- Last week I was part of a team of six Minnesotans that went to Oregon to spend time with the team of people tasked with bringing one of the major wild land fires under control. The name of this fire was the Eggley Fire complex. After all was said and done the fire consumed over 140,000 acres and three structures. The purpose of the trip was to gain valuable knowledge on how these large events are handled using the Incident Command System or ICS.
Myself and others from the fire department and police department in Eden Prairie have been getting trained to be part of a Type 3 All Hazard Incident Management Team. The Eden Prairie group includes: Assistant Fire Chief, Rick Hammerschmidt, Police Chief Rob Reynolds, Fire Inspector Scott Taylor and Assistant Fire Chief Tom Schmitz. There are currently 50 or so others in the state that have also received the same training. Our goal and the goal of the federal government is to set up a Type 3 All Hazard Incident Management Team in our state.
As part of our training we need to take part in a shadowing experience like the one we just did in Oregon. The team we shadowed was from Oregon and is a Type 1 Team, the highest level team that exists, there are 17 Type 1 Teams in the U.S.A. The Type 1 Team was very impressive and it was a great learning experience to watch them handle all the details and complexities involved with managing the almost 1900 firefighters and support services that were needed to bring the fire under control.
Our little team of six people that was given this shadowing experience took lots of pictures and when I sort them out next week I will post some of them so you can get some idea about the scope of one of these large scale wild land fires.
In the meantime it is great to be back home after 8 long days of travel and even longer days keeping up with the Type 1 Team from the Pacific Northwest. Their team name is PNW3, you can click on the link to learn more about this group of impressive and dedicated professionals. Below is a definition of our emerging teams role in future local incidents. This concept is new and a lot more work needs to be done, but in Minnesota we are on our way. For even more information on the All Hazard Incident Management Teams, just “google” AHIMT.
- Type 3 All Hazard Incident Management Team: All-Hazard: State or Regional multi-agency / multi-jurisdiction team for extended incidents
- A multi-agency/multi-jurisdiction team for extended incidents, formed and managed at the State, regional or metropolitan level. It is a designated team of trained personnel from different departments, organizations, agencies, and jurisdictions within a state or DHS Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) region, activated to support incident management at incidents that extend beyond one operational period. All-Hazard IMTs are deployed as a team of 10-20 trained personnel to manage major and/or complex incidents requiring a significant number of local, regional, and state resources, and incidents that extend into multiple operational periods and require a written Incident Action Plan (IAP), such as a tornado touchdown, earthquake, flood, or multi-day hostage/standoff situation, or at planned mass-gathering events. An All-Hazard IMT may also initially manage larger, more complex incidents that are later transited to a Type 2 or Type 1 IMT.
Last, but not least here is a picture of the PNW3 Team as they were getting ready to leave the Eggley Fire Complex assignment. Their team consists of about 60 members and usually about 50 of those travel to each of their assignments. During the peak of the fire season, which they are just now entering they are typically assigned for 14 days and then get 2 days of rest before they can be assigned again. A very dedicated bunch of people, indeed.
