Greetings all!
We had some great content for training on September 8. We were fortunate to have one of State Emergency Management Agency’s (SEMA) trainers available to bring training to our county! Our PIO, Sam Henley (103), who also serves as the Deputy Director of Benton County Emergency Management, was happy to bring us an in-seat training of IS-100 Introduction to Incident Command. We’ll get to that in a minute.
First, we want to recognize our graduating seniors for 2020 once more. We feel, like a majority of people do, that the Class of 2020 experienced the heartbreak of a pandemic and the loss of what we would deem “normal” things they would experience. Our officers cooked up a great idea and had extra-special t-shirts made for them. On the back of the shirts, you can see our logo. What makes these shirts in particular stand out is the quote on the front: “I survived the pandemic-Senior Class 2020.” Cody, Madison, and Renee all received one of these shirts, along with a coveted St. Florian Challenge Coin.
St. Florian is the patron saint of Linz, Austria; chimney sweeps; soapmakers, and firefighters. He is commemorated each year on May 4. Here is the St. Florian prayer:
Dear God, Through the intercession of our patron, Saint Florian, have mercy on the souls of our comrades who have made the supreme sacrifice in the performance of their duty, and on all who have gone before us after years of faithful discharge of their responsibilities which now rest on ourselves.
Give us Grace to prepare each day for our own summons to Thy tribunal of justice. Into Thy hands O Lord, I commend my spirit. Withersoever Thou callest me, I am ready to go. Merciful Father of all men, save me from all bodily harm, if it be Thy will, but above all, help me to be loyal and true, respectful and honorable, obedient and valiant. Thus fortified by virtue, I shall have no fear, for I shall then belong to Thee and shall never be separated from Thee. Amen.
Next up, Texas is gaining another of our firefighters who will be on the front lines, assisting with the recovery efforts from Hurricane Laura. We wish our firefighter luck! We admire her efforts to continue gaining experience and training. We hope she’ll stay safe!
Finally, on to the training! We like to keep our training program multi-faceted (as you have seen from the training schedule!) and one of those facets is training for Incident Command while on scenes. We have all experienced the chaos and efforts to push through that chaos on scenes. We have all dealt with the headache of too many bosses and not enough workers.
The IS-100 Introduction to the Incident Command System offered through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), introduces the Incident Command System (ICS) and provides the foundation for higher level ICS training. This course describes the history, features and principles, and organizational structure of the Incident Command System. It also explains the relationship between ICS and the National Incident Management System (NIMS). The Emergency Management Institute developed its ICS courses collaboratively with:
- National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG)
- U.S. Department of Agriculture
- United States Fire Administration’s National Fire Programs Branch
With so much of the course being developed with the fire service, it is a perfect introduction to running Incident Command on fire scenes.
While this course is FREE and part of the Independent Study program, bringing it out of black and white and having it taught by an experienced instructor using some of our very own incidents as examples makes this training not only useful, but invaluable. It will take time to bring our Incident Command into line with the training, but overall, we learned A LOT!
Sam welcomes questions and inquiries on Incident Command anytime our firefighters think of them! The best way to better our district is to continue learning from a variety of sources!
Stay tuned for our next blog!
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