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?

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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on March 8, 2009 at 9:58pm
If you form your own association, I'd suggest forming a second 501 (c) 3 nonprofit. You need to make the mutual aid association a seperate entity from its individual members.

If you have a corporate attorney, get him/her to check on your state's enabling legislation and find out what powers the fire department and chief have and do not have as well. Do it prior to the council meeting. You may be able to find a copy of the law as well. I'd start with this one: http://kansasstatutes.lesterama.org/Chapter_80/Article_19/#80-1905

I'd also think about having large nubmers of firefighters, rescue squad members, and whoever else you run mutual aid with attend the county council meeting. Get on the agenda for public comments, speak out, and let the elected officials know that there are a lot of you and that you VOTE.

Good luck!
Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on March 8, 2009 at 10:07pm
I think that this one also applies: http://kansasstatutes.lesterama.org/Chapter_80/Article_19/80-1917.html

and this one as well: http://kansasstatutes.lesterama.org/Chapter_80/Article_19/80-1923.html

and this one: http://kansasstatutes.lesterama.org/Chapter_80/Article_19/80-1925.html

Find out which ones apply to your department and use them as appropriate.
Permalink Reply by chele on March 8, 2009 at 10:10pm
Thanks for all your help Ben. We will look into the 501c. We will be talking to an attorney if the commissioners meeting does not go our way.

Believe me, there will be quite the mob at the court house! The fire department is having a meeting this Tuesday to prepare for the Commissioner meeting on the 18th. I already have the afternoon off. The plan is all the firemen that can go will go to that meeting. Our chief is talking to all the mutual aid chiefs involved and their EMC's and it looks like most of them will attend the meeting either in person or by written statement. As secretary I have been preparing a "script" for our chief, as has his sister. Together I think we have covered all the important issues.

Thanks too for the good luck wishes. I know it may seem like a petty thing to some, but to us it is an important issue. If we don't get the EMC stopped now there is no telling how far he will go and we are just not willing to let him take us for that ride.
Permalink Reply by Bill Muehsam on March 9, 2009 at 6:46pm
Being a former County Emergency Manager (State Certified), let me sum up this topic in one quick sentence.......Emergency Managers ARE NOT, AND NEVER SHOLD BE Incident Commanders. The role of an Emergency Manager is to coordinate and support Incident Command, NOT be part of it. By assuming the role of Incident Commander, the Emergency Manager removes a vital link in the IC/EM process. This EM apparently knows very little about Incident Command/NIMS and the role of Emergency Management.
Permalink Reply by chele on March 9, 2009 at 6:54pm
Would you please come to our County Commissioner meeting next week and tell them AND the EMC that?? Apparently it's not actually written in stone anywhere though. The Adjunct General of Kansas Emergency Preparedness didn't have anything that we could use to put a stop to this.
Permalink Reply by Bill Muehsam on March 9, 2009 at 9:50pm
His apparently hasn't taken, or passed ICS 300 or 400. Emergency Management at all levels....city, county, state, or federal, support and coordinate Incident Commanders. We aren't IC's. I teach ICS at all levels, putting an Emergency Manager "in charge" of an incident, is a recipe for disaster. Google "Intermediate ICS" or "Advanced ICS".....look for anything that references "Multi Agency Coordination". Hope this helps.
Permalink Reply by chele on March 9, 2009 at 10:06pm
Is there anything anywhere that officially states that?? That you aren't IC's??? Ironically enough, we are having the ICS 300 class this weekend. From what the office of the Adjunct told me, our Commissioners can decide to let him be anything he wants to be.

Off to google, see if I can't find something.

Thanks!!
Permalink Reply by SHAWN FORINGER on March 9, 2009 at 10:48pm
Tell the Emergency management to go pound salt .That is not his job .Its the fire dept job to make the mutual aid agreements .
Permalink Reply by chele on March 9, 2009 at 11:02pm
Thanks! It's nice to know we have the same opinion!
Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on March 10, 2009 at 12:03am
It's not an emergency preparedness issue - it's a fire-rescue issue. Keep the lawyer plugging on the state laws that give the fire department the right to sign mutual aid agreements and to determine who is in charge.

NIMS states the same thing, as Bill says below.
Bill is right - listen to him.

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