[MRIC] New Information on the ICS-213

[Joe]

Hello All,

In line with Pat's comments...

Today, I was invited to and attended a 1st Responder Summit in DC. The
Summit was sponsored by the Public Safety & Homeland Security Bureau. Those
responsible for Public Safety communications from all over the country
attended the summit. The topic of discussion was cross jurisdiction and
multiple discipline interoperability. Public Safety & Homeland Security
Bureau officials moderated three panel discussions and one roundtable. I
took advantage of the opportunity to discuss Amateur Radio support and NIMS
with a number of DHS/FEMA representatives and a SAFECOM board member. One
outcome of the discussions was the following.

The purpose of ICS forms is to provided for the management of an incident
from onset to conclusion and the orderly turnover of the incident from one
shift to another shift. It was stated that the forms from the DHS Unified
Command distribution are the accepted forms for use in cross jurisdictional
and multiple discipline incidents, this includes the ICS-213 General Message
form. The use of anything else or use of modified ICS forms takes away from
the interoperability we are moving towards as dictated by Presidential
directive. 

The purpose of a unified standard set of techniques is to facilitate the
management of an incident, eliminate confusion when personnel cross
jurisdictional or discipline boundaries and promote shift to shift turnovers
during an incident.

We must take this into consideration along with funding requirements when we
consider modifying ICS forms for use in our respective jurisdictions.

On a related note, the SAFECOM board member alluded that a revisited FOG
(Field Operating Guide) is due for publication during the 3rd quarter and
will contain an expanded section on Public Safety Communications.

Have a great night and I'll see you all on Saturday.


Joseph Krysztoforski
Baltimore County R.O.
Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Management



-----Original Message-----
From: mric-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:mric-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On
Behalf Of Pat Scolla
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 5:35 PM
To: mric at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [MRIC] New Information on the ICS-213

Because of the large amount of discussion on what we can and cannot add 
or delete to the ICS-213, my Emergency manager and I went to FEMA's NIMS 
Integration Center and learned the following:

"There appear to be two questions here; the major one seems to be 
whether the ICS-213 General Message Form can be altered for use in a 
given jurisdiction.  The simple answer is no, it cannot be altered.  We 
believe that what we are after in NIMS standardization is, during a 
large-scale, multi-jurisdictional event, that they have a 'General 
Message' form that any person from across the country could recognize 
and use with little or no additional training if they came to help.

As for the use of the ICS-213 by an agency as a requirement to gain 
state and federal funding, this is true when the agency is, like above, 
engaged in a large-scale event."

In further discussion with the NIMS Integration Center the officially 
recommended ICS-213 form to be used can be found at FEMA's ICS Resource 
Center:  http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/ICSResource/ICSResCntr_Forms.htm

However, off the record, I was told that FEMA will accept without 
problem the alternate version of the NFES 1336 form dated 1/79 which can 
be found at  www.nimsonline.com/nfes_ics/NFES_ICS-213.pdf.  it was also 
stated that one could use the NOAA ICS-213 with little risk of FEMA 
becoming upset, and this form can be found at 
http://www.dps.state.vt.us/vem/races/NOAA_ICS-213.pdf

Preambles, word counts, MESSAGE TYPE, etc., are not acceptable additions 
to the ICS-213 Form by FEMA.  The addition of a Jurisdiction's name or 
logo is tolerated, however.

We can discuss this more at tomorrow's meeting.

73,
Pat Scolla, wb0egr
Harford County EC & RO




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