Proposed formation of standing teams for Fire Mutual Aid response

Dated June 13, 2006

As most of you are aware by now, PRPC and the PREMAC implemented a regional fire resource dispatch center during the March wildfires in the Panhandle, using ad-hoc strike teams and task forces from various parts of the Panhandle. This dispatch center, called the Regional Resource Coordination Center (RRCC), is activated only in the event of a major incident or local government request and is normally collocated at the District Disaster Committee (DDC) facility in Amarillo. When the DDC is activated, the RRCC’s role is to coordinate local resource assistance under the Panhandle Regional Mutual Aid Agreement.

When the March wildfires hit, the new Regional Response Plan (RRP) was in the final stages of development by PREMAC, and had not been formally approved by PRPC’s member jurisdictions. The RRCC part of the plan was activated anyway for the wildfire events and it worked well. A key part of the RRCC strategy is to dispatch resources as teams (strike teams and task forces), rather than as single resources.

A clear lesson learned during the recent events is that the ad-hoc teams would be fare more effective if pre-organized as standing teams with pre-defined equipment, training, and leadership. Therefore, PREMAC is asking local fire service leaders in the Panhandle to consider organizing and administering twelve area fire service teams made up of units from multiple departments.

FD participants are our best guess. We suggest that initial team administrators should fine-tune the list of departments that might participate in each team. For the two teams without an identified administrator, we ask that the affected departments designate a leader to fill this role.

Our vision is that these pre-organized teams will be useful for local mutual aid call-outs under PERS and Sweetwater Fire Association agreements, and useful for regional incidents coordinated by RRCC. Availability would be subject to the usual mutual aid rules, but participation in area teams implies that a fire department should consider developing some "overcapacity" for this purpose.

We anticipate that the teams will become local wildfire training "centers of excellence" in each of the twelve areas. We hope that the teams will become self-sustaining, with yearly organizational meetings to elect an administrator and team leaders, consider training and equipment needs, etc.

By forming these teams form multiple departments, we can all avoid stripping any single department on wildfire red flag days, or in the event of a large structure fire conflagration. Pre-organizing with local leadership will ensure that team make-up, leadership, training, and readiness will remain local issues that are not dependent upon PRPC or PREMAC in Amarillo.

During the March wildfires, RRCC dispatch criteria was developed by Dave Cann and Steve Ross at the RRCC "on the fly", and they struggled with criteria that ranged from conservation to aggressive but leaned to toward aggressive keeping with long-established traditions in the fire service. Under the regional mutual aid agreement, such decisions are the province of jurisdiction executives, and more specific dispatch criteria will be developed by PREMAC and the PRPC board as the RRP is finalized.

Each fire team administrator is asked to organize a wildfire strike team or task force and a structure fire strike team or task force, each with designated team leaders. We suggest that after preliminary discussions among fire chiefs, the administrator of each team call an organizational meeting and apparatus muster.

As PREMAC chairman, I have asked the following individuals to facilitate formation of the twelve teams:

These individuals each have experience forming strike teams and task forces, her and in other states, and their contributions should be valuable. They will be prepared to attend your organizational meetings to further explain expectations and answer questions that may arise.

Participating agencies can expect to reap certain benefits from participation in area fire teams:

For the purpose of forming the twelve teams, we will use the following definitions:

As mentioned above, we anticipate that the fire teams can effectively operate as teams whether called out under local mutual aid agreements, Sweetwater, PERS, or regional mutual aid agreement.

Callouts under local mutual aid, PERS, and Sweetwater agreements will normally occur during the first two hours of a large incident, and might require driving distances up to 50 miles each way. Those agreements typically do not provide for cost reimbursement.

Callouts by RRCC in response to jurisdiction executive requests (regional mutual aid agreement) will ordinarily not occur until 2-3 hours into an incident, and will normally require driving distances of 50-100 miles each way. RRCC call-outs will normally be cost reimbursable by ordering jurisdiction.

For additional information, contact one of the following individuals:

Walt Kelley

PREMAC Chairman