The fire service began developing incident command systems 30 years ago, but until last year there wasn’t one national system creating a unified chain of command for response to emergencies from all federal agencies, as well from state, local, tribal and private organizations. Last March the Department of Homeland Security completed the National Incident Management System, a comprehensive incident response system developed at the request of the president after Sept. 11.

DHS Secretary Tom Ridge appointed Gil Jamieson as acting director of the National Incident Management System Integration Center (known as “the NIC”), in October 2004. As the NIC’s director, Jamieson oversees NIMS implementation and the maintenance and the development of NIMS-related standards, guidelines and support to all incident management and responder organizations. For the purposes of federal grants, the NIC validates compliance with the NIMS and the National Response Plan standards.

Jamieson has held national-level positions with the Federal Emergency Management Agency since its inception in 1979. He managed disaster assistance programs, served the FEMA director on program analysis and implemented the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 as director of planning. After Sept. 11, Jamieson directed the Program Coordination Division in FEMA’s Office of National Preparedness. He has a bachelor’s degree in public administration and a master’s in international affairs and is a graduate of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. He lives in Annandale (Va.) with his wife and three children. A personal experience with a disaster in 1972 propelled his career in emergency management.

What disaster affected you in 1972 and how did it start your career?

That was the Agnes Disaster and the Agnes flooding in 1972. Hurricane Agnes went pretty much up and down the entire East Coast. But the most significant effect was in Pennsylvania and the New York region. Wilkes-Barre, in Pennsylvania, was my hometown. The event propelled me to go in to emergency management. I was going to school in Michigan, and when my family was affected there in northeastern Pennsylvania, I went home to help them out. Having accomplished that, I picked up a job with [the Department of Housing and Urban Development] to help out with the Temporary Housing Assistance Commission in Wilkes-Barre.

Bringing so many sectors involved in emergency response together under NIMS – not just in response but in preparedness and planning -- has got to be a phenomenal task. How is it going?

It’s going extraordinarily well. What we have going for us in terms of the monumental task ahead is a genuine understanding and appreciation that the nation really needs the NIMS to improve the way that we prepare for and respond to disasters. So unlike some other federal initiatives where we’re asking state and local governments to take on a task which may be outside their normal lines of business -- or [something] they view as strictly a federal mandate, NIMS enjoys a relationship with first responders at the local and state levels where they really understand the purposes of what we’re trying to accomplish. So in addition to our requirement of implementing the NIMS, there is a great deal of acceptance and understanding that this is the appropriate and right course of action to take for our nation to achieve preparedness in response.

What’s the most important thing that we share now with fire service officials about NIMS implementation?

What we are saying to state and local governments is that, for the first time, all of the funding that is flowing out to the state and local governments is going to be conditioned on their complying with the NIMS beginning in fiscal year 2007. That’s an important date and point, particularly for the fire service because Chief [Michael] Freeman [of Los Angeles, who testified on NIMS before Congress last September for the Terrorism and Homeland Security Committee of the International Association of Fire Chiefs] is concerned that -- while he was very supportive of what we were doing -- that maybe we were moving at this a little bit too quickly. I think in our roll out perhaps we were not clear enough in terms of when the expectation was that we would get compliance…. Another way of putting it is we’re giving them two full years in order to meet the spirit of intent of compliance of NIMS: FY ‘05 and FY ‘06.

And will that be complete compliance? Because there are many pieces of NIMS, as you know, and these include a national firefighter certification program. As Chief John Buckman and Chief Michael Freeman have said, NIMS has something like 182 points of compliance. So when you say FY 2007 compliance is expected and you’re giving them two full years, are we shooting for full compliance by 2007 or compliance with certain provisions of NIMS?

We are shooting for full compliance by 2007. … We have since looked at that and we have reduced that number of what we think are the significant compliance requirements to 75. And even within those 75 that still is a combination of federal, state and local requirements. So the point that I would really emphasize is that as opposed to looking at the NIMS as a series of 75 particular tasks or items that need to be accomplished, what we’re really trying to do is change the culture in terms of the way we do business. And the fire service has lead the way in terms of the NIMS and use of the Incident Command System. We need to bring in the other emergency management disciplines in law enforcement, public works, medicine and health and change the way that we are currently doing business. True compliance will really be based on the effectiveness with which we are able to do operations and we’re able to blend all those first responders’ disciplines into an effective working team to attack a common problem. It shouldn’t be looked at as 75 things we need to do. It should be looked at as using a system that is going to help us do our jobs better.

Do you think that most fire service executives are on board with this? Are they starting to think about how it will fit in their departments’ operations and command systems?

Yes, I do. I think the fire service is in a unique position and is leading the way towards national NIMS implementation. We have fire service executives taking a broad spectrum of agencies and individuals [into NIMS] -- from the major metropolitan fire chiefs with career firefighters to mid-size departments where we have a combination of both career and volunteer firefighters to smaller departments that play a very important role in their own communities. We have to assume that there are some who may not have read and digested the NIMS doctrine from cover to cover, but the fire service by and large has embraced the ICS and NIMS for quite some time. It’s at the backbone of their operation and command strategies, so we very much see them as, quite frankly, the center of gravity in terms of the national implementation effort.

So they’re leading the way?

Yes. And a point that I’d like to emphasize to the fire service is the fact that because this has been within their culture and the backbone of their operations for some time, that we want the fire service to step up within the community and serve as mentors to the other disciplines; medicine, health, law enforcement, public works. To take on a mentoring role for those in the community that may not be as familiar with NIMS as they are. I think that the message below the message there is we need to not be exclusive in terms of our knowledge and understanding of this but take on the roles of mentors in terms of helping others within the community understand the benefits of the system.

NIC is tasked with certifying compliance with NIMS. Looking down the road to 2007, have you begun setting up systems place to certify compliance? How will you do that?

We have. We have included NIMS as an eligible item in all of the DHS grant plans that are going out to state and local governments, including the FIRE grant program, where we basically said that the monies that are available to state and local governments through these programs can be used to accomplish and comply with NIMS. As opposed to the NIMS Integration Center taking on an enforcement or compliance sort of role, what we’re saying instead is that state and local governments who come in and apply for grants at the end of FY 2005 -- as they’re coming in to apply for grant funding for FY 2006 -- they will have to certify that they have met minimum requirements that were laid out in 2005, I’ll come back and talk about that in a minute.

At the end of 2006, state and local governments will be self-certifying that they have indeed met the requirements of NIMS as a condition of their future grant funding. So as opposed to taking on a strong enforcement – did-you-do-it or did-you-not-do-it role -- we’re going to ask them to self-certify and the NIMS Integration Center is going to put itself in the posture of offering guidance and technical assistance to the state and local communities to help them get to where they need to be.

OK, and the new resources that you have going up now include…

…Include language, which has NIMS and all of what’s required under NIMS for both the planning, training exercising perspective… (See the NIC Web site at www.fema.gov/nims for resource documents.)

And as far as minimum requirements for compliance in 2005, are you speaking of the requirements that Ridge spelled out in the letter to governors last September?

That’s exactly right. We are indeed, and the issue there is that because we are effecting a cultural change, because we’re trying to change and improve the way we do business. We don’t want to impose, as Chief Freeman suggested, running at this thing too soon. At the same time we’re kind of saying that the nation is at risk. There’s a risk that’s present today and we need to move as far as we can as fast as we can in order to get this implementation. And in the course of doing that what we try to suggest is that to move this forward, there’s some minimum requirements that all state and local governments should be shooting for to accomplish in 2005. And those requirements go to institutionalizing ICS -- and that can be done through executive orders at the state and local level or the local level -- and it also speaks to accomplishing some basic training requirements, including NIMS awareness training. That’s what the minimum requirements are speaking to in FY 2005.

This is not on my list of questions, but I’ll raise it because you have been referring to Freeman’s testimony. One of the things he requested, I believe, is some financial assistance to set up the mutual aid agreements that NIMS requires. Do you think that will be forthcoming?

I don’t believe it will be forthcoming as a separate stream of funding. In other words, here’s a program or here is a segregated stream of funding that the federal government has in order to implement NIMS. The fact of the matter is that prior to this year, [DHS] has put $8.5 billion out to state and local governments through the Homeland Security Grants. And what we’ve done through those grant programs beginning now in 2004 is that we’ve said that any monies that can be received or that are received can be used towards these purposes. And so our position is that there is adequate funding out there in order to accomplish what we’re asking for in terms of compliance. There’s another key point on this: NIMS is requiring the federal departments and agencies to comply with the NIMS as well. So any funding that is going out from any federal department and agency to a state and local government which is going towards the general area of preparedness, be it from EPA, Department of Health and Human Services, the [Department of] Interior -- whatever it may be -- those agencies are also required to turn their grant programs and make NIMS an eligible item under the purposes of their grants as well. So basically, it’s not only the DHS but it’s the entire executive branch that if they have monies that is contributing towards building capability of state and local governments, that NIMS is an eligible item under their grant programs as well.

That's considerable leveraging of federal resources that are going down to the state and local level. And quite frankly, I’m optimistic about it for another reason, and that is that too often those streams of funding that go down to the state and local level are kind of finding their way in to one particular pocket or community. And the whole issue of integration at the state and local level is sometimes not accomplished, and I’m hoping that by all of these streams of funding kind of wearing the NIC label, that we’ll see closer and better integration of those funds at the local and state levels to accomplish what we’re trying to accomplish.

What are the greatest obstacles to achieving NIMS compliance? And beyond the eligibility for grant funding, what are the rewards for implementing NIMS at the local level? And I want to address this especially to our local fire chiefs and fire officials and emergency response officials.

Well, I think the reward at the local level is that if we build a more effective way to prepare for and respond to any event regardless of its size or cause or complexity we’re in a better position to save lives and protect property. That’s the bottom line, that we’re planning, we’re training, we’re equipping our first responders to be in a better position to save lives and protect property. Now I also think because of what NIMS represents, which is greater integration of all of our first responder efforts, we have an opportunity to be more efficient in terms of how we work at the local level. And I think those efficiencies over time improve.

One of the metrics that we should be looking at is if we do this effectively, are there economies in there for us in terms of budgets at both the state and local levels because we’re working more effectively than we have in the past. So I think the bottom line is saving lives and protecting property and if through implementation of this system we’re not accomplishing that, I think we’ll have to reassess what we’re doing. But I’m very confident that NIMS is accepted as a system, which will accomplish those basic purposes. I think some of the obstacles are that when you look at just the monumental number of individuals throughout the nation that need to be trained, it certainly is a daunting feat.

Some of the other obstacles I think that we have are, the fire service has had NIMS at its side actually since the early 1970s. Other disciplines have not and there’s some confusion out there and questions about the relevance of the NIMS system in terms of the work they do. Any time you’re trying to change the culture in terms of how people do their jobs, how people operate, how people come together and function together that’s a significant change. So I think overcoming some of those discipline-specific barriers and cultures is truly an obstacle that would be difficult to overcome, but doable.

We ought to give due credit and diligence here to the national wildland fire community as well for the significant role they have played in the development, the improvement and the evolution of the NIMS and ICS over the years. I think there are a lot of folks out there wondering now that the federal government and Homeland Security have stepped into this arena, will the wildland fire community’s work be minimalized or marginalized? Quite to the contrary. What they have done is served as the model in the template for the NIMS system that we’re rolling out here. And the work that they have done will and should continue and they deserve a lot of credit for it.

Will wildland firefighting agencies be the first to implement NIMS? Since they provided the backbone of the system, will they find implementation much easier?

That’s exactly right. They have been using it. They clearly have used and exercised with ICS time and again, so it’s not a foreign concept to them. They understand resource typing. They understand having systems to order and track resources. They have doctrine and training manuals established on all these various components of NIMS. So I do think that they will find it easier to adopt. I don’t think there’s going to be any significant pause at all in terms of the work that they do and the implementation that they do.

What I think we need to be mindful of is that the national wildland fire community needs to be patient with others who have not known the system or used the system to the extent that they have. And I sense in some corners that there’s perhaps an impatience with what one community is doing or maybe what one city is doing is not NIMS as they know it. So I think that we need to encourage them to be mentors, to be patient and to understand the growing that they’ve had to go through frankly since 1970 and be patient with others as we come up and ramp up to the capability that they now represent.

At the same time, they are having to abandon either what they have been using or what they have agreed upon for years. There are some differences between NIIMS [the National Interagency Incident Management System] and NIMS…

Yeah, but not abandoning it at all.

Adapting? Adopting?

We have met and they have been at our side in the writing of the actual NIMS document. I met with their senior leadership in Emmitsburg last month. Next week I go down to visit with them in Houston, so it is not at all an abandonment of what they’ve been doing; it’s an embracing of what they’ve been doing.

There is a great deal of confidence in you from the International Association of Fire Chiefs, and hopefulness that you will bring it all together.

Yeah, I go over and I talk to that group as frequently as I can, and one of areas that we’re working on with the IAFC is establishing some intra-state mutual aid agreements between the fire services. We’re in pretty good shape in the interstate mutual aid agreements that we’ve gotten. Now 50 states [are] participating in that but the interesting relationships on mutual aid is something that we’re looking for IAFC to help us out with and to establish a template for how that can be done in the fire service. So I’m very excited about our continued partnership as we roll out NIMS. But also from a practical standpoint, there are some project-specific things that we’re doing with IAFC that I think are really going to bear some good fruit.

Any other points?

Well, I have a tendency to lead with my chin, so I will…. One thing which we may want to discuss sometime in the future is that we’re developing a national standard curriculum for NIMS so that when we talk about training that we’re in a position to be a little bit more coherent in terms of whose offering the training, you know, the National Fire Academy and others. We’re trying to bring all the federal training providers under the tent and establish this national standard curriculum, which we’re real excited about because there are some questions out there about if I take this training from XYZ vendor, is that going to count? So the curriculum will help on that and some of the guides that we have underway will help local firehouses evaluate some of the training that vendors are clearly going to be pushing at them. We have some tools under way that we think are going to help on that issue a whole lot and it may be something we can talk about in a subsequent article.

I’m glad that you raised that topic because we are wondering. Of course, a lot of vendors are going to want to offer this training and we’re wondering how that’s going to work. Will they have to have the NIC certify that it is NIMS-compliant training and go from there, or will DHS, ODP [Office for Domestic Preparedness] and the National Fire Academy will be the only locus for getting the training?

No, not at all. It’s going to be an important element, and we’re doing all we can through distance learning as well as though traditional classrooms, both learning to train state training coordinators, and what not, in other words, train the trainer. We recognize that we’re still not going to be able to get there that way. What we are going to do, there is a standard in place, for instance on ICS, where most of the questions are, there’s a standard that’s in place that says those ICS [Inaudible] need to attend a course that’s instructed by one of our instructors and the guide that we’re preparing is going to allow state and locals to use this guide as a checklist to evaluate training that is offered through other training vendors to ensure that it meets the minimum from our perspective. So it will be state and locals who are in the driver seat of making that determination.

Well, this has been a wonderful interview and a very, very productive discussion. I hope it will be the first of many as we go down the road.

Thank you, Pat! We’re delighted, quite frankly, with the opportunity to get our message out through your journal. It’s obviously very highly regarded and I think we want to stay as tight and as close to the fire service as we can. This gives us another opportunity to do that.