Incident Command System - Assignment Example

Incident command system Introduction The system to protect lives, properties and environment in the time of emergency by commanding, controlling and coordinating between various agencies to stabilize the situation is commonly known as the Incident Command System (ICS). It allows people to effectively coordinate with each other in an emergency situation as the system is based on a flexible and scalable response model. In cases of disaster, this model allows people from various platforms to work in tandem in reducing the miscommunication and effectively managing rescue operations. (Gustin 2007) The wild-fire fighting efforts in California and the series of destructible fire in the urban areas of the region in 1970s prompted the authorities to develop a module that could protect the lives and hastens rescue operations. The wildfire caused huge damages to the property and human lives. Research revealed that most of the disaster could have been averted with better coordination and communication between several authorities engaged in the rescue work. This was the prime reason for the formation of the Incident Command System which could coordinate better with different agencies such as healthcare, fire department, hospitals and rescue workers. As per the recommendation given by the United Nations, most of the countries in the world have implemented the Incident Command System. In the US and the UK have implemented the system in its original form; whereas, New Zealand and Australia customised the system per their geographical requirement to effectively implement the system in their respective countries. (Gustin 2007) Gold-Silver-Bronze command structure In the United Kingdom, a hierarchical framework has been established to command and control various agencies involved in disaster management efforts. This framework is termed as Gold - Silver - Bronze command structure. In some cases, the structure is also defined as strategic- tactical and operational framework. The gold-silver-bronze command structure has been successfully implemented also in the pre-planning stages for managing huge crowd gathered for sporting events and political rallies. Following the murder of one of the police constables, Keith Blakelock, in North London due to riots, UK Metropolitan Police in the year 1985 found the need to create this structure. In the structure, the Gold Commander controls the overall resources of the organisation. Most often, these commanders are not seen at the site of the incident, but are remotely situated to control and strategise the operations in such a form that all the agencies involved in the rescue operations are adequately communicated. The tactical decisions are taken by the Silver commander who follows the strategic directions from the Gold commander and delegates sets of rules to the Bronze commander. They are in the charge for managing the task assigned to the Bronze commander; often they are not present at the site of the operation. Whereas, the Bronze Commander is directly in-charge of the resources at the incident and work closely with the staff deployed at the site. Usually, the Police department is in-charge of the on-site operations and are accompanied by the Bronze commanders. (Arbuthnot 2005) Implementing an incident command system can prove beneficial in several occasions. Being systematic in its approach, the system prevents chaos and manages the crowd or a situation in a better manner. The chain of command ensures that authority not vested with a single person and all the officials are involved in the entire process in order to curb individualism or dominance of a single person in the decision making process. The coordinated approach between different agencies helps in containing the situation and preventing further injuries. The simultaneous involvement of various agencies ensures that the operation is conducted swiftly without wasting time. It also helps in reducing the time taken in executing the mission which further translates into saving more lives and causing minimal damage to the property. Defining the Command Structure The operation is always headed by a supervisor and every staff involved in the rescue mission reports to him. The idea is to remove subordinates from receiving conflicting order which might disrupt the rescue operation on-site. Further, it also creates greater accountability, prevents disorder, and improves communication between the participating agencies. This structure is usually followed by several countries around the world who have implemented the ICS structure. The command system also promotes the use of common terminology so that consistency is maintained while describing the resources, titles and scenarios throughout the course of the action. The terminologies commonly used in the structure are incident commander, operations section chief or safety officers. In the system, ranks are decided according to the objective of the mission. The usual steps taken to accomplish the given tasks are by evolving strategies, drawing tactical plans and finally executing the tasks per the modules provided to the officers. In order to effectively communicate and execute the task, Incident Command System limits the span of control of the officers by giving them assigned responsibilities and allocating not more than seven resources. Usually, in this command system, an officer is given three to seven junior members for successful implementation of the strategy. The command system consists of various officers including single incident commander and they are mostly involved in executing the task on-site. These officers are involved in giving instructions to the incident response and is the final decision making authority. In case of multiple-incident occurring in separate areas, an area command is assigned, who provides logistical and administrative support. The command staff comprises of safety officer, public information officer, liaison officer and other general officers including operations section chief, planning section chief, finance and administration section chief, logistics section chief. (Lee 2006) High Rise Buildings and ICS To combat any disaster occurring in high-rise building, incident command system should be effectively implemented so that either the disaster can be averted or maximum number of people can be saved. Sectorisation proves beneficial in cases of multiple problems in a high rise building. The problems can range from fire evacuation, technical faults, flood situation, earthquake or electricity failure. A sectorised approach with well defined parameters, help in disaster management effectively as each responsibility are compartmentalised and accounted for. However, there should be a unified structure and rules that can bind the process together so that there is no miscommunication between the different sectors. This necessitates the appointment of a unified commander who can strategise the operation effectively and can give appropriate commands to his subordinates after receiving the feedbacks from various agencies involved in the task. For instance, in a fire situation, in a high-rise building, the fire officials are the prime rescuers. However, they also need support system like ambulance services, hospitals, electricians and in some cases, military services for roof top evacuation. In order to plan a smooth evacuation strategy, the commander in-charge should be able to coordinate and communicate with all the agencies simultaneously and define their positions and tasks. (Fenton) This would help in carrying out the operations at the different operations at the same time in tandem with the other authorities. Any communication failure between the authorities might lead to aggravating the disaster and endangering not only the lives of the victims but also the rescue officers performing the operations on-site. Sectorisation makes it easier for rescue officers to carry operation in high-rise building as clearly pre-defined roles and tasks of the various rescue team helps them in coordinating with each other in ea better manner and carrying out the entire operations smoothly. (Kramer 2nd ed) Harrow court incident On 2 February 2005, during a rescue operation at Harrow court, Stevenage, two fire fighters Jeff Wornham and Michael Miller died while trying to rescue a woman from a burning flat. Research indicated that the death of the fire fighters was due to failure to follow procedures laid by Hertfordshire Fire & Rescue Service, where these fire fighters were employed. The fire at the Harrow Court began at the 14th floor flat. The fire fighters after rescuing the person trapped in the flat, returned to rescue a woman entrapped in another room. However, the fire escalated and killed all the three people inside the room. According to the internal report released by Hertfordshire Fire & Rescue Service, the prime reason for the death of the two fire-fighters was because of lack of water to drowse the fire. The outlets of the water at the flat were shut due to fear of vandalism. Although, the council were harrow court is situated had informed the fire service, the first fire engine that arrived at the sight did not carry bolt cutters that could have helped in resuming the water supply. It also stated that a risk assessment was not conducted before the fire officers entered into the flat. (BBC News 2006) The investigation brought forth many organisational weaknesses in the process of rescuing people from high-rise fire. The officers were not fully aware of the high rise incident procedure and did not implement the recommendations given by the council before commencing the rescue operation. Further, the fire operators did not carry proper breathing apparatus which could have saved them from choking from the fumes. The investigations further identified that the fire fighters were inadequately trained to handle fire situations at high rise building. This could be attributed to the fact that trainings is under provisioned and not strictly implemented in Hertfordshire Fire & Rescue Service. Also, it was revealed that the basic level training to rescue people from high rise incidence was not undertaken either by Hertfordshire Fire & Rescue Service or any other fire stations. Further, most of these fire stations do not have proper procedural guidance to tackle high-rise fire situation. The report also explained that the fire-fighters were unfamiliar with the building design and did not understand the risk involved in carrying out such an emergency situation. The periodic fire risk assessment of the building was also not conducted which could have averted the disaster. The report concluded that Hertfordshire Fire & Rescue Service was also significantly responsible in the death of the two fire men as they failed to comply with the Fire Service Act 2004, The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, and The Management Of Health And Safety At Work Regulations 1999. (Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service 2005) Dynamic Risk Assessment: The loopholes Dynamic risk is defined by various organisations differently, for fire fighters; it may mean recognition of transitory hazard which might occur at some point in an incident. For police department, it may mean risks associated with implementing a strategy by employing tactical method. Therefore, dynamic risks are different from one organisation to another, and are usually defined by the organisation themselves. Usually, in a dynamic risk scenario, the on-site assessment is conducted by employees present at the site who could judge and control the situation in a better manner than the authorities controlling them from the off-site location. However, implementing this system would mean giving more control to the employees for making the decision. This requires sending competent and well-trained employees on location, which might not be feasible at all times. In generic risk assessment, tasks are usually designed covering common goals and activities. It is implemented for incidents of similar nature and does not involve customisation according to the situation. The involvements of the off-site managers are greater in this kind of assessment, and the on-site employees only follow the directions provided to them. Dynamic risk assessment, on the other hand, involves greater on-site employee involvement, with the employees taking all the decision based on the current situation in hand. The key causes of the death of the two fire fighters were due to bad decisions taken by ineffective managers, unsafe conditions of the building and unsafe behaviour on the part of the fire fighters. Thus indicating that dynamic risk assessment conducted by the on-site managers was not effective, which resulted in the death of the two fire men. The Harrow Court Incident brought out the defects of not only the Hertfordshire Fire & Rescue service but it also reflected on the working of the other fire services as well as agencies involved in rescue operations. The lack of coordination between various agencies led to the death of the fire-men as well as the occupant of the flat. The mismanagement of the entire situation, without a proper and trained supervisor to oversee the operations and communicate effective guideline to the firemen was the highlights of the disaster. Further the lack of communication between the various departments and agencies resulting in aggravating the situation that could have been averted. (Williams) According to the internal report, released Hertfordshire Fire & Rescue service, the disaster could have been controlled through proper coordination and communication between various departments. For instance, the fire services could have been intimated about the lack of proper water supply in the building before hand, so that the fire-men were prepared to handle the situation. Although, the information was provided to the service station, it was never communicated to the fire-men who were rescuing people on-site. Further, the situation went out of control, due to lack of support from other social agencies such as ambulances, Police and local authorities. In case, the police was vigilant enough in the area, the occupants of the building would not have chained their water pipes which could have saved lives of the victims. The local authorities should have been observant enough to conduct routine inspection in the area, which could have assessed the fire hazard situation in the building. Thus, the mismanagement of the operation, coupled with the unmindful behaviour of the authorities were the main reason for the disaster that killed three innocent lives. (Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service 2005) Conclusion Often times, emergency situations are not handled effectively due to unclear instructions given by the supervisor, lack of accountability, miscommunication or insufficient communication between agencies, lack of systematic planning, and lack of integration between the various agencies involved in the rescue operation. As we could analyse from the Harrow Court Incident, the mismanagement in conducting in operation might result to the death of rescuers themselves. Therefore, it is imperative to set up a fool proof system which would help in not only saving the victims but the safeguarding the interest of the rescuers. The paper analysed the use of various sub-systems and found that the incident command system might be a better alternative to that of dynamic risk assessment. In case of dynamic risk assessment, as illustrated in the Harrow Court Incident, the employees working on-site are given greater decision making responsibilities, which may or may not be fruitful due to several factors lack of proper training, experience and guidance. On the other hand, the incident command system helps the officer to better assess the situation at hand and give appropriate commands to the subordinate in a carefully coordinated manner. It helps the officer to work in congruence with the strategy developed by the senior officials who are in-turn made to coordinate with other officials in different agencies. Further, a sectoral approach to implement incident command system helps in averting major disasters in high-rise building. The broken down approach, wherein, various agencies are involved in the rescue works are systematically entwined to communicate and implement the tasks at hand. This allows the system to be fool proof and saves precious human lives and property. The paper concludes that if a systematic incidence command approach was initiated in the Harrow Court Incident, the lives of the three victims could have been saved. Works Cited Fenton, David, “High-Rise Rescue,” viewed 9 August 2008 “Errors revealed in fire report,” BBC News, 18 May 2006, viewed 9 August 2008 “Harrow Court Incident,” 2 May 2005, viewed 9 August 2008, Williams, Carl, “Dynamic Risk Assessment,” Human Applications, viewed 9 August 2008, < www.humanapps.co.uk> “Investigation Into the Deaths of Firefighter Jeffrey Wornham, Firefighter Michael Miller and Ms Natalie Close,” Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service, 2 February 2005, Pp. 5-37. “Fire At Harrow Court, Stevenage,” 2 February 2005, Pp. 3-25. “Incident Command System/ Unified Command (ICS/UC)” The National Response Team, viewed 9 August 2008, < http://www.nrt.org/Production/NRT/NRTWeb.nsf/AllAttachmentsByTitle/SA-52ICSUCTA/$File/ICSUCTA.pdf?OpenElement>, Pp. 9-20 Kramer, William M., Charles W. Bahme, “Incident Command System”, Fire Officer's Guide to Disaster Control, 2nd Ed. Fire Engineering Books and Videos. Pp. 67-86 Gustin, Joseph F, “Managing the disaster and recovery efforts” Disaster & Recovery Planning 4th Ed, The Fairmont Press, Inc., 2007, Pp: 302-304 Lee, Richard “Understanding the Incident Command System”, Officer.com, 11 July 2006, viewed 9 August 2008, < http://www.officer.com/web/online/Leadership/Understanding-the-Incident-Command-System/16$31424> Arbuthnot, Kevin. “Multi-Agency Incident Command in the UK,” West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service. UK, 2005, viewed 9 August 2008, < http://ncdr.nat.gov.tw/iwerr/doc/pdf/S2%20PDF/s2-1%20Arbuthnot.pdf> Pp. 1-9 Read More