Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge unveiled the completed National Response Plan Thursday at a press conference at the National Governor’s Association in Washington, D.C. The NRP is the centerpiece of DHS efforts under Ridge to improve the management of large-scale domestic emergencies, or “Incidents of National Significance,” to use the term coined in the NRP.

“With the National Response Plan, our nation and its federal, state, local and tribal response communities now have a comprehensive, all-hazards tool for domestic incident management across the spectrum of prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery,” said Ridge. “The complex and emerging threats of the 21st century demand this synchronized and coordinated plan in order to adequately protect our nation and its citizens.”

The plan is a product of collaborative efforts of experts from federal departments and agencies; state, local and tribal officials; and incident response and private sector committees from around the nation. Chief John Buckman of the German Township (Ind.) Volunteer Fire Department served on the DHS State, Local and Tribal Advisory Council, representing the International Association of Fire Chiefs.

"Most of the things in the NRP are not new to the fire service, and the main reason is the ESFs or Emergency Support Functions [in the NRP] have been used for several years now. So there may be some modifications or additions to the ESFs, but we’re familiar with the process," Buckman said.

Bill Killen, IAFC second vice president, also represented the IAFC at meetings surrounding the NRP project. Killen called the documents “ground-breaking tools that will unify the emergency services communities in preparing and planning prior to major incidents.”

Buckman said he believes the NRP is "a leadership document." "It’s an opportunity for the fire service to become leaders in helping their communities plan for, prepare for and respond to disasters on the local level," he said. "Local government officials are looking to somebody to provide that leadership, and I believe that fire chiefs have the ability to do that.”

Federal agencies are expected to implement the NRP April 2005. "Right now it is being pushed down to the state level. After that it will be pushed down to the local level," says Buckman.

DHS is providing more information to first responders and incident management authorities on the NRP via a toll-free hotline, 800-368-6498 (8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time). Copies of the NRP in PDF format, as well as fact sheets and other supporting resources, are also available online at www.dhs.gov/nationalresponseplan.

The National Response Plan fulfills a requirement in Homeland Security Presidential Directive 5, providing a core operational plan for all national incident management. Supported by the National Incident Management System DHS established in March 2004, the NRP will supersede the Initial National Response Plan, the Federal Response Plan, the U.S. Government Interagency Domestic Terrorism Concept of Operations Plan, and the Federal Radiological Emergency Response Plan.

While the NRP places an emphasis on local response, Ridge said that “identifying police, fire, public health and medical, emergency management, and other personnel as responsible for incident management at the local level,” it also sets up mechanisms to swiftly deliver federal support in response to catastrophic incidents.

NRP Training

Training in the NRP is already going online. DHS on Wednesday unveiled an online course, “IS-800 The National Response Plan (NRP), An Introduction,” at the National Emergency Training Center Virtual Campus. According to USFA spokesman Tom Olshanski, the course is the first of a series of 30 online courses scheduled to go online by June for all the various public and private sectors that will need training in the NRP.

The course introduces emergency management practitioners to the NRP, including the concept of operations upon which the plan is built, the roles and responsibilities of the key players, and the organizational structures used to manage response resources. Although designed for federal emergency managers, DHS said state, local and private-sector emergency management professionals will also find benefit in it.

Of the 30 courses going online, eight will focus on the NIMS and ICS, Olshanski said. Separate courses in NIMS and ICS will be directed for public works, public health/EMS, law enforcement and emergency managers. The remainder of the 30 courses planned will focus on various aspects of response, recovery and mitigation for the variety of hazards the NRP is designed to manage, such as floods, earthquakes and hurricanes, as well as terrorist incidents.

“All of our courses now go directly to supporting the National Response Plan, NIMS, local incident command,” said Olshanksi. “They’re all interwoven now, following the same basic tenets of coordination, cooperation, team play, multiple layers of government, multiple jurisdictions –- all of those things that go into the management of large-scale events at the local, county and state level.”

Olshanski said new online courses in NIMS and ICS specifically for the fire service were soon coming online. One course, which may go online next week, will offer a certificate from the National Fire Academy to those who complete it. Olshanski said several “in residence” courses, including simulations of NIMS/ICS, were also scheduled to begin soon at the NFA and the Emergency Management Institute in Emmitsburg, “and we have some courses that we feel strongly about handing off to the states, for training in the states as opposed to Emmitsburg.”

DHS is rapidly ramping up resources for training in the NIMS and its ICS system because partial compliance is required for state, local and tribal entities by the end of fiscal year 2005 to qualify for federal terrorism funding in FY 2005 and FY2006. Ridge spelled out those requirements in a letter to state governors in September. States, for example, are required to incorporate NIMS into their Emergency Operations Plans and training programs and exercises in order to receive federal terrorism funding.

Ridge said local, state, territorial and tribal jurisdictions should support NIMS implementation by the end of the 2005 fiscal year by:

• Completing the NIMS Awareness Course: “National Incident Management System (NIMS), An Introduction” IS 700 (The course is available on the EMI web page at: http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/is700.asp.)
• Formally recognizing the NIMS and adopting the NIMS principles and policies. 
• Establishing a NIMS baseline by determining which NIMS requirements they already meet.
• Establishing a timeframe and developing a strategy for full NIMS implementation.
• Institutionalizing the use of the NIMS Incident Command System.
  

And he made it clear that federal preparedness funding would be used as leverage to implement NIMS at the state and local level when FY 2006 begins on Oct. 1, 2005: “Applicants will be required to certify as part of their FY 2006 grant applications that they have met the FY 2005 NIMS requirements,” Ridge said. “Additional information about NIMS compliance and resources for achieving compliance will be forthcoming from the NIC [the NIMS National Integration Center].

For more information:

National Response Plan  
National Integration Center, National Incident Management System
IS-800: National Response Plan, An Introduction
USFA Training & Education Directory (links to National Emergency Training Center Virtual Campus)