The fire emitted a lot smoke into the atmosphere that dispersed over Southern England. Various commissions like Health and Safety Executives are leading a major operation in collaboration with the Environmental Agency. An emergency is any unplanned events that can death or injuries to people. It causes environmental or physical damage as well as disrupting operations. Emergency management is the process of responding to, preparing for, mitigating to, and recovering from an emergency. Upper management support is required in making emergency management successful. Incident Command System (ICS) was developed mainly for the fire service. However, the principles can be applied to all kinds of emergencies. Incident Command is a systematic tool used for control, command, and coordination of emergency response according to the United States Federal Highway Administration. It is a set of policies, personnel, procedures, facilities, and equipments that are integrated into a common organizational structure. This is mainly to assist in improving responses to emergency operations of all types and difficulties The Incident Command System provides for a clear command of chain and safe operations as well as coordinated response. Incident Commander is a person who is responsible for front-line management of the incident. The incident commanders must be a member of management and any employee. However, he must have the capability and authority to assess the situation, assume command, order an evacuation, oversee all incident response activities, determine response strategies, and implement the emergency management plan. Effective Incident Command When events such as injuries, fires, poisoning, fires, and infrastructure collapse are beyond local organizations capability to control, then this invokes Incident Command System. Incident Command System is an emergency management doctrine that is universal in North America as well as other parts of the world. It usually works with the management of local units’ responses that do not have relevant skills or equipment or do not work together. Effective Incident Command System for large scale incidents require to be established as it is an efficient tool for commanding, controlling, and coordinating. They are crucial towards providing a means to coordinate individual agencies efforts as they work towards a common objective of protecting life and stabilizing the incident. It is also crucial towards life, property, and the environment protection. Incident Command System utilizes principles towards improving effectiveness and efficiency in a business setting as well as applying the proven principles to any emergency response. Incident Command system is crucial towards ensuring all the emergencies of varying nature are dealt with accordingly. They are crucial in day-to-day activities especially when dealing with disaster occurrences. Incident Command System is crucial towards ensuring all types of incidents are dealt with through an effective management. It is vital towards forming the basis for an emergency management system. They is also the need to establish Incident Command System because it deals with all types of incidents including natural hazards, hazardous materials incidents, fires, and air, rail, and water transportation accidents among others. Development of Incident Command System will also assist greatly towards consolidating action plans and providing designated facilities. It will also provide standard and integrated communications Levels of Command Sacramento State (2001) maintains that every person in the Incident Command System may be placed in a position of assuming initial command of a hazardous incident. Command function is a great requirement in emergency response situations especially those that involve hazardous substances. The incident Commander who is the individual in charge should take immediate action while focusing on activities that are well planned and considered. Furthermore, the incident Commander must maintain a future oriented outlook while making concerted effort towards considering the entire incident. Command requires to be implemented very early during the incident. The person in charge of the group that arrives first should assume the command of the incident. The underlying principle for establishing command as quickly as possible is that the response requires controlling and organizing from the time it commences to the end. Initial errors made from the poor implementation at the initial stages of the incident are in most occasions extremely difficult to recover from them. It is not the responsibility of management personnel in the assumption of command. However, crucial decisions that concerns effective control and stabilization of an incident requires to made immediately after the arrival of initial personnel responding to the incident. Under Incident Commanders are managers responsible of operations, planning & intelligence, logistics, and administration and finance. In the situation where the hazardous materials continue to evolve, there is likely to be transfer of command. The most significant command transfers takes place as the incident is escalating. Usually, the most ranking trained personnel to arrive at the scene assume the function of Incident Commander. The command transfer is the transaction between the parties. The role of transaction initiation rests with the person with the desire to assume command. After the request becomes successful, the incumbent Incident Commander briefs the new Incident Commander on the situation on the ground. The briefs include the action plan in effect, resources status at the scene and other safety problem that may be unusual. Thereafter, the new incident commander takes onto the command functions after getting all the information required. Emergency Management Group is a team that controls all activities that are related to the incident. However, Incident Command oversees the technical aspects of the incident. The Emergency Management Group supports the incident Commander through resources allocation as well as interfacing with media, outside response organizations, the community, and regulatory agencies. Emergency Director who is also the facility manager heads this group. He controls all the aspects related to emergency. Emergency Management Group members must be senior managers with the powers to determine long and short-term effects of an emergency. They should be able to interface with media and outside organizations as well as being able to issue press releases. Another major type of command in Incident Command System is unified command. This is a unified team effort that permits all agencies with roles for the incidents manage the incident. This is through the establishment of common set of strategies and incident goals with losing abdicating agency responsibility. Area command is an organization that is established with the aim of overseeing the management of various incidents with each being managed by an Incident Command System organization or Incident Commander. It also oversees the management of extremely large incident with multiple Incident Management Teams that are assigned to them. The Area Command has the roles of setting overall strategy and crucial priorities. He also allocates critical resources that are based on priorities as well as ensuring there excellent management of incidents. He should also make sure all the set strategies are followed keenly. Risk assessment Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service (2006) maintains that Risk assessment should have assessed on the amount of spilled materials such as hydrodynamic of catastrophic tank failure. Other assessment includes the potential impacts of fire on bund integrity like floors and wall joints. Foreseeing of delivered firewater volumes is also crucial towards firefighting and risk assessment. Volumes of water delivered determine how effective the firefighting process becomes. This requires to be carried out in conjunction with passive and active firewater management measures. Accessible pathways are also crucial during the rescue process of any incident-taking place like in the case of Buncefield oil storage depot. This could have facilitated the control of fire hence reduced damages of properties and buildings. According to Bob (2008), Incident action plans makes ensures that every person is working in concert towards a common objectives set during the duration of incident. Appropriate dynamic risk assessment implementation at the scene is a good assurance of an effective action plan. Effective incident plans provide a coherent ways of communicating the overall incident goals for both support and operational activities. A dynamic risk assessment towards a quick response to a quick incident response plan should entail four major steps. They include LIE, MCI, CHECKLIST, and ICS. LIE means locating, isolating, and Evacuating. It involves locating the problem precisely and isolating the problem in order to avoid it influencing unaffected people. Finally, immediate evacuation of injured people commences. MCI involves assessing for a mass casualty Incident. This is mainly through activating agency staff members as well as assisting the fire department towards management of the Mass Casualty Incident. Every staff member should have an emergency action checklist. This is for providing emergency action information and crucial directions. This is to empower them to ask for any emergency resource or material. ICS is an emergency organizational framework that plays a key role for the management of critical disaster. Focusing on community fire safety requires an assessment that is predictive including socio-demographic risk. This is using predictive and current information. This will assist greatly towards coming up with a quick effective plan action. According to risk assessment evaluation to assess whether the information at the incident was accurate, it was determined that there was negligible environmental risk from the plume although public health advice was correct. Public Agencies involved Federal Emergency Management Agency ( 2007) argues that various agencies were involved in the at Buncefield incident. Some of such agencies included the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Health Protection Agency, Major investigation Board and the Environment Agency (EA). However, there were other public agencies that would have been expected to be there but they did not appear. Some of them include advisory agencies, and among other executive bodies. Environmental agency started to monitor the underground water around the site and even underground. The environment agency reviewed various sampling areas towards establishing the effects of incident pollution. The agency is developing a groundwater conceptual mode. This will assist towards monitoring the pollutants movement. Red Cross is a disaster agency or organization that is situated globally. It deals with the management of disasters that occurs or takes place all over the world. However, Red Cross did not participate fully during the incident. There are no clear reasons why it did not participate to a fully recognizable degree towards assisting the affected people. Red Cross specializes in the recovery constituent of the emergency management framework. Red Cross deploys assessment teams to various areas where they are disasters. International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) is another organization that is a non-profit educational organization. It is committed towards the promotion of goal saving lives. It also involves itself in properties protection at the time of disasters or emergencies. IAEM’s mission is to serve its members through providing necessary news, professional chances while advancing management profession. Although it has various councils around the world including Europe, it did not participate fully in Buncefield oil storage depot. International Association of Emergency Managers runs various programs on behalf of the profession. They include certified Emergency Manager Scholarship program. Air force Emergency Management Association is an affiliated member with IAEM gives management information on emergency and networking for Emergency Managers US Air Force. International recovery platform (IRP) is an emergency organization that was formed at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction (WCDR) in Japan, 2005. It is a main foundation for implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) 2005-2015. IRP plays a major role of identifying various differences and constraints in any post disaster recovery. It also serves as a catalyst for the development of resources, capacity, and tools for resilient recovery. Its main objective is to become an international source of information on various ways of recovery. Media roles in Incidents Fred (2003) argues that there is need of media to liaise with the media and other agencies at the times if major incidents. The main key areas where media plays a major role including the setting up of community recovery fund areas that could assist towards the recovery process. Media informs the public on the importance of giving out to the affected people in terms of funds. This has been seen to work greatly in various disaster incidents. Media links the outside world on the undergoing actions and resources needed during the time of disaster. Media ensures that people are given the information that is unbiased information involving the incidents. Media clarifies to the people on how the effects of incident are likely to affect them and the ways to avoid them as well as the effects on the people’s life. This assists greatly in enabling people take up the required measures as well as take effective measures. At the time of incident, media played a great role of informing the world about the disaster proceedings. It acted as a strong medium of communication especially on the areas that surrounded the site of incident. It played a great role of educating people on the disaster proceedings and on news of how the incident occurred. Media played a key role of informing people on various effects the disaster has on the people. According to David (2009), the media in most instances sets a station at the site that is used as an area of getting crucial news and information regarding the incident. At the Buncefield oil depot, media should have informed the public about the effects of the oil burning products and various ways to avoid it. The media should also have relied information in that the incident areas required to be near in order to reduce the inhalation problems that might occur as the burning continued to take place. The media should also have informed the public regarding anyone who would have got any assistance to offer to the incident in terms of offering resources. Conclusion Buncefield oil storage and transfer storage explosions are a good example that illustrates the Command Incident. Although there was, no deaths reported at the incident, several people were seriously hurt. There was also extensive damage to the properties and buildings. Effective incident command is crucial towards a success and an effective management of large-scale incident. They are various levels of command that are required in ensuring one is able to deal effectively with the large scale incident. . The incident Commander is the individual in charge and takes an immediate action while focusing on activities. Command requires to be implemented very early during the incident. In an incident where the accident takes place, there is likely to be transfer of command from one person to another as the incident continues. Incident Command usually transfers from one person to another as more informed and skilled personnel. Incident Command System because it deals with all types of incidents including natural hazards, hazardous materials incidents, fires, and air, rail, and water transportation accidents among others. Various agencies involved in incidents include Safety Executive (HSE), Health Protection Agency, Major investigation Board, and the Environment Agency (EA), International recovery platform (IRP), Red Cross, and International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM). Media is also vital part that plays a crucial in ensuring required information is passed on to the people. References Bob, K 2008, Federal Emergency Management, Terra publishers, Texas. Buncefield-investigation 2010, Buncefield investigation. Viewed 6 October 2010, http://www.buncefieldinvestigation.gov.uk/index.htm David, W 2009, The buncefield oil storage depot disaster as covered by industrial fire world. Viewed 6 October 2010, http://www.fireworld.com/pdf/BuncefieldFire.pdf Federal Emergency Management Agency 2007, National Incident Management Systems. Fargoes Press, Virginia Fred, C 2003, Disasters and Accidents, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service 2006, Buncefield: Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service’s review of the fire response. The stationery Office, London. Sacramento State 2001, The executive’s Guide to emergency operations planning. Viewed 6 October 2010, http://www.csus.edu/aba/police/Documents/mhp/mhp_exec_guide.pdf Read More