Air Force ICS

[mikeylikey]

Wondering if CAP was any way involved with the following:

5/14/2007 - FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AFPN) -- A two-week national-level exercise involving local, state and federal government agencies is proving the capabilities of a system designed to provide effective communication and organization between different emergency responders.

Being tested at Ardent Sentry/Northern Edge 2007, the Incident Command System is part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's National Incident Management System, which is being implemented nationwide.

The ICS is a unified command and control system driven by a presidential directive that covers the Department of Defense and civilian federal government agencies, said Maj. Darren Deroos, the 3rd Wing chief of inspections and exercises at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska.

"The Air Force took the National Incident Management System and customized it, which is how we came up with AFIMS - the Air Force Incident Management System - which the Air Force implemented across the service in February," Major Deroos said.

The incident command system is a combination of facilities, equipment, operators, procedures and communications designed to aid in domestic incident management activities. It can be used for a broad spectrum of emergencies, according to FEMA's national incident management system Web site.

"It really clarifies lines of communication and who has command of what in an emergency," Major Deroos said. "This exercise is our biggest full scale of test of ICS including civilian counterparts."

The system is finding wide use during this year's Alaska Shield/Northern Edge exercise, which is specifically designed to test communication and streamline response efforts between government agencies at all levels - local, state, Department of Defense and other federal. Throughout the exercise, military and civilian first responders work together as they react to crisis scenarios, such as natural disasters, terrorist attacks or other emergency situations.

May 8 and 9, military, civilian and federal authorities partnered to respond to two incidents - a simulated train collision involving hazardous materials and mass casualties here, and a simulated terrorist attack on the North Pole Refinery Complex in nearby North Pole, Alaska.

During both incidents, emergency responders used ICS to coordinate their efforts.

"This exercise is the perfect opportunity to test the capabilities of AFIMS and ICS and the ability of the Air Force to integrate with its civilian counterparts during an emergency," said Air Force Lt. Gen. Douglas Fraser, Alaska Command commander. "Alaska is uniquely equipped to put this system through its paces because the state is leading the country in implementing the national incident management system."

Civilian organizations are already finding ICS to be exceptional in its use, creating more effective communication and improving response efforts.

"The fire department and emergency medical service have been using the system for a long time, but it's new to law enforcement and we needed this opportunity to train with it," said Brad Johnson, Fairbanks deputy police chief. "We want to be able to work a small or large scale incident with ICS."

In addition, the Alaska Railroad Corporation has been using the system for years, said Ernest Piper, the Alaska Railroad Corporation assistant vice president of operations. who participated in the May 8 train collision exercise.

"At first, people were skeptical about it, but now we have the smoothest ICS process in the state," Mr. Piper said.

"We use it for everything. It's perfect because you can use it for almost any kind of short term emergency management situation," he said.

Senior Master Sgt. David Hudson, 3rd Wing Inspector General's superintendent of readiness and emergency management, echoed Mr. Piper's praise for the system.

"It's been a slow implementation, but I think it was the right thing to do," Sergeant Hudson said. "It streamlined a process and made a better process for the Air Force that we were able to meld with our civilian counterparts."

While Elmendorf has been operating under the AFIMS and ICS systems since last year, the rest of the Air Force is scheduled to achieve initial capability by December and final capability by December 2009, according to the AFIMS Senior Leader Guide to Implementation and Sustainment.

[sardak]

An earlier reference to the USAF "customized" NIMS , AFIMS is here:
http://captalk.net/index.php?topic=1749.0

The AFI implementing AFIMS is an interesting read:
"...AFIMS uses the same Incident Command System (ICS) response structure for peace or war, at domestic and foreign locations;..."

"Battle staff" becomes "commander's senior staff" (equivalent to a crisis action team in a MAC), "initial response force" becomes "first responders" and "follow-on element" becomes "emergency responders."

Details on Ardent Sentry/Northern Edge 2007:
http://www.northcom.mil/News/2007/AS-07_fact_sheet.pdf

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=32958

Appears to be an exercise that CAP should be involved with.

Mike

[Hawk200]

Seems like the point of creating the ICS was a standardized structure. Customizing completely goes against the concept. You go changing the names of positions, then you're not on the same page as everyone else. Not to mention how many manhours were wasted creating an Air Force specific plan.

[lordmonar]

Seems like the point of creating the ICS was a standardized structure. Customizing completely goes against the concept. You go changing the names of positions, then you're not on the same page as everyone else. Not to mention how many manhours were wasted creating an Air Force specific plan.

NONE.  The OLD USAF disaster response plan was NOTHING like ICS.  What this new AFI did was bring it more in line with ICS so that USAF and other agencies can work together.

ICS is not a "plan" it is a structure.  Each organization is SUPPOSED to create their own specific plan following the "structure" of NIMS and ICS.  Each organization MUST customize it to suit the unique circumstances of their location, mission and capabilities.

[Hawk200]

NONE.  The OLD USAF disaster response plan was NOTHING like ICS.  What this new AFI did was bring it more in line with ICS so that USAF and other agencies can work together.

ICS is not a "plan" it is a structure.  Each organization is SUPPOSED to create their own specific plan following the "structure" of NIMS and ICS.  Each organization MUST customize it to suit the unique circumstances of their location, mission and capabilities.

Guess I'll have to see the "AFIMS" first. Is it anyplace online?

[lordmonar]

http://www.e-publishing.af.mil

[JC004]

I think everyone should have their own ICS!  Long-live ICS freedom!   

[Hawk200]

http://www.e-publishing.af.mil

Can you give me an idea what to look for? Did a quick search with "incident management" and came up with CISM. A few other off the wall attempts didn't turn up much either.

[sardak]

http://www.e-publishing.af.mil/pubfiles/af/10/afi10-2501/afi10-2501.pdf

Mike

[jackreggers]

This is a somewhat ancient topic but thought there might be some interest in the current state of AFIMS in the AF.  The AF declared AFIMS Initial Operating Capability for active, AF Reserve Command and ANG installations in Jan 08.  The link to the AFIMS plan is on the AF Portal Emergency Management page at:  https://www.my.af.mil/gcss-af/USAF/ep/globalTab.do?channelPageId=-316091. The new AF Emergency Response Operations (ERO) Web-based course went online in Jan 07 with over 80,000 completions by Jan 08.  The course is focused on how AF operations are conducted under AFIMS and is NIC approved as equivalent to the IS-100, 700 and 800 courses.  The AF 300/400 train-the-trainer course started in Jun 08 and will provide installation level instructors for this 5 day in-residence course (also NIC approved).  Target audience is our AF installation ICs and Emergency Operations Center Directors.  All of the AF courses use the ICS and IS courses as the baseline and expand training to include AF-unique operations at home and when deployed overseas.  A new Emergency Operations Course is planned for fielding in late 2008.  As you would expect, EOC members are the target audience for this course and the ERO Course is a prerequisite.   

[_]

I think everyone should have their own ICS!  Long-live ICS freedom!   

Pa Ranger ICS...

ICS is supposed to be pretty general for use in different situations but I believe it's also allowed and encouraged that you do take those final steps to adapt it to you particular situation and create another "form" of ICS.

[jackreggers]

The flexibility of ICS and ability to adapt the basic structure to meet AF organizational and (more important) mission requirements were key to the development of AFIMS.  The AF Fire Emergency Services community has used ICS for over a decade while the remainder of the AF used the Disaster Control Group (DCG) organization for installation-level peacetime response.  Although the DCG is an ICS, it is clearly not consistent with intent of HSPD-5 for use of a single national ICS.  The AF took it one step further than HSPD-5.  AFIMS was developed with the intent to use it at all AF installations worldwide in both peace or war.  This enables AF planners and trainers to organize, train, equip, exercise and evaluate using one system that, with relatively minor local modifications, would be the same for everyone.  In the past, the AF used the DCG system for peacetime response and a separate system for wartime.  Curiously enough, the wartime system used by the AF for about 30 years was a lot closer to the current AFIMS organization than the old DCG setup.  In any case, it's a work in progress and experience and feedback from over 160 installations has resulted in some minor tweaks.  We also identified some training gaps that should be resolved within the next year. One clear and consistent message from our installations was that that integration with local emergency responders is much easier now that everyone is speaking the same language and has the same ICS baseline.  Next big rocks on the AFIMS agenda will probably include resource typing and credentialing for "standard" AF equipment and emergency responders.  We're also planning to conduct installation exercises over the next year to better assimilate local responders into the AF installation Emergency Operations Center and the on-scene ICS organization during a major AF installation exercise.