Incident Command System- The Best Way To Manage Incidents

The incident command system is an approach to manage the on-scene and all hazard incidents. The system is flexible and can be used for any type of incidents be it simple or complex. The ICS users can adopt an organizational structure so that the demands and complexities of multiple incidents can be matched.

ICS has been used by different levels of government like federal, state, tribal and local. Apart from this, various non-government and private sector organizations also use it.

Mainly five areas are facilitated through ICS and these are commanded, operations, planning, logistics and finance/administration.

Different kinds of problems can be addressed by ICS like:

• Many people report to a single supervisor
• Lacking incident information
• Inadequate communication with lack of compatibility.
• Difference in terminologies among agencies

In the year 1980, the officials of the federal government transitioned ICS into a national program which was named as National Interagency Incident Management System or NIIMS. This further became the basis of response management system for all the agencies of the federal government with wildfire management responsibilities.

If ICS and incident command equipment are used in all types of incident and planned events, it will hone and maintain skills for the management of large scale incidents.