South Africa to use Incident Command System - WILDFIRE article

First responders in South Africa currently employ multiple systems to manage fires and other emergency incidents. But this lack of a uniform system can bring chaos. In an effort to establish order, experienced disaster management professionals from the United States have been introducing South Africans to the Incident Command System, creating a resource that gradually is being introduced into wildland firefighting operations.

"It is critical that South Africa starts using a common global incident management system," said Louis Buys, chairperson of the South African Incident Command System Working Team. "I've had my share of experiences where things have gotten out of control, often because of bad communication. With a good system and a good team in place, it makes all the difference."

The SA ICS Working Team is responsible for developing and promoting the use of ICS as a national management tool in South Africa. For the past five years, South Africans have been receiving ICS training both in their country and in the United States.

The training and exchange program is coordinated by the Working on Fire program. WOF has a mutually beneficial relationship with the U.S. Forest Service and the Northern Rockies Coordinating Group ? federal, state and local government agencies in Idaho, Montana and North Dakota. The exchange program provides South Africa with needed support to implement ICS by exposing wildland firefighting agencies to U.S. concepts of training, command and control, dispatch, initial attack and large fire management. Ultimately, the goal is to explore interest in an international cooperative firefighting agreement between the South African and U.S. governments for forest and veldt fire programs.

Johan Heine, WOF general manager, first visited North America in the late 1990s to study how firefighting and management systems could be applied in South Africa. When WOF was established in 2003, William Teie of the California Department of Forestry and Tim Murphy of the Northern Rockies Coordinating Group invited Heine and several colleagues to Montana to attend training sessions and view ICS in action. A strong partnership soon was established, with both sides annually exchanging instructors and students to aid wildfire management in both countries and implement ICS in South Africa. Teie also adapted some of his work for South African audiences, resulting in The Fire Manager's Handbook on Veldt and Forest Fires. Murphy remains at the forefront of the ICS training and exchange program.

Today, WOF is a multipartner organization focused on integrated fire management and wildland firefighting. First established as a poverty-relief program, WOF has recruited and trained previously unemployed men and women into a national resource of more than 1,500 firefighters. Sixty-four teams of 25-person Hot Shot crews, led by 155 crew leaders, are deployed at 64 fire bases in eight fire-prone regions across South Africa. The crews act primarily as hand crews, using mainly hand tools to accomplish their work.

WOF includes a team of aerial firefighting professionals who operate helicopters, fixed-wing bombers and spotter aircraft. These aerial resources are coordinated locally, provincially and nationally, forming a pool to support ground forces with initial-attack actions. WOF also runs provincial operational centers, which coordinate the movements of all WOF ground and aerial resources. The program has received acclaim, winning several awards and, more importantly, successfully combating wildfires across South Africa.

ICS was recommended as a global standard for fire management at the third International Wildland Fire Conference in Sydney, Australia, in 2003. Heine sees it as critical to South African disaster management.

"Wildfire-fighting worldwide is usually a crisis situation," Heine said. "There is often a complex involvement of various stakeholders, with diverse people making strategic decisions. What is needed is a common terminology and a clear chain of command, in which trained personnel can be deployed to maximum efficiency."

Source: http://wildfiremag.com/tactics/south-africa-use-ics-200905/index.html?imw=Y

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