Take one U.S. Army National Guard Medical Company and one fire department. Add a location in earthquake country and lessons learned from responses to Hurricane Katrina and other major disasters. Fold in motivation, organizational pride, an eagerness to learn and an ability to improvise. Mix well.

The Oregon Army National Guard's 141st Brigade Support Battalion was among the myriad agencies that responded in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Like many responders, they had little familiarity with local resources and other responding departments, resulting in what their commanding officer, Maj. Michael Warrington, described as “spending a day-and-a-half shaking hands that could've been better spent on search and rescue.” Warrington came back to Oregon determined that his soldiers learn more about what it takes to effectively support local civilian agencies.

The 141st Brigade had the right ingredients to fulfill Warrington's vision: Sgt. First Class Bruce Cutshall, a 20-year veteran firefighter with Eugene (Ore.) Fire & EMS, had been dreaming of such a joint training opportunity for years; 2nd Lt. Will Coker, a firefighter/paramedic with Tualatin Valley (Ore.) Fire & Rescue, was the principal training coordinator for the 141st Brigade; and Warrington himself had attended Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue's community academy as part of his effort to integrate his unit into the fabric of the area.

“This was an opportunity to begin a dialogue between civilian and federal/state authorities to make us all better,” says Coker, who approached his Tualatin Valley colleagues with a proposal for a joint training exercise with the 141st Brigade. On a March weekend, his proposal came to fruition.

Like many fire departments, Tualatin Valley saw several of its firefighters deployed to areas affected by hurricanes Katrina and Rita: some with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, some with private contractors and others with National Guard units. Some of the fire department's instructors for the joint training had been among those deployed. One of them, Lt. Scott Malone, says he was impressed and encouraged by the combination of the military and local fire departments he saw during the response to the hurricanes.

“The military resources of manpower, self-sufficiency and infrastructure support, combined with the fire service's local knowledge, EMS resources, and fire and rescue capabilities create a formidable disaster response force,” Malone says.

Warrington agrees: “Our unit was assisting local agencies in Louisiana. In a major earthquake affecting Oregon, local agencies like TVF&R might be working with the Louisiana National Guard.”

The first day was devoted to teaching and learning, in pursuit of a unifying goal. Soldiers learned how the fire service operates and how to use their own equipment in new ways, and firefighters gained an appreciation of what the National Guard can bring to a disaster. The day began with a brief orientation to incident command and Tualatin Valley's disaster operations on the tactical level, and battalion command staff were briefed on disaster operations at the strategic level.

The 141st Brigade had elements of the battalion currently deployed in Afghanistan. The battalion consists of four companies: maintenance, transportation, medical and headquarters. The medical company — Charlie Company, or “Charlie Med” — runs a range of vehicles, including field ambulances and modified buses; a field hospital; and several specialty modules including surgery, dentistry and psychology.

The 141st Brigade brought 60 soldiers from its transportation and medical companies, along with a signals (communications) unit and members of the battalion's command staff. Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue provided four fire companies, including its technical-rescue team, an incident management team, members of the training division staff and the district's emergency manager.

Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue is Oregon's second-largest fire department. Covering 210 square miles south and west of Portland, the department protects 420,000 people in nine incorporated cities and portions of three counties. As a direct-taxing fire district, it is committed to providing superior service while demonstrating fiscal efficiency, professionalism and responsibility.

Rotating stations throughout the day provided basic knowledge and skills in exterior firefighting only, as soldiers don't have SCBA; vehicle extrication; structural triage; search and rescue; fire extinguisher use; and mass-casualty operations. In addition to the skills stations, several of Tualatin Valley's incident management team logistics chiefs, as well as information technology and communications personnel, used the day as a work session to examine the capabilities and compatibilities of the department's recently commissioned mobile command center and the 141st Brigade's signals unit. Each group learned how the other managed emergency communications and examined options for interoperable communications during a disaster.

“The National Guard has assets that will come to bear in a natural or manmade disaster,” says Tualatin Valley Fire Chief Jeff Johnson. “This opportunity to become more familiar with their communication systems, rescue and transport aircraft, and field hospitals, was invaluable for us.”

With a full day of training under the soldiers' belts, it was time to shift from an instructional format to an integrated response. Sunday brought Charlie Med and Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue together in a joint disaster exercise.

The scenario was a major earthquake that had disrupted regional infrastructure and caused far more incidents than local agencies could handle. The Oregon National Guard had been mobilized, with units assigned according to determined priorities. “Azoic Terrace,” an isolated subdivision within the fire district, had been observed from the air to have suffered a variety of calamities, including structural collapse, fire, multiple vehicle collisions and multiple patients. (The name of the fictitious subdivision came from an acronym coined by Coker, meaning “A to Z, Operation in Catastrophe.”)

Within the scenario, a Tualatin Valley task force consisting of four companies, a duty chief, the on-duty IMT and the mobile command center arrived to perform initial size-up and prioritization. They soon were joined by Charlie Med and its associated resources.

Participants had broad operational discretion, with the provision that there would be no additional resources within the two-hour exercise. Unified command was established, with the IMT commander co-locating with Charlie Med's company commander. From that point on, crews in the field identified priorities for soldiers and firefighters. The soldiers applied the skills they had learned the day before and provided resources that Tualatin Valley couldn't field.

The two groups filled each other's gaps nicely. The firefighters had extensive response experience but limited resources, and they had no capability to provide definitive care for victims. The soldiers provided staff augmentation, a range of transport, and the combination of definitive care and prioritization for external transport.

Aside from the obvious advantage of having more people to respond to specific incidents, combined crews provided a force-multiplier effect. Soldiers stretched hose and made hydrant connections, helping firefighters who were performing entry and interior fire attack. Military ambulances transported patients triaged by firefighters and soldiers, bringing roughly two dozen “casualties” to Charlie Med's field hospital, which was staffed by physician assistants and medics. A military bus was used for walking wounded.

All parties agreed at the outset that “practicing the way we play” was essential. Although seeing soldiers pulling hose and wielding rescue tools while slinging unloaded M-16s across their backs took a little getting used to, weapons management is part of every National Guard deployment.

Those who had long worked to see such an event take place were gratified, particularly Cutshall. Credited with originating the recipe that called for combining firefighters with soldiers and never giving up on it, he pronounced success. “This will demonstrate that the ‘impossible’ is possible,” he says. “Everyone can see what we did here and that they can do it where they are.” Coker agrees, calling it “a small drill with a big impact.”

Johnson says that “in a disaster, people aren't going to care what uniform a responder is wearing. What they will care about — what they'll expect — is for those responders to be competent, well-equipped, well-trained and able to work with each other. With this joint training we've taken an important step in meeting those expectations.”

Jeff Rubin is the emergency manager for Tualatin Valley (Ore.) Fire & Rescue.

National Guard Tips

As a general rule, local agencies should neither make requests directly to the National Guard nor specifically request National Guard resources unless specific agreements, policies or state laws say otherwise.

Agencies needing resources beyond what they or existing mutual aid can provide should turn to their city or county emergency operations center; if the request can't be filled at the local level, it will go to the state. If the National Guard has what's needed and is the best-suited to provide it, a response request will likely come from the state level, typically involving the governor's office. Some National Guard units may appreciate a “heads-up” call to reduce their reflex time, but back-channel requests are generally frowned upon.

There are five things for fire departments to remember about responding with the National Guard.

1. Get together

   Establish Unified Command as soon as possible. Consider the need for liaisons to facilitate interagency operations, particularly with dispersed operations. Even with common goals, military and civilian organizations have different operational philosophies, procedures and terminology.

2. Don't assume

   Confirm capabilities of the units with which you are working. As with the fire service, there is a range of training, equipment, experience and specialization.

3. Can we talk?

   Establish a joint communications plan.

4. Don't assume (again)

   Just because it's not standard equipment in your agency doesn't mean that it isn't part of the National Guard's inventory. Heavy-lift transportation, water-purification, fuel and helicopters may be closer than you think. Confirming capabilities is as much about expanding options as it is limiting them.

5. Think force-multiplier

   Having firefighters and soldiers working in discrete units may end up being the appropriate choice, but having mixed crews can extend limited specialties and equipment. Creativity pays dividends.