Recently I had the opportunity to be in the presence of many of the sharpest minds in today's American fire service. After experiencing a blinding flash of the obvious during one of the breakout sessions, I was stunned by how vulnerable our communities and emergency responders are. Without increased vigilance we can become targets and our communities become open to being victimized.

A lot of new words and phrases are creeping into our fire service vocabulary these days. Formerly a term applicable only to the military or law enforcement, “force protection” now includes all of the front-line responders in a community. With the inclusion of fire and EMS personnel in the accepted definition, organizational leaders must learn to think in different terms when determining PPE requirements, organizational (information) policy and response protocols.

Let's play connect the dots. Given the fact that terrorist cells operate autonomously for the best advantage, there's really no way to predict when or where something may happen. Law enforcement might not always be familiar with fire department credentials or thoroughly check the identifications of apparatus arriving to assist at an emergency scene. We continue to hear reports of stolen emergency apparatus and ambulances. We tolerate freelancing, self-dispatching and spontaneous volunteers. Emergency responders perform predictable functions and services in a scripted manner using a majority of their community's resources.

Threats do exist

Our response world has changed drastically in the last few years. We have known about the possibility of secondary and multiple terror devices for many years, most notably since the Sandy Springs, Ga., abortion clinic bombing, which injured six people in January 1997. The 1995 bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City and first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 heightened our awareness of conventional-type attacks. However, few people ever thought aircraft would or could be used as weapons. We need to develop an ability to think asymmetrically.

Few scenarios are clear-cut anymore — nothing seems to be one color or within the lines of traditional response. That was the case in March 2002 when a Roswell, N.M., man whose house was on fire shot and killed a fire chief, a paramedic and two others as they attempted to treat his injuries.

Terrorist groups now seek a variety of targets. For instance, various ambulance services on the East Coast have received e-mails requesting information on how the ambulance service is organized, trained and equipped, including routes of response. The e-mails are coming from someone who claims to be an assistant professor of civil engineering at NED University of Engineering and Technology in Karachi, Pakistan.

Bad guys really do their homework. Consider the April 1999 Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colo. An examination of after-action reports revealed the perpetrators intended to divert initial responders' attention with an explosive device, but public works crews discovered the device before detonation. Fire and law enforcement responded to the school and established incident operations in a predictable fashion; command and operations were established and managed effectively. The 20-pound LPG cylinder bombs in the school didn't detonate as planned because the timing devices did not function as expected.

Twenty-pound LPG cylinder bombs with timing devices similar to the ones in the school were discovered in the cars of the two shooters. Any ideas where the cars were located? They were in the student parking lot surrounded by the incident responders busily fulfilling their duties of command and incident response. The intent was to whack the responders and create great confusion as cover for the shooters to flee the scene. One of the lessons to be learned from Columbine is this: If a couple of high school kids can understand our operational processes, how much will a driven criminal know and understand about how we conduct our business?

Force protection methods

So how do we take this information and transform it into effective force protection actions? Just as there are two operational modes on an incident, offensive and defensive; there are also two force protection postures, aggressive and passive. For instance, an aggressive force protection posture might include posting law enforcement snipers around the perimeter, a tactic that has been employed in the past during large-scale civil disturbances and at one of the Sept. 11, 2001, incidents. Aside from this drastic measure, there are several more passive posture concepts.

One way is to establish two perimeters, one around the immediate scene and operating area, and the other an acceptable distance from emergency operations. Fencing may assist in accomplishing this on a large, involved incident. This tactic was used very effectively in New York as well as at the Pentagon during the Sept. 11 attacks. Although new to the thinking of the fire service, law enforcement agencies are familiar with including this tactical assignment on certain scenes.

Another passive approach is to establish a law enforcement — secured staging area inside the outer perimeter for apparatus and personnel who self-dispatch to the scene. This idea fits neatly into a commonly accepted Level 2 staging concept used by many fire service organizations. The fire service should not tolerate or condone freelancers who appear at the scene. Consider this: Perhaps a secondary device is actually a suicidal individual disguised as a firefighter with turnout and all of the trimmings. If a “holy army” is willing to die for a cause, maybe — just maybe — the secondary device is not singular, but an entire company of weapons walking or driving stolen apparatus right into our operations and unsecured staging areas. The security at this type of staging area should include bomb-sniffing dogs and the capability to screen vehicles being directed into this area.

Although explosives are among the most easily improvised devices, don't limit your thinking to devices planted on people and vehicles. Biological weapons also are a possibility. An individual with a highly contagious disease can infect many people through normal disease transmission methods such as coughing and sneezing, but what if the explosive also was meant to disperse a biological organism? If you have concerns about this possibility you should contact your local police department to discuss what they have learned from American law enforcement personnel who have visited the Middle East lately. Quite a bit of information can be gleaned by studying incidents such as the Ben Yehuda Pedestrian Mall incident in December 2001, the Jerusalem supermarket bombing in July 2001 and the Sbarro Pizza bombing in August 2001.

Develop response relationships

The concept of an Integrated Threat Analysis Group was discovered in a review of after-action reports from Atlanta's hosting of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. This concept was incorporated into the National Fire Academy course Emergency Medical Services: Special Operations, along with other in-depth planning and incident management tools. Application and implementation examples of this inter-disciplinary intelligence sharing can be found in the Los Angeles Terrorism Early Warning Group and the Sarasota County, Fla., ITAG process.

Although specific localities can expand on these guidelines, the core principles of an ITAG are:

• Information (intelligence) probably exists in a community that, if shared across the emergency response spectrum, can be used to increase the safety of the people providing day-to-day services to the general public.
• Personnel are provided information on a need-to-know basis.
• Intelligence sharing is a two-way street.
• The information coming from law enforcement should not compromise an ongoing investigation or operation.
• The shared information is translated into advisories that heighten the awareness of emergency services providers.
• The information also can be the basis for response pattern adjustments or the implementation of armed escorts into certain geographic areas of a community.

The primary ITAG participants should be law enforcement, fire and EMS agencies. Additions can be made to the core group to reflect the locality's operational and response procedures and may include local representation and participation from emergency management, the local health official, communications centers and others. A logical outgrowth of this local group would include liaisons with local FBI, ATF and others as determined by geographic location.

Don't think only in the terrorism box here. One of the primary benefits of an ITAG is the development of professional relationships among those who, out of jurisdictional or agency necessity, work closely on emergency scenes. Situations may include civil unrest, protests or high-profile court cases in anticipation of an unpopular verdict being returned.

Former Virginia Gov. James Gilmore, chairman of the Gilmore Commission, a government advisory panel on domestic response for terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction, frequently asks his audiences this question: “What kind of society do you want to have?” The implication is that if we don't define our society, the terrorists will define it for us. Much discussion has ensued recently about the best ways to preserve civil liberties while ensuring security in our country.

Technology can become a thick blanket over us if we're not careful. An example of this is red-light legislation that allows the photographing of vehicles at intersections. A legislated system of these cameras, installed at certain intersections with the intended purpose of catching those who run red lights, was rejected by Hawaiian citizens when they learned of its implementation there. They didn't like the idea of their movements possibly being tracked by Big Brother.

To avoid a technological blanket like the one the Hawaiians are resisting, the sharing of information at the local government level becomes even more important. To effectively make good decisions that don't limit civil liberties, it may become necessary to provide clearances for certain first responders. Clearances don't come in a one-size-fits-all form. Different agencies using sensitive information don't automatically recognize a clearance issued by another agency. This practice can best be addressed at the local level where there are fewer complications to the issuance of a clearance.

Credentials count

It's important to initiate an incident-specific credentialing process. This may consist of colored tags used in conjunction with an organization's accountability system. Tag colors may be pre-identified in confidential operational communications at the beginning of an operational shift, or they may be instituted by the incident commander upon arrival at the scene. Law enforcement may have the capability to provide more sophisticated badging as the incident rolls out.

Remember to follow a pre-incident plan that includes a defined resource acquisition process of tasking/order numbers. If a resource appears without proper documentation it should be segregated from the legitimate, requested resources. Don't allow freelancers to operate on your incident. Tie financial reimbursement for resource deployment into the tasking/ordering system so that no number means no money. The State of California has taken a big step in this direction with the implementation of the Standardized Emergency Management System. [See “Ending freelancing: Models from California and Florida,” page 50.]

The convergence of seemingly unrelated events, such as a natural disaster or emergency, and the actions of a well-prepared, opportunistic cell are harder to manage. Many of us have considered the scenario of the bank robber operating in a less-patrolled area of town while officers are chasing down false alarms in another part of town. If the bad guys are rabidly opportunistic, how vulnerable are our communities and responders when an emergency pulls resources into a concentrated area for an unplanned operation? It's up to individual communities to devise solutions in this case. A locally developed, multi-agency task force to develop scenarios and plans might be a good place to start.

Our force protection strategy needs to be built from the ground up, including individual PPE, training and knowledge. Each participating organization must develop strong accountability procedures within a unified ICS structure. The standard operating procedures for secure staging areas and perimeter control must be understood and practiced. We can no longer afford to allow freelancers to become part of our response strategy.

There will be many arguments against multiple perimeters and secure staging areas. However, we must begin practicing an asymmetrical thinking process about how we need to conduct our business in these changing times. This will require more resources to provide force protection and necessitate the development of close professional relationships with our counterparts in the associated emergency response organizations in our community. The keys to successfully preventing, responding to and mitigating incidents are in the relationships that each of us can develop in our own home towns. This means that the fire chief, chief of police, public health official and emergency manager all need to be on a first-name basis and interact with each other before a major incident occurs.

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Bttn. Chief Porter T. Shellhammer is a 27-year veteran of the Sarasota County (Fla.) Fire Department. He has an associate's degree in fire science and a bachelor's degree in executive management. He's an instructor for the NFA and co-developer of the EMS special operations course. A charter member of the DOD/DOJ interagency board, he serves as co-chair of the medical subgroup. He was a plans section chief for the 2002 Winter Olympics in the Park City (Utah) Fire Service District.

Ending freelancing: Models from California and Florida

Emergency services personnel are some of the finest and most giving people you will find anywhere. No matter what day of the week or time of day, when someone needs help emergency responders will find a way to get there and offer their services. In our zeal to help, however, we can easily overload the receiving system with personnel and equipment needs that were not planned for. When we aren't invited to help, we fit in the category of undisciplined responders or freelancers.

At the outset of an event we are eager and willing to give anything we have to help another agency or community. Then, some time later, reality sets in when the question is asked, possibly by someone in accounting, “So, who's going to pay for this?”

The changes we need to make must occur in at least two areas: personal discipline and organizational discipline. Developing the attitude of a disciplined responder is another subject entirely, so let's briefly look at what organizations can do to learn to be disciplined in an emergency.

Getting the correct resources from point A to point B may be the easiest part of the response. Once the resources arrive they will need some type of support. People need food, shelter, hygiene facilities and sleeping accommodations. Equipment needs include fuel, lubrication, tires and maintenance. Most of all, assisting resources need to be included in the receiving agency's accountability process. Without this assurance, the assisting agency has abandoned its resources.

Several states have adopted systems to manage resource requests, accountability and compensation. The Florida Fire Chiefs' Association developed its Statewide Emergency Response Plan after Hurricane Andrew hit the lower portion of Florida. This publication is the emergency response plan endorsed by the Florida Division of Emergency Management and referenced in the State of Florida Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan. The Florida Fire Chiefs' Association is the support agency for the State Emergency Support Functions 4 (Fire) and 9 (Search & Rescue) and coordinates resources for ESF 8 (EMS). Go to the Florida Fire Chiefs' Association Web site, www.ffca.org, for more information.

If we look to the left coast we find that since 1995 the State of California has operated under a Standardized Emergency Management System. From the SEMS brochure, found at www.oes.ca.gov, the administrative structure provides a “clear and consistent organizational structure.” All state and governmental agencies responding with multiple agencies and jurisdictions must use SEMS to be eligible for state reimbursement of personnel costs associated with the incident response.

Each of these plans includes the incentive, or hook, to help decrease freelancing by implementing reimbursement as well as providing accountability and answering the questions of who pays for damage to equipment or injuries sustained by personnel. With these two examples before us, one might conclude that the organization might be the easier of the two entities to nudge into a disciplined response mode.

More ITAG information

For more information on the ITAG concept, e-mail Sarasota County Fire Department Capt. Douglas Wolfe at dwolfe@co.sarasota.fl.us. The Los Angeles Terrorism Early Warning Group also is willing to share their experience with other jurisdictions; e-mail Sgt. John Sullivan, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, at jpsulliv@lasd.org.