Least Resistance Training Concepts
(LRTC)

Volunteers Training for Emergencies

  LRTC Emergency Response Team
Information Sheet
EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS

PART TWO

This information sheet is a continuation of Part One.

Interagency communications within the fire service and within law enforcement have been substantially addressed, however integrating responders from other entities such as Public Works, Utilities, Animal Control, Road Departments, specialty teams, NGOs and organized stakeholders into an incident communications plan can still be challenging.

Acquiring and repurposing communications equipment is often relatively easy, however a practical plan for the distribution and use of this equipment is often missing from planning documents. What frequencies are appropriate to use? Who can be permitted to use them? How should and how can these assets be distributed?

Other issues involve how responders deployed on foot, horseback or OHV can best communicate effectively between themselves, and how professional out of area and qualified spontaneous responders can communicate with other elements in their assigned branch of an incident if they don't possess compatible radio equipment. Communications plans must be relevant to the types of activities anticipated and the operational modes employed to achieve tactical objectives.

Communications systems employed must have practical application for each particular operation.

Peer-to-peer support among stakeholders must also be considered and accepted.

Real-life experiences have clearly demonstrated that particularly during the early onsets of significant incidents, stakeholders tend to use resources familiar to them for evacuation and support. Such predictable actions can produce a host of spontaneous and non-coordinated activities within an expanding emergency area that at times can be distracting to fire and incident security personnel.

Using domestic livestock as an at-risk example, stakeholders commonly rely on each other for assistance during non-emergency periods and thus can be expected to utilize those same resources during emergencies. By pre-planning a system where non-coordinated responders can readily communicate with some element of the ICS Animal Rescue Group, not only can the degree of otherwise undocumented peer-to-peer operations be identified and potentially coordinated, but Animal Rescue Group resources are less likely to waste time responding to locations where, otherwise unbeknownst to them, evacuation needs have been already resolved.

Some form of integration can increase civilian safety and reduce the number of unnecessary ARG responses. However there has to be some pre-incident outreach to relevant stakeholders so that they become aware of the communications plan and understand what they need in order to integrate into it.

Sending resources to locations where livestock have already been removed is a
common occurrence that wastes the time of responders and presents unnecessary risks.

The credentialed Lyon County team utilizes various communications systems. The Strike Team Leader typically has direct public safety radio communications with Dispatch as well as with the individual at the Incident Command Post (ICP) responsible for issuing the team's assignments. Common communications between vehicles are generally provided via a predesignated CB channel. On-scene communications between individual members are generally provided using GMRS / FRS handheld radios using a predesignated channel. Such distribution of internal team traffic avoids auxiliary chatter from being carried over public safety tactical channels and keeps SAR frequencies free for more critical SAR evacuation traffic. In theory the system is pretty complete.

However as experienced during the Little Valley and associated fires, the Lyon County team was eventually broken up into three segments to cover distant distinctive areas. Out of county resources were merged with these segments to create new functional teams and task forces. The fundamental ICS concept of establishing common communications between elements of teams and task forces became non viable due to lack of communications interoperability among the hastily formed assets.

Animal resources from Washoe County, Lyon County, Douglas County and Nevada County (CA)
assembled during the Little Valley fire as a task force to respond to the new Rolling Hills fire.
GMRS / FRS handhelds were cached out in order to provide at least short-range communications.

  PRACTICAL PRE-INCIDENT PLANNING

The following recommendations are based on actual experiences serving in public safety, emergency and disaster planning, and as credentialed auxiliary responders to significant wide-area emergency incidents. These concepts are pretty basic, but they can often be overlooked as planners tackle more significant and tangible issues. While the focal area being discussed involves large animals, the same concepts would apply to other auxiliary functions.

  1. Plans should include a formal notification and mobilization process for auxiliary responders.

    Livestock evacuations typically require greater reflex times for responders to "hook up," cache out required gear and perform pre-response inspections. Confusion and/or delays in notifying and mobilizing qualified auxiliary resources can add to these reflex and response times, reducing the effectiveness of auxiliary teams. In circumstances involving expanding emergencies, delays can place volunteers and affected citizens at greater risk.

    For example, in Lyon County we typically initially rely on SMS texting whereupon the county's Emergency Manager (EM) provides early notification indicating that auxiliary resources may be needed and describing anticipated resource needs. If the incident warrants a response, the EM then provides specific orders with respect to staging instructions, contact details, and where within the incident command hierarchy the responders will operate.

    Typically, team leaders receive directives from the EM or Emergency Coordination Center (ECC) whereupon the leaders would relay relevant details to members who would in turn prepare to assemble and respond.

  2. Plans should include predesignated modes of communications between auxiliary response team leaders and dispatch centers and/or the ICP.

    While in theory auxiliary responders would most desirably operate in tandem with law enforcement or SAR escorts, in reality a limited number of potential escort resources in proportion to needs won't always allow such models to be followed. One operational theory is to hold fast until all the desired resources can be assembled. However if authorized responders are not perceived as being effective by citizens, that perception often produces an increase in citizen freelancing, particularly among commonly recognized stakeholders.

    Clearly there are distinctively different issues when it comes to responsibility over requested auxiliary volunteers versus freelancers, so formally requested resources cannot simply operate without any element of supervision and control. When escorts are not available it may be necessary for priority needs to be communicated directly from the ICP to qualified team leaders and for those team leaders to be able to provide progress reports back to the ICP, preserve volunteer accountability, receive and provide critical updates, etc.

  3. Plans should include determining a commonly accessible mode of communications for use between auxiliary responders.

    Virtually everyone carries mobile telephones and they can be very useful. However for a variety of reasons mobile cellular and SMS text communications are vulnerable. Many remote locations are not even served by the mobile cellular network. Therefore in order to maintain a consistent level of communications among auxiliary responders, a reliable mode of communications that is reasonably accessible by everyone should be included in pre-incident plans.

    Since assigned local responders, assigned out-of-area responders, qualified spontaneous volunteers and stakeholders may be simultaneously involved in evacuation activities, communications systems for this class of responders should be "globally" accessible. Citizens' Band is one radio service that anyone can utilize.

  4. Plans should include guidelines for utilizing stakeholders and spontaneous responders.

    One incident objective is to minimize freelance activities within an emergency zone. However in the field of livestock transport, stakeholders and/or spontaneous volunteers may have assets and capabilities that could help facilitate incident evacuation objectives and/or that the assigned responders may need.

    Coordinated utilization of qualified stakeholders and spontaneous responders can serve to focus and control the activities of these individuals. Assigning such resources, when appropriate, to lower-risk activities can help achieve incident goals while at the same time reduce free-lance activities in the higher risk areas of an incident.

    Using examples from actual incidents, credible spontaneous volunteers have been paired up with accredited auxiliary responders to increase transportation capacity. They have been assigned support functions at relay points and shelters. They have provided "relay transportation" whereupon they received animals transferred from professionals and volunteers qualified to operate in the "hot zone" for delivery to distant shelter destinations. In other instances spontaneous volunteers had access to and could deliver needed supplies and/or equipment.

  5. Plans should include some practical process for accounting for all resources.

    Additional resources that accept appropriate assignments or may become attached to formally organized teams need to be identified, categorized, and accounted for. Presumably a Staging Area Manager, Rescue Group Supervisor (if deployed in the field,) or Strike Team / Task Force Leader would be the likely individual tasked with identifying and recording additional arriving resources, assessing their capabilities and determining how they might be integrated into operations as may be appropriate.

    Not all pre-incident plans include such duties and responsibilities or prescribe methods for including auxiliary and/or spontaneous volunteer resource information in the incident's Personnel Accountability Reporting (PAR) system.

  6. Plans should include identifying reliable means for receiving real-time relevant intelligence from auxiliary personnel, stakeholders and reputable spontaneous responders.

    Understanding the dimensions and behavior of a rapidly developing incident can be critical to making effective strategic decisions, the safety of all personnel and operational efficiency. Some reliable method should be employed wherein auxiliary responders are able to provide relevant reports on conditions that could ultimately be forwarded to the Planning Section in a non-intrusive manner.

    Particularly when aircraft are unable to operate or when fire behavior is obscured by smoke, accurate real-time intelligence from the ground can be an important asset. However to maximize relevance, auxiliary personnel should be provided with some knowledge with respect to issues in their areas of operation that are of concern to the ICP as well as proper protocols for reporting critical information.

  7. Plans should include providing relevant information to auxiliary resources at Staging in order for other planning elements to be more likely to succeed.

    On more than one occasion auxiliary responders have turned out on inter-county requests, in compliance with all relevant procedures and protocols, only to arrive at staging to find confusion or nobody in charge. Such circumstances, usually the product of extreme behavior exhibited by the incident, contribute to an immediate breakdown of continuity, control and accountability, and measurably impact performance. Incident Action Plans for auxiliary services may no longer be relevant and command personnel could easily be preoccupied with other multiple critical tasks. Auxiliary responders need the tools to adapt to changing circumstances and still operate within the Incident Command System.

    Fire and law enforcement Staging Area Managers typically stay pretty busy during the early stages of a rapidly expanding incident. By the very nature of their professions, their skill sets tend to favor making sound decisions involving fire / LE assets rather than auxiliary resources. For Lyon County incidents, auxiliary resources typically fall under the direction of Search and Rescue where personnel are well trained and experienced in staging, managing and directing such resources. Where our team has found itself "lost in the weeds" has usually been during responses to other counties where there appeared to be no clear procedure for integrating auxiliary resources, where those persons responsible for such integration were overwhelmed, where no formal briefings were provided, and/or where communications links intended to facilitate successful integration failed.

    In such circumstances our team has "made do" by improvising while making best efforts to maintain operational safety, ICS integration, achieving the objectives of the IAP, and resolving issues that prompted civilians to remain in high risk areas. While it should be acknowledged that such conditions could occur in any rapidly expanding incident, a number of these elements should be more thoroughly organized before a serious event. It is clearly evident that trying to construct details of an operational plan while at a dead run is not a desirable strategy.

    Although this report is driven primarily by the need to better organize radio communications, written documentation is also critically important. What we have experienced missing from out-of-county staging areas that would have been highly valuable have been:

    • Area maps

    • A written communications plan (that actually works)

    • A summary of strategic objectives and priorities

    • Critical safety information (fire behavior, water movement, road closures, wires down, etc.)

    • Team, resource and individual accountability

    • Event-specific response protocols

    • Validated destination instructions (for animal relocations)

    • Documentation to record responses, actions taken, animal relocations, etc.

    • Adaptation boundaries, including general parameters for utilizing non-credentialed resources

    While it may not be practical to provide all of this information in writing, some form of checklist should be developed so that resources are properly briefed and important information and instructions are not overlooked.

It can be difficult to develop plans to integrate auxiliary resources during an event
when the CP and Staging Area are under threat of being overrun by the incident.

Continue to Part Three, Communications Specifics

Return to Part One


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