Journal Assignment
Imagine that you are the chief of a fire department or an emergency medical services unit. A master plan was recently completed in your department/unit, and the following major recommendations were made to the department/unit: (1) increase the staffing of all companies to four on-duty persons to meet NFPA safety standards; (2) construct a new fire rescue station to reduce response times on the average of about 4 minutes; and (3) start a new fire safety education program that would require engine companies to be out of service two hours each shift even on the weekend and holidays. How do you think each of the following people will react to these recommendations: (1) the union president, (2) the public, (3) the press, (4) the city manager, and (5) the city council? How would you, and the chief, response to their reactions?
Your journal entry must be at least 200 words. No references or citations are necessary.
Project
Incident Action Plan: Phase 1
For this assignment, you will begin working on an Incident Action Plan (IAP), which is due in Unit VIII. There are five phases to the IAP, and you will complete Phase 1 for this assignment. Refer to the FEMA Incident Action Planning Guide, specifically Phase 1. See the Unit VIII assignment instructions for more details about the final requirements for the IAP.
The incident action planning process will be a way for you to plan and execute operations on any incident that may occur within the community provided in the scenario. This means that incident action planning will be more than producing an IAP. It will be a set of activities in each unit that provides a consistent rhythm and structure to incident management of any type.
In several units of this course, through the incident action planning process, you will begin developing a tool that will synchronize operations at the incident level to ensure that incident operations are conducted in support of incident objectives. The incident action planning process is built on the following phases:
1. understand the situation;
2. establish incident objectives;
3. develop the plan;
4. prepare and disseminate the plan; and
5. execute, evaluate, and revise the plan.
During each phase, you will prepare a well-organized and thoughtful summary/narrative consisting of two sections. One section will consist of a one-to-two-page narrative for each phase of the IAP. In this assignment, your narrative will consist of your evaluation of Phase 1 of the IAP. Phase 1 covers the operational period, which is the period of time scheduled for executing a given set of operational actions as specified in the IAP. Chapter 4 of the textbook National Incident Management System: Principles and Practice (pp. 45-46) defines the operational period and the specific incident mission requirements needed to begin Phase 1.
The second section of your summary/narrative will consist of at least three pages in which you address the following issues:
• if or when the Finance/Administration section should be established during an emergency incident;
• if the emergency incident requires a Finance/Administration section, determine when it should have pre-established agreements, contracts, and a procedural process with local vendors, suppliers, and contractors on equipment and/or supplies that could be required during the emergency;
• if the emergency incident does not require a Finance/Administration section, determine why it does not need preestablished agreements, contracts, and a procedural process with local vendors, suppliers, and contractors on equipment and/or supplies that could be required during the emergency;
• and explain the importance of a budget for fire and emergency medical services (EMS) administration in preparation for emergency incidents
For Phase 1, retrieve the ICS Form 201: Incident Briefing from the IAP Assignment Documents folder in the course menu in Blackboard, and begin entering the data from the background information documents and the scenario you choose. This information and other resources will enable you to complete Phase 1 of the IAP. Check with your instructor if you are having difficulty with any section of the form.
You will choose one event from the different incident scenarios that could occur on Little Columbia Southern Island. Please click here to view the scenarios (ATTACHED). The background information will be the same for all five events; however, the emergency event will be different. The five incident scenarios are listed below: (ATTACHED)
• fire-related emergency,
• storm-related emergency,
• public health-related emergency,
• environmental-related emergency,
• and mass shooter incident.
In addition, you are provided photos of various places on Little Columbia Southern Island to help you evaluate the conditions for the scenario you choose.
Refer to these documents for this assignment as well as all other assignments when completing the IAP.
Use any available resource that your community has available as if it were Columbia County. For instance, if your county has 23 sets of fire apparatus equipment, then make them available if needed for Columbia County, or if your county has a mobile medical clinic and it is a part of your plan, then list it on the form. These resources will be listed on ICS Form 201. The purpose of this assignment is for you to apply the concepts and knowledge you learned in this unit to begin writing the IAP. Also, this assignment provides you with the opportunity to use your skills, expertise, and experience to enrich your response.
To supplement your discussion and support your writing, you may use information from reputable, reliable journal articles, case studies, scholarly papers, and other sources that you feel are pertinent. You should use at least three sources that can include one or both of your textbooks. All sources used, including the textbook(s), must be referenced; paraphrased and quoted material must have accompanying citations in proper APA style.
Both the summary/narrative and the completed ICS Form 202 should be uploaded into the assignment area in Blackboard.
NOTE: This assignment is a part of the Unit VIII Final Project. Your assignment w ill be graded according to the assigned rubric, and the professor w ill provide feedback to you. This feedback w ill help you to correct any discrepancies before compiling this assignment into the final IAP. This w ill help you to submit a quality IAP and achieve an overall better review and grade.
Format your assignment according to the following formatting requirements:
1. The answer should be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides.
2. The response also include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student's name, the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required page length.
3. Also Include a reference page. The Citations and references should follow APA format. The reference page is not included in the required page length.
Course Textbook(s)
Smeby, L. C., Jr. (2014). Fire and emergency services administration: Management and leadership practices (2nd ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Walsh, D. W., Christen, H. T., Jr., Callsen, C. E., Jr., Miller, G. T., Maniscalco, P. M., Lord, G. C., & Dolan, N. J. (2012). National incident management system: Principles and practice (2nd ed.). Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.