EMC009 ICS Unified Command To: Emergency Communications Units - Information Bulletin By: Auxiliary Communications Service (ACS), the volunteer communications reserve of the State of California Governor's Office of Emergency Services A unified command structure, as will be soon needed in our fire scenario, can consist of a key responsible official from each jurisdiction in a multi-jurisdictional situation, or it can consist of several functional departments within a single political jurisdiction such as Law, Health and Fire. In our fire situation, there are two towns and a city involved, as well as several county fire departments, and two law agencies. Under the unified command these are the items of cooperation: - determining overall incident objectives - selection of strategies - ensure joint planning for tactical activities - ensure integrated tactical operations are conducted - make maximum use of all assigned resources ICS terminology, as given in the basic ICS familiarization course (ICS-I-120 Self Paced) lists a glossary of 70 phrases or terms the ICS responder should study. Some are meaningful chiefly to fire responders, such as Water Tender, Air Tanker and Engine. Communications responders who may become involved with a fire response should study and become familiar with ALL the terms. For other ICS applications, that may not be needed, but there are essential terms ALL communications responders need to know thoroughly. Some of the essential terms have been covered in describing our scenario: Incident Commander, Staging Area, Operations Section Chief, Logistics Section Chief, Incident Command Post, Incident Base, Planning Section Chief, Liaison Officer and Communications Unit Leader. More ICS terms in the next bulletin. E-mail crm@oes.ca.gov or seh@oes.ca.gov. Telephone 916-262-1600 Internet:http://www.garlic.com/oes W6WWW@KM6PX.#NOCAL.USA.NA BBS 916-262-1657 FAX 916-262-1677. Packet: W6SIG@WA6NWE.CA ACS c/o State OES, 2800 Meadowview Rd., Sacramento, CA. 95832 EOM EMC009