Incident command

Wednesday afternoon, Lincoln Fire & Rescue responded to a residential fire in the 1700 block of Connie Rd.  that proved to be a structure fire that started in a car parked in the attached garage.  It was a dangerous situation, but had a successful outcome: no one was hurt and the house and contents, though suffering serious damage, were largely saved from destruction.

I was working on some budget issues in my office, and an afternoon meeting had been cancelled.  As a result, I was able to follow the events unfolding on the radio intently, a rare treat.  As usual, I was incredibly impressed, as Battalion Chief Leo Benes commanded operations on the fire ground.  Like fire departments nationwide LF&R follows the Incident Command System (ICS), a component of the National Incident Management System.  NIMS emerged from the fire service and was born of harsh experience of tragedies in wildfire operations in the western United States during the 1970's. It has since been adopted nationwide as the model for complex emergency operations.

Today, all LF&R personnel, all LPD officers, and scores of City employees in other agencies such as the Public Works and Health Departments have been trained in ICS/NIMS.  Firefighters get the most reps, as they practice Incident Command on a daily basis.  This is because firefighting and emergency medical services are almost always a team sport, whereas most of what the police do is an individual one. For me, it is a thing of beauty to behold.  I've commanded plenty of soup sandwiches during my career, but I still marvel at and envy the calm, composed, deportment of LF&R battalion chiefs and fire captains--and LPD police captains and sergeants--when the barricaded suspect is lobbing rifle fire or the flames are licking the soffits, and the combined efforts of many personnel must be coordinated and controlled.

These women and men are able to think clearly, act decisively, and marshal their resources to a common aim with incredible skill and under the harshest of circumstances.  They often do so in a manner that almost seems second nature.  Listen to the radio I carry, and you'll have a new appreciation for the work of our incident commanders and their forces, whether they wear SCBA or body armor.