How do you get mutual aid to follow ICS?

I am a member of a small volunteer department and we have a problem with mutual aid companies working within the incident command system. Like all volunteer departments we are short handed and rely on mutual aid on all structure fires for man power and tankers. We had a structure fire recently and it became a major problem. Our asst. chief was in command and no one reported to him as they arrived. We also have a problem of a paid firefighter showing up and barking orders without confering with command. He almost got two firefighters killed because he knew the fire was in the ceiling and did not tell command. He sent them into the structure with that knowledge, and the ceiling collapsed on them. Fortunately they got out. We heard a recording of the radio trafic last night and it was evident that NONE of the other companies would go through command for anything. The asst. chief did not hear any of the radio traffic due to a poorly designed radio system. I'm sure we may be the only department in the area that trains and actually use the incident command system and the other departments all freelance to some extent on their scenes and try to on ours.
It sounds like command was out of the loop, but sometimes you do several jobs at the same time due to manpower.

How do we inbed the use if incident command into these other departments and get them to work with our scene commander without throwing them off the scene and/or PO'ing them in the process. It has ben done in the past, but we are trying to work with the other departments, even though they don't follow the rules.

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Permalink Reply by James on January 21, 2008 at 5:01pm

It is very rarely that we do mutual aid since we have about 70 volunteer firefighters. When we do our command whether it be the chief or even all the way down to sergeant the mutual aid company has to report to them unless they are told to do something on the radio before they arrive.

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Permalink Reply by Bob Bennett on January 22, 2008 at 4:55pm

I like to suggest that you set up a meeting with the other departments and have a discustion on this. It's very important to have an command system in place and use it .especially for firefighter safety. If somthing happend to a firefighter and that firefighter got injured seriously or killed you better have your ducks in a row becouse osha and niosh will be all over the incident commander and could have charges brought up against not only the ic but all the officers that are on the scene. so it's very important to have this inplace at all incidents large or small and your commander better be trained in the incident command system also and have the proper training for all his officers. and just because he your best freind he may not have the proper training for that position. think about.

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Permalink Reply by Jason Crawford on January 22, 2008 at 5:32pm

Most of what want to say is already on here but, there is no better way. DO NOT CALL THEM. If a department operates in a deliberately unsafe manner then they are not a fire department. Job one is making sure everyone goes home. Every department has thier own way of running. Thats always going to be true. But the goals of every single department should be the same. Its your sandbox, your rules. If they dont want to play by them then they dont need to come play. We have 8 departments within a few miles of eachother where I get to work. Each one of them has things they "hate" about eachother but amazingly we are all able to get along when we get to a scene. Your Chief needs to go and talk to the other chiefs and tell them that there is no other way than to play by your rules. And if they dont want to play by them then let him know then and there. Nobody can give you a valid argument as to why the ICS shoul dnot be used. Even on a leaking water pipe in a building. You have 4 people who know how to communicate to eachother. Good Luck