The Department of Homeland Security hit another milestone June 3 as the National Incident Management System Integration Center stood up.

The department-wide, multi-agency organization is tasked with providing mechanisms for implementing the National Incident Managment System across federal, state and local organizations.

The NIMS, approved March 1 by DHS Secretary Ridge, is a document of standards and systems to integrate practices in emergency response into a comprehensive national framework for incident management.

Marko Bourne, deputy director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Preparedness Division, is NIC acting director, reporting directly to the DHS undersecretary for Emergency Preparedness and Response.

In an interview with FIRE CHIEF, Bourne explained how the NIC plans to move the whole spectrum of emergency response organizations into compliance with the NIMS.

Fire departments and other emergency response agencies are on a fast-track to get into compliance with the NIMS because all federal entities are required by law to make it a basis for federal support beginning Oct. 1, 2004

So the NIMS Integration Center has stood up. What does that actually mean?

It means the initial staff is in place and we’ve begun operating as a functioning entity. We have people from FEMA, the Office of for Domestic Preparedness, and the Science and Technology Directorate who are beginning the process of developing the specific things the Integration Center is going to be responsible for and to begin the process of looking at what recommendations we’re going to make for the [DHS] Secretary’s office for how state, locals and federal entities can become compliant with NIMS, specifically for purposes of the upcoming grant money in [fiscal year] ‘05.

That’s just one of one of 19 responsibilities that we have. All 19 responsiblilties are listed in Chapter 7 of the NIMS Document.

These responsibilities range from everything from development of training, to standards to a compliance mechanism for making sure the people are implementing NIMS and using it. It also includes research and development into new incident management technologies and techniques, things like that.

One of the things that we’re going to be doing right away is we’re not going to recreate a lot of wheels that already exist. The Science and Technology Directorate at DHS is going to be the actual research and developer for us; we’re just going to point them in the direction that we want them to go. We’re not going to deliver the training ourselves; the National Fire Academy, EMI and the Center for Domestic Preparedness and others are actually going to be the delivery mechanism for training. What we’re going to do is set the parameters under which that training is developed and the doctrine that should be put into it. And then make sure that the training is available.

Does that mean everyone has to go to Emmitsburg or Washington, D.C.? You’re not going to use the states’ training facilities?

Actually, we are. The goal here is to use all of the existing training mechanisms that are out there, whether they be state fire, state police systems, state EMS, whatever training system is currently being used to train first responders and other emergency officials, they’re the mechanisms we want to use to get out the training, because the ones training these folks every single day. We’re not going to create new systems to do this, were going to utilize the systems that’s are in place now.

So, when you say the NFA and EMI and the Center for Domestic Preparedness are going to be taking the lead in the training, does that mean they’re going to be doing train-the-trainer sort of programs for the states ….

Actually, what they’re doing now is modifying existing incident command curriculum to make sure that it meets the National Incident Management System document.

Thankfully, and one of the things I want to stress right up front, if you look at the NIMS document, most anyone who has been in fire and emergency services for any length of time is going to recognize that it is incident command, the way it’s taught now. But there are some new things, and so the curriculum is being adjusted to take care of those things that might be a little bit different in the NIMS than what might be out there, or things that aren’t in the existing incident command courses that need to be. EMI is modifying their curriculum, NFA is doing the same thing, so is the Center for Domestic Preparedness and ultimately all of the federal training entities that provide this kind of training will do that. And as those programs are either handed off to the states or the states look at doing curriculum modifications to their existing incident command classes, these are the kind of changes that will go into them.

Also, we’re going to be rolling out in the next week or so the NIMS Awareness Course, which will be a completely online program so people can get a good sense of what NIMS is, what it means and what they do. And actually there are a number of courses that are almost finished being redrafted and revised anyway. ICS 100 Series and 200 Series are almost done. The 300 and 400 Series of Incident Command courses, the higher level ones, are in the process of being redesigned and will be available by the end of the summer. And these are programs that state fire trainers have used for years.

How about the firefighter certification aspect?

We’re not really going to deal with certification. We’re not going to be a certifier. The NIMS Center will set the guidance, but existing certification systems are going to continue to be the certifier, state training, etc. We don’t want to recreate new things here if we don’t have to. There’s an existing certification program through the Pro Board and IFSAC. We want them to continue to what they’re doing and incorporate NIMS into their certification and accreditation process so that when the state teaches an ICS course and it is up to date with NIMS, when they issue a certificate it’s valid; it meets the tenets of NIMS. We’re not going to be the ones actually issuing certificates.

I guess what I meant to ask was what about the initiative to provide a national credentialing system for firefighters? How is that going to work?

OK, yeah. Credentialing is something that we’re going to be looking at, not just for firefighters but for all emergency response personnel. And what we’re going to look at doing – and this is going to be an evolutionary process; a lot work has already been done to kind of set the framework for it -- we’re going to build the standard under which the credential should be developed, essentially what it should say, what kind of things need to be on it, what kind of things the state and the locals need to take into account when they’re looking at issuing credentials to their emergency responders -- their firefighters, police officers, etc. Certainly, we would hope that one of the baselines for any credential is that they’ve been trained in the National Incident Management System. But the idea is we would not be the ones issuing the actual credential.

We look at that as the responsibility of the states with assistance from us and the locals. The chief of a department needs to be issuing the credentials to the people in his department; the state needs to back that credential up with whatever guidelines are necessary in order to make sure that the training that those folks have received in order to have that credential is accredited and certified. What we’re going to do at the national level is try to build a framework that all of those folks can have at their fingertips when they’re building their credentials and getting them out to folks.

We’ll be looking at assisting the states – and I don’t know how we’ll do this yet because it’s a little ways down the road – we’ll be looking at assisting the states with database mechanisms they might need in order to know who has credentials and who needs to be credentialed and all of that. We’re not going to keep a federal database of credentials and we’re not going to centralize the credentialing system, but we are going to try to standardize it so that it is uniform across the country.

But that is definitely a not-between-now-and-the-end-of-the-year project. That’s going to be a long-term effort.

So the Integration Center right now is a staff and an office [at FEMA offices in Washington, D.C.], right? What is coming next?

We already have the NIMS Basic Awareness training course on the FEMA Web site and that will be publicly announced in the next week or so. It’s under the Independent Study Program. We’ll have, hopefully before the end of the month, an online help tool, called NIMCAST, which is the National Incident Management System Capability Assurance Tool. And what NIMCAST will do is allow the folks at the state and local level -- or quite frankly, anywhere for that matter -- to sit down and go through the NIMS document, section by section, and check off whether or not they are already doing the things contained in those various sections. Do they have mutual aid agreements? Have they been trained in the incident command system? Do they have emergency plans in place?

I think this is going to help folks realize two things. One, they’re already a long way there, that NIMS is not some completely new animal that’s just fallen off the federal wagon, that they’ve been using it for 30 years and we’ve just refined it and added more to it and tried to bridge a lot of gaps that existed with some emergency response communities. I think they’re going to find that when it comes to how far along they are using NIMS and the incident command system, they’re going to find they’ve done a lot of this already, and it’s also going to help them find out where the gaps are that they need to look at addressing.

I want to also stress, it’s not a report card. It’s not a thing where once you fill it out you’re officially NIMS-certified. It’s merely a tool to help fire departments, police departments and emergency managers with understanding the components of the NIMS and where they are in the implementation process.

That’s two things that are really coming along in the next three weeks. Plus, we’re also going to be looking at some ideas for what compliance is actually going to mean when it comes to federal preparedness grants starting at the end of this year and into next year.

That means all grants from DHS, right? You will need to be NIMS-compliant to get those grants?

Actually, its all preparedness grants, even HHS [Department of Health and Human Services] grants for bioterrorism preparedness or basically any federal grant that deals with emergency preparedness or terrorism preparedness or all hazards preparedness. There is a requirement that the agencies receiving those monies adopt or are compliant with the NIMS.

Now the question is what does that mean? What we’re going to do in the next month is begin to work on what compliance might mean for the next [fiscal] year. Certainly, we don’t expect everyone to be 100% compliant with every tenet of the NIMS by October or even by the end of the next fiscal year. It’s going to be an evolutionary, staged process, but how we’re going to stage that out, we’re going to be working on in the next month by bringing in folks from the state and local level to review some ideas and provide their input and feedback on it.

We’re going to use the Homeland Security Advisory Council to do that and some subcommittees that they are setting up for us to deal with specific incident management issues. And we’re going to be talking to the major emergency services organizations out there and getting their feedback. But we need to get something down on paper to start the discussion. So that when ODP puts out its grants guidance next year there will be specific language in there that defines what that requirement means and will tell folks what they have to do in order to comply.

Most of the major emergency services groups are represented on the Homeland Security Advisory Council, but even if they weren’t, we’re going to ask the council to set up some subcommittees, which can involve even a greater number of people in that process. Any document like this will have to undergo a comment and review period, because this is an important milestone.

But you’re not going to set up a toll-free line for people to call you…

We will eventually. It’s just a function of budget right now. The normal FEMA lines are what we’ll have to use right now. But this summer we plan to set up a technical assistance line that people can call to get questions answered. Within a week or so there will be an initial Web site page that will be available that will explain what the NIC is and we’ll be putting up some Frequently Asked Questions to help people…. We’ll also be setting up an e-mail question-and-answer system similar to what the U.S. Fire Administration does with their list-serve and their e-mail reply system. We’ll be working all that into place over the next couple of months.

I think it’s very important for folks who have questions about the National Incident Management System get in touch with their state emergency management folks and state homeland security folks. That’s an initial point of contact. Certainly, those folks that are currently providing training and incident command are already very aware and already have a large knowledge base on incident management, what the NIMS is and what it means. The online awareness course, I think, is going to help people tremendously in understanding the NIMS. A lot of people are very far down this road already. I think they’ll find that many will find their questions answered through the state point of contact, and soon through our Web site and the FAQs we’re going to put up, and eventually we’re also going to have that technical assistance line for people to call.

But this is the startup of a brand new entity in the middle of a budget year.

So if people want to find that Web site or find you, where should I direct them?

I'll have the URL to the Web site later this week (the page seems to be up at www.fema.gov/preparedness/nims/index.shtm), or if people want to get in touch with us, the telephone number for the NIMS Integration Center, for the time being, is going to be 202-646-4223. And as we develop some additional numbers, we’ll make sure we get them to you guys so you can get them in the e-version of the magazine and obviously get them up in a paper format later. But the Web site will be linked not only from the FEMA page, but they’ll be a link off the DHS main page, and I’m sure there will be a link off the U.S. Fire Administration page as well.

For more information:

NIMS Integration Center Home Page

National Incident Management System document (PDF Format, 157 Pages)

NIMS Fact Sheet

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Approves National Incident Management System (March 1, 2004)