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FEMA Training For Emcomm Communicators

Foreword by Joe Sammartino, N2QOJ of the Queen Creek Emergency Communications Group (QCECG)

Discussion by Dennis Lawrence, KF7RYX of Mesa East Stake and QCECG

Prepared for the Queen Creek Emergency Communications Group, February 16, 2025.? A formal PDF document in Article Format is attached to this email.

* Foreword *

Dennis KF7RYX of Mesa East Stake and QCECG leads the training of their Stake Emergency/Family communications members.? On their weekly over-the-air net, Dennis recently led a discussion concerning the importance of diversifying one’s knowledge of emergency communications -- especially by tapping into the free training available from FEMA.? A subset of these training courses is typically required by most emergency communications groups serving organized agencies, municipalities, etc.? Our own Group, the Queen Creek Emergency Communications Group, requires its members to complete all of the courses mentioned in his discussion which follows.? When serving public safety agencies, having our members familiar with the structure and execution of an incident command driven event ensures that we are adding value to their effort and demonstrates a commitment to work within an agency’s protocol.? Please review the discussion and if you should have any question or comments, feel free to contact me, N2QOJ at n2qoj.ham@... or Dennis KF7RYX at kf7ryx@....

* Introduction *

When you went to high school, did you sit in one room all day and listen to a single teacher instruct you about all of the topics: math, writing, reading, history, and others? Probably not. When you went to college, did one professor know everything you needed to graduate? Not likely. We floated from room to room, from teacher to teacher and learned from those who specialized in a particular discipline.

I would suggest that to become proficient in different aspects of emergency communication, that you must do the same. No one person is going to know everything, but if you'll look for people who specialize in different disciplines of emergency communication, your education and experience will be much fuller.

Tonight, I'd like to talk about some training that the FEMA offers that can help ERC operators on a bad day.

* Recommended ICS Training *

It is important for ERC operators to have this training so that we can better understand the organization of served agencies in an emergency. We'll better understand their jargon, leadership hierarchy, and be able to communicate more intelligently with those agencies.

There are four courses that are recommended for all ERC operators. FEMA's Emergency Management Institute develops all of these courses. We are going to give a brief overview of each one.

As you surf the web looking for information about ICS courses, you'll notice that some sites use different designations for the same class. For example, some places refer to IS-100.b as ICS-100.b. The use of ICS as a course designation is an error. FEMA has developed hundreds of courses to help manage an incident. The incident command system is only one very small piece of that puzzle. In fact, courses dealing specifically with ICS make up only about 2% of all of the courses. The official FEMA Emergency Management Institute uses IS to refer to its courses. The IS stands for Independent Study.

With that, let's talk specifically about four courses that are recommended for ERC operators.
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* IS-100.c *

IS-100.c is an introduction to the Incident Command System. The ".c" on the end denotes a revision to the original course developed in 2006. The Emergency Management Institute History features the principles and organizational structure of the Incident Command System. It also explains the relationship between ICS and the National Incident Management System (NIMS).

This course familiarizes participants with ICS organizational principles and elements, ICS positions and responsibilities, ICS facilities and functions, and ICS planning. This course, like other introductory courses, is designed to provide overall incident management skills rather than tactical expertise.

This is an online course that takes about three hours to complete.

* IS-700.b *

If we were going in numerical order, you might be asking what happened to IS-200?? It is recommended that you take them in this same order that we're reviewing them.

IS-700 is an introduction to the National Incident Management System or NIMS. NIMS provides a consistent nationwide template to enable all government, private-sector, and nongovernmental organizations to work together during domestic incidents.

This course describes the intent of NIMS, key concepts and principles underlying NIMS, the purpose of the NIMS Components including: Preparedness, Communications and Information Management, Resource Management, and Command and Management. This course provides a basic introduction to NIMS. It is not designed to replace Incident Command System and position-specific training.

At this point you might be a little confused because ICS and NIMS sound the same thing. ICS is actually a subset of NIMS. NIMS is the over framework for managing an event. ICS is just the command structure, the organization of the people that are managing an event.

This is a web-based course and takes about three hours to complete.

* IS-200.c *

ICS 200 is designed to enable personnel to operate efficiently during an incident or event within the Incident Command System (ICS). ICS-200 provides training on and resources for personnel who are likely to assume a supervisory position within the ICS. Most of you will never be assigned a leadership position within ICS, but it is still helpful to understand the structure.
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The course indicates that the primary audience is "persons involved with emergency planning, response or recovery efforts." That could be all of us.

This course does have a pre-requisite. IS-100 is required and IS-700 is recommended. This also is an online course and takes about three hours to complete.

* IS-800.b *

IS-800 introduces participants to the concepts and principles of the National Response Framework. The purpose of the National Response Framework is to ensure that all response partners across the nation understand domestic incident response roles, responsibilities, and relationships in order to respond more effectively to any type of incident.

The term “response” as used in the Framework refers to “immediate actions to save lives, protect property and the environment, and meet basic human needs.

This course is intended for government executives, private-sector and nongovernmental organization (NGO) leaders, and emergency management practitioners. This includes senior elected and appointed leaders, such as Federal department or agency heads, State Governors, mayors, tribal leaders, and city or county officials [in other words] those who have a responsibility to provide for effective response. Again, that may or may not be you--probably not--but it is still beneficial to have the knowledge so that we can operate more effectively in that environment.

Like the other courses, this is an online course that takes about three hours to complete. This course has no prerequisites.? Next, let's cover where to find all this stuff.

* Where do I go to take these courses? *

These are all online courses available free of charge to everyone.? Open your favorite Internet browser and go to . The training we're looking for is in a section of the site called Independent Study. In the search bar, type in the course you're looking for. In this example, we're searching for IS-100.b. Hit Enter. Scroll down and click on the link "Interactive Web Based Course". You're off and running.

* Other Courses of Interest *

As of today (02-10-2025) Monday there were 189 independent study FEMA courses. I would encourage you to review the list and see if there are others of interest to you. If you'd like to browse the entire list of courses, navigate again to and click on Independent Study. On the left hand side of the screen, click on the IS Course List link. You can click on View All to view the entire list at once.

For example: Many of us own animals--from small domestic dogs and cats to ranches of large livestock. There are a couple of courses dealing specifically with animals in disasters: IS-10. IS-11, and IS-111.

There are courses about floodplain management, effective communication, decision making, tornado mitigation, wildfire mitigation, protecting your home from disaster, shelters, damage assessments and a lot more. There are even courses for developing exercises. And, again, they are all free. Most of the courses are one to three hours, but vary in length from 30 minutes to 14 hours.

Are there any questions or comments about the FEMA Training? Is there anyone that has been through some of the courses that would like to share how they've benefited from the training?

* Providing Feedback *

Please direct any feedback to Dennis at kf7ryx@....