Once you get into the BIG incidents, individuals are not typically dispatched - teams are. Type 1 Overhead Team, for example. A Type 1 team can handle just about any incident. They may on a fire today, a flood next week, and the hurricane that hits New York next month. The underlying principle is the management is the same, just the details are different. You bring in experts and technical specialists and put them under Planning.

The IC doesn't need to be an expert in the type incident, they have to trust those under them to provide good information. If you can't trust your subordinates, you've lost. They also have to be willing to ask questions and seek clarification if something doesn't seem right.

Quote from: RiverAux on August 01, 2008, 05:22:15 PM

QuoteA police department, according to NIMS doctrine, actually does "activate" ICS on a house alarm response or any other minor event....however, it does notexpand the ICS staff structure -- that is, the "IC" would be the LE officer responding to the initial call, who would handle the situation and close it out.

Exactly.  I have been the official agency Incident Commander for a wildfire -- that "fire" consisted of nothing more than a smoking snag that had been hit by lightening and I was the only guy on scene waiting for the pumper truck to come up and put some water on it. 

"Incident Commander" is a very generic term that means different things in different situations and the training to hold that position has to be different depending on what the incident is.  Some people are trying to turn a system designed for maximum flexibility into a rigid structure that can't ever be alterered no matter what situation is in front of them.

Okay, that's a different thing entirely. Yes I understand the ICS thinking and mgmt system can be applied all the time. As I said, ICS is just a tool. The term IC by itself or running a local incident under that system is completely meaningless. With an established chain of command you don't need ICS - it's intuitive. The only reason to even reference it is so the operators better understand what to do in a real incident.

In that multi-agency environment, their local chain of command is meaningless & they have to integrate into a task organized unit with components of several other agencies to respond to a specific incident.

CAP is not yet doing that, and certainly not training our personnel to take up leader/manager positions within that decision-making structure. THAT is the gap that divides us from real work in real disasters.

Quote from: RiverAux on August 01, 2008, 07:12:58 PM
You guys are just insane if you think that every Incident Commander in every agency is going to be interchangable and that they will be treated as such.  I don't care if you send a CAP IC to every training course available, if he hasn't been out cutting fireline at some point in his past, he isn't going to be put in charge of a multi-agency wildfire control operation.  And neither is FEMA going to call that US Forest Service wildfire IC to run the response to a terrorist incident in downtown LA. 

Neither is anyone going to call the best IC in all of CAP to run an actual multi-agency SaR mission, or even the air component of that mission, because they are not remotely (on the basis of CAP trng) qualified for that. Hence, I'm saying we don't need to lower the standards.

I do see where you're coming from in use of ICS versus our using the titles for actual qualification levels. I would agree that some rethink might be needed there.

Just trying to keep the playing field even.

If you say must be an expert it....it implies always.

If you say ICS does not fit large and small the same I would agree that is why they have Identified levels in ICS.

I would also argue that when you have an emergency that encompasses multiple disciplines you are going to have multiple agencies that feel their guy should be in charge.  In those cases you either pick one of the many qualified folks or you have a unified command with a comittee of IC's.

I think the original point of the thread is do you need an IC for an ELT mission. I feel the answer is yes you do need an Incident Commander for the Incident.  The point we all keep dancing around is what do you need to be a Level 5 Incident commander for an ELT mission with one UDFT team and/or One air crew.  That is where the training miniumums need to be looked at.  

The risk managment peice is if you have a very minimally qualifed IC in command what happens when it gets bigger. I am not sure if you can mandate the common sense to take a Level 5 IC and make them call in a Level 3 IC when something crosses wing/state boundries, but to my recollection we never have.  

And as a volunteer agency with limited resources and the New ICS stuff changing the power curve on getting people qualifed, even if they did call for a Level 3 IC would anyone answer the phone?

I truly worry that those questions are not being adequetly addressed in our command level forums.  Maybe they are being discussed but the answers they find are not being seen at my level.  

V/R
LT J.

QuoteThe point we all keep dancing around is what do you need to be a Level 5 Incident commander for an ELT mission with one UDFT team and/or One air crew.  That is where the training miniumums need to be looked at. 

Exactly.  If we still want to have the guy running the ELT mission be called the "IC" (which he should be according to ICS), thats fine by me, but the IC for the ELT mission doesn't need to have jumped through all the hoops we want of our missing aircraft mission ICs. 

QuoteThe risk managment peice is if you have a very minimally qualifed IC in command what happens when it gets bigger.

You do the same thing the Forest Service might do if that smoking snag I found managed to start a fire I couldn't put out by myself and a crew would have come in with a more qualified IC.  If it got away from them and we needed 5 crews and a airdrop, then a more qualified IC would be called in. 

Neither is anyone going to call the best IC in all of CAP to run an actual multi-agency SAR mission, or even the air component of that mission, because they are not remotely (on the basis of CAP trng) qualified for that. Hence, I'm saying we don't need to lower the standards.

I think we should reverse engineer it:

1. Figure out what training that PODunk FD sends their Chief to that gets them to command a multi-agency fire, and make it available to CAP
2. Figure out what amount and type of interagency, multi-wing training needs to occur to get people marginally ready to fit into a larger structure like Katrina and do that training.
3. Work with the National Level NOC and DOS folks to get CAP members qualified at the ICS levels (Section chief and above for General Staff)  into some of these larger missions, so they can build the experience at larger issues to actually be useful at them.
4. Take a Page from the JCS world and work at the national level to have National (nonCadet) Special Activities to grow a more joint trained organization (Middle East Region has a great example in their SAR College, too short but great example).

There is no reason CAP could not grow to become a credible player at the table, except that we choose not to do so.

V/R
Lt J.

The events that local yocal fire depts deal with even if it involves Multiple dept's, EMS, PD, Red Cross etc.  Are LOCAL Events.  They aren't dealing with multi county, multi-state, searches.  So if you want an accurate comparison to what we do you need to look at FEMA, or California wildfire chiefs, or that type of thing.

I haven't been on a mission yet where I didn't at least cross county lines.  And I have been on 2 searches in the past couple years where the CAP IC was THE IC.  One mission included EMA, EMS, PD (county and city), Fire, and Army Corp of Engineers.  Who were all working for us.

It does happen just more for aircraft searches than for missing persons or disasters.  And rightfully so there are agenices that pay people to be the best at those areas. We are one of very few agencies with the equipment or training to track down an elt, and we focus on aircraft searches, most agencies focus on missing persons and disaster relief

Quote from: NavLT on August 01, 2008, 07:53:54 PM
Neither is anyone going to call the best IC in all of CAP to run an actual multi-agency SAR mission, or even the air component of that mission, because they are not remotely (on the basis of CAP trng) qualified for that. Hence, I'm saying we don't need to lower the standards.

I think we should reverse engineer it:

1. Figure out what training that PODunk FD sends their Chief to that gets them to command a multi-agency fire, and make it available to CAP
2. Figure out what amount and type of interagency, multi-wing training needs to occur to get people marginally ready to fit into a larger structure like Katrina and do that training.
3. Work with the National Level NOC and DOS folks to get CAP members qualified at the ICS levels (Section chief and above for General Staff)  into some of these larger missions, so they can build the experience at larger issues to actually be useful at them.
4. Take a Page from the JCS world and work at the national level to have National (nonCadet) Special Activities to grow a more joint trained organization (Middle East Region has a great example in their SAR College, too short but great example).

There is no reason CAP could not grow to become a credible player at the table, except that we choose not to do so.

Exactly

Quote from: IceNine on August 01, 2008, 08:07:52 PM
I haven't been on a mission yet where I didn't at least cross county lines.  And I have been on 2 searches in the past couple years where the CAP IC was THE IC.  One mission included EMA, EMS, PD (county and city), Fire, and Army Corp of Engineers.  Who were all working for us.

Despite appearances, I'm extremely confident that wasn't the case. I can almost guarantee you the SSgt sitting behind a console at AFRCC was actually requesting those agencies & directing their activity.

I think we all need to keep in mind the parameters under which CAP operates.  While we often do missions for local agencies, our primary responsibility is to serve as the Air Force auxiliary and as such, our involvement in any major federal missions is going to continue to be restricted to our traditional missions unless we make a lot of changes to our operational procedures, and then we have to ask:  "Is it in the Air Force's interest for a CAP person to be leading a major multi-agency mission in which CAP has a small overall role?"  Why would the Air Force want a CAP IC running these missions? We all know how paranoid the AF has become about liability and other issues, so why would they want a CAP guy operating so far out of our traditional role in emergencies where they might be on the hook if he screws things up royally?

I don't recall hearing a clamoring from all the professional emergency response agencies for volunteers to take charge of them either. 

So, seeing as how we've got all sorts of issues with our own business, why don't we stick (at least for this thread), to what it takes to manage an ELT mission. 

I'm really trying to do away with the volunteer aspect of the org in all but the most literal sense of not getting a pay check. When a CAP officer shows up to a multi-agency mission, it shouldn't matter that he doesn't get paid any more than it matters how much one professional emergency responder gets paid versus another. It's a complete non-issue, and I promise you the guy waiting to get saved isn't considering our compensation to decide if we belong on the mission or not. That CAP officer still needs to be trained, qualified, and capable to exactly the same levels as paid responders.

That doesn't effect the relationship to the AF or our traditional mission set in any way. In fact, you'll find the 1AF/CC is the designated director of overall air operations for domestic disaster response. You would not be surprised to go to a hurricane response & see an AF officer in charge of air ops. Why then could that person not be a well-qual'd CAP officer (on AFAM orders)? It's a LONG way from where we are to that level. That's the kind of gap I'd like to bridge in our training.

As far as liability, that's also not a factor. It doesn't work that way in disaster response, and to the extent it does, the AF has no issue providing that coverage (ie AFAM). It should not be a corporate mission in federal disaster response. If it's state/local response, then it has to function under a state MOU providing coverage similar to AFAM - and that's already in place most everywhere (org level coverage, not necessarily indiv coverage).

The point of this thread is that your people should have the right amount of training for the job in front of them and that we have unduly restricted the number of people who can run our most common missions by requiring more training than is necessary for that job.  "use the right tool for the job".  In other words, no need to go all Tim Taylor on it. 

If you want to discuss training our ICs for other missions, that would be a topic for a different thread. 

Actually the thrust on large, complex missions now is "Unified Command" -- that is to say a number of  ICs, each representing a particular agency or discipline, reaching joint decisions, speaking with one voice through a designated individual among them.

A unique capability CAP brings to these types of situations is not having much of an axe to grind -  state, county, and local first response agencies are often vying for the same budget money; there may be rivalry or even bad blood among the jurisdictions in a 'mutual aid' network; there is legendary frequent  lack of cooperation between federal and local LE.

In a scenario like this, an experienced CAP IC can often help smooth over differences and encourage unity and harmony.

If nothing else, the professionals hopefully won't want to squabble in front of the volunteers!

BTW, technically every AFAM has the AFRCC as IC; the CAP IC is actually the "On Scene Commander" -- but it has been my experience as a CAP IC that AFRCC far prefers the On Scene Commander to work with state and local agencies. AFRCC will support us, vouch for us, but they'd ordinarily rather we handled the details face to face.

The AFRCC controller is not an IC in any sense of the word.  They make the call on when to activate CAP and when to withdraw AFAM status.  Other than that, they're pretty much just an information conduit..  They're not involved in making plans, setting strategy, or any of that stuff.  Heck, the President has more input on how the military runs wars than the AFRCC has on how CAP is conducting a specific mission.  I'm reasonably sure I remember the guy from AFRCC in the last SAR Management Class I attended saying that they weren't ICs.   

By policy (I believe AFI, but I'm not certain; I've both read it, and discussed it with a former region DO) AFRCC is in fact the IC for inland SAR.

I'm not sure what the reasoning behind this is, nor was I able to find the reference during a brief search just now....but I am nearly certain this is the case.

The National SAR Plan, which is based on international SAR treaties and conventions, assigns the Inland and Aeronautical SAR Coordinator (SC) functions to the USAF, which makes the specific assignment to the 1AF/CC.  This is the general.  There is a Memorandum of Agreement between USAF and all 48 states in the Inland SAR Region which is signed by the 1AF/CC and the governor of each state.  Details are outlined in MOUs which are signed by agencies such as DEM, CAP, etc.

The following are excerpts from a Powerpoint presentation from AFRCC, the National SAR Plan, National SAR Manual and National SAR Supplement, with a few editorial changes.

1AF/CC, as SC, designates AFRCC as the SAR Mission Coordinator (SMC).  The RCC shift supervisor is the SAR Coordinator's duty officer, and is the predesignated SMC for most SAR missions. The RCC supervisor automatically acts as SMC for all SAR missions until relieved, or until another SMC is assigned, which usually happens.  This is the controller that you talk with on an an incident.

The SMC designates an On Scene Commander (OSC) or Incident Commander (IC), in the Incident Command System (ICS), to manage a SAR mission at the scene.  This will not be CAP if CAP is supporting another agency.  However, CAP still designates someone as IC, which causes problems at times. Some staff at AFRCC and the National SAR School have issues with this, too.

An OSC/IC prosecutes the SAR mission on scene using resources made available by the SMC, and should safely carry out the SAR action plan.  If the SMC does not provide a sufficiently detailed SAR action plan (which is normally what happens), the OSC/IC completes SMC duties for on scene operations, notifying the SMC. The unit designated as OSC/IC retains OSC/IC responsibilities from the time of designation until relieved or until the mission is completed.

This is also explained in CAPR 60-3, page 24, paragraph 6-3(b) and figure 6-1.

So AFRCC is the SMC, not IC.  No one should let a controller sitting at Tyndall AFB try to be the IC on an incident.  In rare cases, AFRCC will send controllers to an incident.

Mike

Quote from: DNall on August 01, 2008, 08:27:08 PM

Quote from: IceNine on August 01, 2008, 08:07:52 PM
I haven't been on a mission yet where I didn't at least cross county lines.  And I have been on 2 searches in the past couple years where the CAP IC was THE IC.  One mission included EMA, EMS, PD (county and city), Fire, and Army Corp of Engineers.  Who were all working for us.

Despite appearances, I'm extremely confident that wasn't the case. I can almost guarantee you the SSgt sitting behind a console at AFRCC was actually requesting those agencies & directing their activity.

That's an interesting take, but it's not the truth.  I was the PSC for this particular mission.  When EMA arrived they said and I quote "we are here to support you"  they did things like make sure we had internet, maps, and called up local resources.

The Army Corp showed up and said we have a building we would like to offer you, and you have full use of our rangers for as long as you need them

Local sheriff himself was on site and I asked me what he could do and I set him on a trail.  He promptly called 2 detectives and they got to work following leads for me.

County Sheriff showed up and said I have Side Scan Sonar can you use it? 

All of these folks were called upon by the EMA Chief (also a county dispatcher) and were tasked by CAP's operations.  I know because I was writing the tasking orders.

SO... As I said CAP DOES run multi agency missions it is just a lot less frequently than we would hope.  This mission lasted a little over 3 days and CAP was requested by the locals this was not an ELT activation

I would recomend that a few on this board research

all hazards Iincident management team (IMT)

it might clarify a few things

Quote from: IceNine on August 02, 2008, 06:41:59 AM

Quote from: DNall on August 01, 2008, 08:27:08 PM

Quote from: IceNine on August 01, 2008, 08:07:52 PM
I haven't been on a mission yet where I didn't at least cross county lines.  And I have been on 2 searches in the past couple years where the CAP IC was THE IC.  One mission included EMA, EMS, PD (county and city), Fire, and Army Corp of Engineers.  Who were all working for us.

Despite appearances, I'm extremely confident that wasn't the case. I can almost guarantee you the SSgt sitting behind a console at AFRCC was actually requesting those agencies & directing their activity.

When EMA arrived they said and I quote "we are here to support you" 

Whoa Captain, if Group 9 has to run a mission in Douglas or Edgar County, expect EMA to show up and say "I am the county ESDA director, give me a brief, I am taking command"
I would say that wherever you were, you were lucky to have humble EMA rep.

^

Rightfully so.... The ESDA/ ES/Emergency of the County could be the Sheriff or a LE collocated duty.

Another depends on the level of the EM's leadership and the ability to project him/herself in an emergency or incident situation.. In some cases, expect to be pushed aside.  The real EM's and I do mean REAL, are the ones that are going to make the decisions during the incident and will the ones making the declarations for disaster funding (Stafford)

CAP has to know its function will be that solely of support unless the gods of each squadron or Wing have some awful GOOD to great MOU's and that is where the real rubber will hit the road. 

Nothing wrong with CAP support doing flood relief, handing out sammies, ARCHER and SDIS missions, etc, but unless it get written into the CAP Bylaws, that we are first reponders, people able to make SERIOUS decisions in disasters that require MORE than SAR skills, then we are at best, SUPPORT personnel and IC'sand MC's of our own missions!!

^

NOT first responders.......