The Illinois Mutual Aid Box Alarm System has released its final supplemental report on its participation in TOPOFF II, a weeklong full-scale weapons of mass destruction exercise last May mandated by Congress.

The exercise, which consisted of simulated attacks in Chicago and Seattle metropolitan areas, took 20 months to plan, cost an estimated $16 million and involved 20 federal agencies as well as the American Red Cross and participants in Canada.

TOPOFF II tested Illinois’ Statewide Plan with a simulated biological threat and a concurrent building explosion and collapse on May 15 in Bedford, Ill. More than 660 firefighters, EMS and special operations teams and 150 vehicles were activated to the simultaneously evolving incidents, “the single largest mobilization of personnel and equipment in the history of Illinois Fire Service,” according to Chief Jay Reardon, president of MABAS’ executive board.

“The exercise is now our benchmark for building and MABAS, with its partners, plan to do it again once our lessons learned have been acted on,” said Reardon, in issuing the report. “The efforts of many and the 18 months of preparatory meetings clearly demonstrated a number of best practices. Some of the best practices have never been attempted by our nations' fire service. Further, a number of very important lessons were learned, some very basic while others are very complex. Nonetheless, Illinois Fire Service and MABAS are committed to the needed corrective actions, and are committed to subsequent exercises assuring emergency response system improvement.”

Highlights of some of the “Significant Lessons Learned” from Illinois MABAS Topoff report include:

• Incident and Unified Command:

  “Training is needed for all disciplines and functional area responders on Incident and Unified Command. The exercise demonstrated fire forces understood Incident Command, but other disciplines (first responders and others) did not.” More training will be needed in the developing National Incident Management System and National Response Plan, the report states.

• First-Responder Scene Assessment Equipment:

  “First arriving units experienced ‘procedural gridlock’ for several reasons. Immediate and easily accomplished reconnaissance and rescue operations were subsequently delayed. Three of the most important reasons why this occurred are: lack of basic WMD reconnaissance equipment, application of daily protocols and limited staffing resources…”

• Importance Of Strong Local And Regional Mutual-Aid Plans With First Responders:

  “What was learned by not activating local MABAS plans to any measurable degree was the importance and need to have a strong, routine daily, mutual-aid system. Without a strong mutual aid system and dependable daily application, an effective short-term bridge to the Statewide Plan and its sustained resources is lost.”

• First Responder, Command Officer and Chief Officers Not Understanding The Statewide Plan:

  “A need exists to deploy a structured orientation and training plan about the Statewide Plan, and its implementation differences from a routine MABAS extra alarm. The educational focus must involve first line supervisory levels and above….. Individual responders processing through reception did not understand basic operational purposes, scope and concepts associated with the Statewide Plan. MABAS incidents provide speed of response while the Statewide Plan's concept of operations is for a long term, quantity of resources for a sustained operation.”

• Interoperability Between Special Operations Teams:

  Ten hazmat teams and 10 technical rescue teams participated in the exercise at both exercise scenes. “Compatibility of equipment was not a factor as all were issued the statewide minimum inventory. What became apparent in a relatively short period of time, was the ability of hazmat teams to integrate in a seamless, interoperable manner, while the opposite for arriving TRT (technical rescue teams) was observed.”

The report noted that hazmat teams have trained together for many years, and have completed requirements for a statewide standard for hazmat technicians. TRT teams are newer, haven’t had as many opportunities to exercise together and no such statewide standards for training exist.

MABAS is sharing its report with interested fire service officials. Click here for the complete MABAS TOPOFF II report (requires MS Word software). For further information about the report, e-mail Chief Reardon at reardon@northbrook.il.us.