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Is your Emergency Management Coordinator in charge of your Mutual Aid calls?
Our county is staffed by volunteer firemen in three fire districts.
We have had Mutual Aid agreements with our surrounding counties for about 30 years now. It has always worked very well at getting the most help to where it is needed quickly. We have a new county Emergency Management Coordinator that wants to rewrite our Mutual Aid agreements. He wants to create a Strike Team and to also put himself in command any time the fire trucks leave the county. Does anyone else operate this way?
We have had Mutual Aid agreements with our surrounding counties for about 30 years now. It has always worked very well at getting the most help to where it is needed quickly. We have a new county Emergency Management Coordinator that wants to rewrite our Mutual Aid agreements. He wants to create a Strike Team and to also put himself in command any time the fire trucks leave the county. Does anyone else operate this way?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by chele on
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"This is a case of swell head syndrome and it will cure its self in time, sit back and watch." That's what we thought at first, but it's getting worse, not better!
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We'd like to think the Chiefs are in charge, but with the County Commissioners backing him?
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"They are there to facilitate and coordinate getting resources for entities within your county in times of disater (manmade or natural) not go play supervisor when you have to go help the neighbor. " YES YES YES! That is the way I see it EXACTLY! He is supposed to be a resource for US, not the other way around!
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Permalink Reply by Chief Tal Mong on
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That's a lot of miles when you are traveling 30 miles to a mutual aid call, or maybe I'm not understanding you. I hope that everyone can come to an understanding and think about the people you all serve when changing responses and mutual aid contracts, and not for the "power trip". If I remember correctly, when they tested the Ohio Emergency Response Plan, they asked for 50 pieces of fire apparatus and 50 ambulances, and received all under and hour. The projected milage was 50 miles from Columbus. It was a huge success.
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When responding to Strike Team calls two of the three departments have to travel 30 miles to meet.
When responding to Mutual Aid it just depends on where the fire is. For example, if we respond to one of the OK counties from our department to their southern border it can mean over 50 miles of travel. It could be over 80 miles for the other two departments.
Our goal is to provide the best coverage of our county at all times while assisting our mutual aid counties as best as we can. Helping them helps us when it's our turn to need help. With the miles and miles of open grasslands and rugged country fighting fire often requires numerous departments to work together. We want to preserve the mutual good will and cooperation that we have always had with our bordering counties. So far the response to the commissioners letter has been very negative from the surrounding counties. It doesn't help them a bit to have their county less covered. I think common sense will prevail and we'll be able to persuade the commissioners to back their Emergency Management Coordinator in performing HIS job duties, not ours. In our county it has always been a non-issue when it comes to cooperating with all emergency entities. Fire, EMS, and SO have always worked seamlessly together. We want to perserve that while incorperating the resource our EMC should be; we'd like him to be on the same page or get one that is.
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Permalink Reply by FETC on
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No.
He has no jurisdictional authority.
In our area the EM Coordinator is not in charge of anything. He is the mutual aid coordinator and he is the chief of the mutual aid dispatch system.
But by state law; the town or city in which the emergency is happening in, has full control and is in-charge of all emergency scene operations.
What usually occurs here is the EM Coordinator will respond to the incident and assist the local incident commander with radio communications/support.
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Permalink Reply by PFC Harmon on
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No the OIC is the highest ranking member or who ever is in charge of the initial fire department responding. Our emergency management coordinator only deals with mainly administrative duties or as a liaison with TEMA (Tennessee emergency management) or FEMA.
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Also each county has it's own EMA office and coordinator and full staff around ten people to get paid to do something............... actually I don't know what they do but they all have new vehicles and equipment but we have to beg for fuel for our fire engine huh.............
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Permalink Reply by Tony P on
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The man is on a power trip. He wants to change the title of his job to 'Emperor'.
We have a totally different system, but I can make some comparisons with one aspect of our operations - luckily our equiv. power trippers have no legal right to do what they want to do. And when we operate under a State law, that beats a would-be Emperor every time.
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Permalink Reply by BillySFCVFD on
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To me it seems that your EMC needs to validate his job or has power issues. Either or can be dangerous. TCSS
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