The Arizona Republic Phoenix Community edition features a monthly column written by Fire Chief Bob Khan

City of Phoenix Public Information Office - News Clippings - azcentral.com - February 2, 2008

"NIMS" pulls together emergency responses

If someone heard a group talking about the word “NIMS” he or she probably wouldn’t understand the significance of a National Incident Management System and yet on September 11th we saw it’s importance evolve out of the World Trade Center disaster.  In Arizona we’ve seen the concept used at the Rodeo Chediski fire, at marches, during sporting events, and in California we saw it used at the 2007 wildland fires.

If you are a first responder – fire/rescue, law enforcement, public health, emergency management – this system has become the backbone of protecting not just the Phoenix metropolitan area, but municipalities across the United States.  So if you have a chemical fire, a hostage situation, or an evacuation, public safety now has a tool in the form of NIMS to help us add resources and appropriately manage an escalating event.

For example, locally we just had more than a million people fly into Sky Harbor International Airport for Super Bowl weekend.  Eighteen months ago, a NIMS compliant organization was put together to manage public safety for the event.  The organization is using the NIMS system to handle crowd control, manage medical response, and bring forward a whole host of other special response teams should something happen during the game or any of its associated events.   What at one time would have probably been a complicated, labor-intensive effort has become a clinical exercise based on relationships and planning. 

In 1995, I worked with Assistant Chief John Hansen of the Oklahoma Fire Department on developing a book about public information and the International Fire Service Training Association.  In 1995 John Hansen had just come off of being the information officer at the Murrow Building in Oklahoma City.  At that time we used key NIMS terminology.  We talked about Joint Operation Centers known as JOCs and Joint Information Centers known as JICs.  Back then when I listened to those more worldly fire service individuals using those acronyms, I thought they were describing some sort of a topical rash.  Eighteen years later those words truly have become the foundation for managing a major event, either natural or man-made.

For all of you who attend major events, the responsibility really is on us in public safety to provide you with the highest level of prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery to an incident.  What we’ve discovered through NIMS is that the way we practice and perform today will play itself out should we need to react to a large-scale situation. 

Professionals operating within a NIMS organization are connected on a regular basis to pull together federal law enforcement response teams and specialized fire/rescue teams from across the United States to support and work with your local police and firefighters come what may.  A good example would be our Urban Search & Rescue team’s response to the World Trade Center or to New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina.

In fact, the Phoenix Fire Department has just trained 30 members to be part of a specialized All Hazards Incident Management Team that has the ability to command and manage events of any cause.  This group is well versed in emergency response plans that integrate local, state and federal agencies.  Truly this is an amazing machine and I thought you would want to know about it.    Be safe!

Send comments to Bob Khan at firechief.pfd@phoenix.gov or call (602) 26-CHIEF.