In the Woods: Battle Creek Boom Town

Looking at a hundred or so tents, a dozen porta-potties and several rows of tables in what had been merely a sagebrush meadow just a few days before, it’s not hard to imagine the rise (and fall) of the mining and logging boom towns in the late 1880s. Each year across the U.S., dozens of modern “fire camps” sprout in pastures, fields and school lawns in response to wild fires. The larger ones usually include showers, tool caches, a covered eating area, laundry service, medical assistance (mostly blisters!), a payroll and claims department, and sometimes, a commissary. Except for the lack of liquor and brothels, I suspect they look much like the tent cities of yesteryear.

ICS: In the late 1970s or early 80s, firefighters in California struggled to find an effective method of managing large fires across multiple ownerships with personnel from dozens, if not hundreds, of fire departments. After examining what worked (or didn’t) in military organizations and fire agencies across the globe, they created a growable, shrinkable, any-kind-of-incident organization called the Incident Command System (ICS).

Basically, ICS defines five distinct functions to manage any incident of any size anywhere in the world. It is used for both emergency and non-emergency events, is highly flexible, and amazingly efficient. It also has only one essential rule: that the Incident Commander is responsible for all functions until he/she delegates specific responsibility to someone else – preferably, someone trained to do that particular task(s). As the ICS org-chart expands, each box/position has a specific function and duties:

COMMAND: the Incident Commander (IC) makes decisions for all aspects of the incident. In addition to the IC, the Command Staff often includes a Public Information Officer and a Liaison Officer to work with other agencies, such as the Sheriff’s Dept., state agencies, and local health, police, and fire departments. On the West Fork Battle Creek Fire Carbon Co. Emergency Service Director John Zeiger did a great job of helping us solve logistical issues and recruit support resources.

OPERATIONS: these are the folks that carry-out the mission. The Operations Section Chief supervises everyone directly involved in doing what is needed to address the fire, hurricane, tornado, flood, etc. On large incidents, the Ops Section is usually subdivided into geographical areas, called Divisions. In the case of a hurricane or tornado, Divisions might be teams of sawyers reopening roads; in a flood, Operations Section personnel might sandbag a levy, stabilize bridges, or remove debris from culverts.

PLANNING: these are the folks that gather data; make maps; write, print, and distribute the daily Action Plan; get, track, and assign people and equipment requested by Operations; and get rid of resources when they’re no longer needed. The size and complexity of the incident determines how many people are needed to staff the Planning Section – smaller incidents require fewer employees doing multiple tasks; larger incidents often demand more than one person per task. For the West Fork Battle Creek Fire, we used a Planning Section Chief and one permanent Brush Creek/Hayden Ranger District employee.

LOGISTICS: Everything that everyone needs in order to do what has been planned. The list of basic necessities is essentially four items: water, food, fuel (for vehicles, pumps, aircraft, etc.), and batteries. Run short on any of those and response to an incident diminishes. The Logistics Section thus includes the Food Unit, Ground Support (people shuttling gear and other people), Supply Unit (shovels, pulaskis, hose, pumps, gas cans, extra gloves ... ),  Medical Unit, Communications Unit, and Facilities Unit (which manages the Base Camp).

Whenever possible, I try to obtain supplies locally: most are fairly priced, a whole lot closer of course, and supporting local businesses seems to result in better local support for the rest of our mission. The challenge is that small towns aren’t necessarily accustomed to serving so many additional customers on short notice. The hardest task tends to be getting three meals a day to 100 or more people 50 miles out of town every day for a week, or longer. Thankfully, several local restaurants, businesses and the grocery store were willing and able to help with the West Fork Battle Creek fire. Each deserves kudos for a job equally important to standing on the fire line itself!

FINANCE: since someone must eventually write checks for all the salaries, food, helicopters, garbage collection, potties, hand washing stations, band-aids (or worse), bulldozers, and so on, accurate records have to be kept about what arrived, when it got there, where it was assigned, what it did, and when it left. On a small incident like ours, the entire Finance Section was one very tired person.

Why it Works

ICS works because hopefully everyone involved has been trained to understand their roles, and responsibilities. The terminology is always the same, regardless of the type or size of an incident. It doesn’t even matter whether the incident is local, regional, or national. When one leaves the new arrival in that position usually performs the tasks in about the same way. Ideally, one Operations Section Chief is, more or less, the same as any other.

One final point: every incident is classified on a scale of 1-5. A Type 5 incident would be a forest fire that a single engine can put out in a few hours, or a house fire, or car crash, or your neighbor’s house being flooded. A Type 1 incident might be a fire of several thousand acres with entire neighborhoods threatened, Hurricane Katrina, or widespread flooding.

On a Type 5 incident, the IC is probably the Fire Chief or maybe, just an Engine Captain or a State Trooper. Since the ICS organization is based on the situation, a Type 5 IC is usually also the Operations Chief (“you two, bring that hose over here”), the Plans Chief (filling-out the Run Report back at the fire hall), and the Logistics Section Chief (“has anyone called the power company yet?”). On a Type 1 incident, more than a hundred different ICS positions might be used, involving thousands of people.

Give as Ye Shall Receive

I’m sure an unintended benefit of developing the Incident Command Systems has been the establishment of working relationships that transcend agencies and time. Another plus is the way we’ve been able to learn together, taking successes from one event to another.

The West Fork Battle Creek Fire was a fairly typical Type 3 incident. About 125 total personnel plus three helicopters were assigned, including more than half of our local District staff. The IC, Operations Chief, and Logistics Chief are stationed across the Medicine Bow – Routt National Forests and Thunder Basin National Grassland. The Finance Section was staffed by an employee of the State of Pennsylvania. The Plans Chief hails from central Wyoming. Crews and engines arrived from several local fire departments, plus Wyoming, Colorado, and South Dakota.

They all did a fine job, and returned home knowing we will come help them should the need ever arise. Another Boom Town in another place…

Hope to see YOU in the woods, smoke optional.