In a major incident, the first five minutes rarely look organized.
Information is incomplete. Dispatch is still receiving conflicting reports. Additional units may be 20, 30, or 45 minutes away. The incident may cross jurisdictional boundaries before anyone fully understands what is happening. Radio traffic increases, supervisors are pulled in several directions, and responders begin solving the problems in front of them immediately.
Yet those first few decisions can influence the remainder of the incident.
Where is command established? What is the immediate life-safety priority? What must happen first? What can wait? What resources are actually available? What resources need to be requested now? Where will incoming units report? Who is responsible for each operational function?
These are not simply Incident Command System questions.
They are operational decisions.
Rural Incidents Create a Different Command Environment
Much of incident command training is built around sound principles, but rural responders frequently have to apply those principles under very different conditions.
A rural sheriff’s office may initially have only one or two deputies available. A volunteer fire department may have personnel responding from home or work. An EMS agency may have one ambulance committed to the incident while simultaneously remaining responsible for emergency coverage across a large geographic area.
Specialized resources may be available, but they may be an hour away.
The nearest trauma center may be distant.
Mutual aid may be responding from several jurisdictions with different procedures, radio systems, terminology, and leadership structures.
The first arriving officer, firefighter, EMT, paramedic, or supervisor may therefore be responsible for beginning an incident organization that must grow from one responder making decisions into a coordinated multiagency operation.
That transition is where command either begins to work, or begins to fail.
Command Is More Than Establishing a Command Post
Effective incident command is not simply announcing, “I have command.”
The command function must create order from uncertainty.
That means identifying what is actually happening, establishing priorities, communicating those priorities, assigning responsibility, anticipating what the incident will require next, and continuously adjusting the organization as conditions change.
A strong initial commander should be thinking beyond the problem immediately in front of them.
If five units are needed now, what will be needed in 30 minutes?
If the only access road becomes blocked, what is the alternate route?
If mutual-aid ambulances arrive, where will they stage?
If multiple agencies respond, who will integrate them into the operation?
If the incident produces casualties, who will manage triage, treatment, transportation, and hospital distribution?
If the first operational strategy fails, what is the next option?
Command is ultimately the process of converting information into decisions and decisions into coordinated action.
The Five-Minute Principle
One of the central concepts emphasized in Viking Emergency Preparedness Consultants’ training is straightforward:
The decisions made during the first five minutes can affect the remainder of the operational period.
Those decisions do not have to be perfect.
They do have to establish direction.
An effective initial incident commander should rapidly begin answering several fundamental questions:
- What is the immediate threat to life?
- What is the incident likely to become?
- What resources do I currently control?
- What resources will I need before they become an emergency?
- Where should incoming resources report?
- What operational functions need separate supervision?
- What hazards could injure responders?
- What information must be communicated to responding agencies?
- When does the incident require Unified Command?
- What must be accomplished during the next operational period?
Waiting for perfect information can be its own operational decision, and sometimes the most damaging one.
Introducing the Rural Incident Command Course
To address these challenges, Viking Emergency Preparedness Consultants, LLC is offering the Rural Incident Command Course, designed specifically around the realities facing rural and smaller public-safety organizations.
This is not an exercise in memorizing ICS terminology.
The course focuses on command under pressure, operational decision-making, resource limitations, mutual aid, span of control, communications, and the transition from an initial response into an organized multiagency incident.
Participants are challenged to think as incident commanders rather than simply identify positions on an organizational chart.
The course examines the decisions leaders may face when the incident grows faster than the resources available to manage it.
Law Enforcement
The law-enforcement version is a Missouri POST-approved course designed for police departments, sheriff’s offices, supervisors, command personnel, and officers who may serve as the initial incident commander.
Scenarios and discussions emphasize issues such as:
- rapidly establishing command;
- law-enforcement incident priorities;
- active and evolving threats;
- perimeter and access control;
- evacuation and shelter-in-place decisions;
- staging responding agencies;
- managing spontaneous mutual aid;
- integrating fire and EMS resources;
- command-post operations;
- communications discipline;
- intelligence and situational awareness;
- transitioning to Unified Command; and
- maintaining normal law-enforcement responsibilities while a major incident consumes agency resources.
For a small department or sheriff’s office, the first supervisor may not have a command staff immediately available. The course is designed around that reality.
Fire Service
The fire-service version places participants in the command environment common to rural and combination departments.
The focus includes:
- establishing command with limited initial staffing;
- size-up and incident priorities;
- accountability;
- responder safety;
- operational modes;
- division and group development;
- water-supply and apparatus considerations;
- mutual-aid integration;
- technical or specialized resource requests;
- communications;
- evacuation;
- mass-casualty considerations;
- transition to Unified Command; and
- preparing for an extended operational period.
A rural fire incident may expand from a single engine response into a multiagency operation involving law enforcement, EMS, emergency management, utilities, public works, and regional resources. Command must be able to expand with it.
Emergency Medical Services
The EMS version is approved for EMS continuing education and addresses command from the perspective of ambulance services and medical operations.
Participants work through decisions involving:
- EMS branch and medical-group organization;
- mass-casualty incident activation;
- triage;
- treatment;
- ambulance staging;
- transportation;
- patient distribution;
- hospital coordination;
- maintaining community 911 coverage;
- requesting additional ambulance resources;
- integrating mutual-aid providers;
- patient and resource accountability;
- communications degradation;
- medically vulnerable populations; and
- sustaining operations during an extended incident.
One of the most difficult responsibilities for an EMS leader during an MCI is resisting the urge to commit every available resource to the scene.
The incident still exists within a community that continues to experience cardiac arrests, vehicle crashes, medical emergencies, and other calls for service.
Operational command requires leaders to manage the incident and the system simultaneously.
One Incident—Multiple Disciplines
Major incidents do not respect agency boundaries.
A flood is not solely an EMS incident.
A mass-casualty event is not solely a fire incident.
A large evacuation is not solely a law-enforcement incident.
Effective command requires public-safety disciplines to understand what their partners are trying to accomplish and how their respective missions fit within a common operational picture.
That is why the Rural Incident Command Course can be delivered specifically for law enforcement, fire service, or EMS, or structured as a multidisciplinary program.
The goal is not to make every participant perform another discipline’s job.
The goal is to make leaders understand how their decisions affect everyone else operating at the incident.
Requested Does Not Mean Available
Another principle emphasized throughout the course is:
A resource is not operationally available simply because it has been requested.
There is an important difference between a resource that is:
Requested → Approved → Responding → Checked in → Assigned → Operational → Released
Incident commanders must plan from resources they actually control while anticipating the arrival of those they have requested.
That distinction becomes critical in rural incidents where travel distance, weather, simultaneous emergencies, staffing shortages, or jurisdictional obligations may prevent requested resources from arriving when expected.
A command plan built entirely around resources that have not yet arrived is not a plan; it is an assumption.
Training for the Decision, Not the Answer
There is rarely one perfect answer during a complex incident.
Two experienced commanders may choose different strategies, and both may be defensible.
The more important questions are:
What information did you have?
What risks did you identify?
What priority were you attempting to accomplish?
What resources did you actually have?
What did you anticipate happening next?
How did you communicate the decision?
When did you reassess it?
That is the environment the Rural Incident Command Course is intended to create.
Participants should leave the classroom more comfortable making decisions precisely because they have been placed in situations where the decisions were intentionally uncomfortable.
Preparing Before the Incident Chooses You
The time to determine how your organization will establish command, request mutual aid, manage staging, communicate across disciplines, protect system coverage, and transition into Unified Command is not when the incident is already occurring.
Those conversations should happen beforehand.
Training should create the opportunity to make difficult decisions when the consequences are simulated, so leaders are better prepared when the consequences are real.
Viking Emergency Preparedness Consultants, LLC’s Rural Incident Command Course is available for law enforcement, fire service, EMS, and multidisciplinary public-safety organizations.
The law-enforcement program is Missouri POST-approved, and the EMS program is approved for EMS continuing education hours.
If your organization is interested in bringing practical, scenario-driven incident command training to your personnel, contact Viking Emergency Preparedness Consultants, LLC to discuss an agency-hosted course, association training program, or conference presentation.
Prepare today. Secure tomorrow.
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