Vestal Command Assistance Team

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MISSION of Command Assistance Team (CAT):

The primary mission of CAT is to provide the Incident Commander an organized collection of information, processing of the information and incident factors, and display of information. Provide competent evaluation and rapid dissemination of pertinent tactical information and intelligence to command and control personnel.

The secondary mission of CAT is to provide assistance in specified positions:

  • Liaison Officer
  • CAT members may be placed into roles supporting general staff positions:
    • Logistics:
      • Staging Officer
      • Accountability Officer
    • Planning
    • Finance
CAT

Information Handling Functions of CAT

There are five basic information handling functions of Command Assistance team duties:

Gaining Situational Awareness:
  • Collecting information from various sources, passive and active.
  • Information sources available:
    1. Visual
    2. Radio
    3. Telephone
    4. Incident message traffic - briefings
    5. Weather Radar and weather forecasts
    6. Intelligence reports
    7. Operation plans and orders (Incident Action Plan)
    8. SOG / SOP
    9. Logs
    10. Maps
Processing Situational Awareness:
  • Elimination of all non-essential data.
  • Consists of sorting, inspecting, appraising, and correlating collected information.
Display:
  • Visual presentation of all incident and operational data used to describe the current tactical and strategic situations.
  • Devices utilized to display information:
    1. Status boards (white boards)
    2. Computer
    3. Televisions / Monitors
    4. Logs and records
    5. Accountability Status Boards
    6. Large display posters for exterior of CV
Evaluation:
  • Considering and weighing all available information in order to arrive at a decision that may be passed on as a recommendation to command officers.
Dissemination:
  • Distribution of pertinent information to various officers and other units that may require it.
  • May be by audio, visual, or electronic means.

CAT personnel will assume the role of a Tactical Assistance Operator (TAO).

CAT

Duties include but not limited to:

  1. Assists Incident Commander in carrying out assigned duties and responsibilities.
  2. Responsible to the Incident Commander for conduct and performance of the Command Assistance Team.
  3. Assigns additional CAT personnel according to support positions and rotates the duties as necessary to maximize training and minimize boredom and fatigue.
  4. Maintains the Incident Management log – ICS 214
  5. Monitors tactical information received and informs the Incident Commander of interpretations and requirements for further dissemination to Command Staff.
  6. Assists in decision making for incident management and in obtaining solutions.
  7. Ensures electronic equipment in use is properly set up for maximum effectiveness in decision making and maintaining situational awareness.
  8. Performs operational period briefing of ICS 201 documents, assuring continuity of operations.
  9. Ensures the incident status profile / diagram is current and accurate.

Typical incident response involving Command Assistance Team

First arriving Officer at the incident initiates actions as the Incident Commander

Seven Critical Tasks of Command:
  1. Establish COMMAND and Communications
  2. Establish a HOT ZONE
  3. Establish an INNER PERIMETER (warm zone)
  4. Establish an OUTER PERIMETER (cold zone)
  5. Set up an INCIDENT COMMAND POST (tactical operations center)
  6. Establish a STAGING AREA (put someone in charge of staging to manage responding resources)
  7. Evaluate what is needed to gain control, order RESOURCES / request what is needed to support objectives.
Coordinate and provide leadership for first responders

Provides as size up of the incident, identifies life safety concerns and injury to victims, identifies property damage and critical infrastructure impact

  • Decides on a course of action:
    • Defensive
    • Defensive moving to offensive
    • Offensive
  • Evaluates need for evacuation
  • Requests resources to support operations

The Incident Commander will begin to determine objectives and establish priorities on what action needs to be taken and identify resource needs to support objectives

  • Life Safety (ALWAYS)
  • Property Conservation
  • Protect the Environment

The Incident Commander will need to assign personnel to the command and general staff

  • Identify as the Incident Commander (IC)
  • Assign a Safety Officer – Public Information Officer – Liaison Officer (SO-PIO-LNO)
    • CAT members may act as LNO to support, buffer - filter and pass information to the IC
    • Finance – Logistics – Operations – Planning  (FLOP) [as needed - scalable]
      • CAT members may be placed into roles supporting general staff positions
    • Operations Section – identify Section Chiefs
      • Establish Divisions – (geographic) identify a Supervisor
      • Establish Groups – identify a Supervisor
        • Assign Single resource – (individual / unit)
        • Assign Task Force – (mixed type) identify leader
        • Assign Strike Team – (similar type) identify leader
Command Assistance Team members duties at the Incident Command Post should:
  • Meet with the IC and identify as CAT32 member.
  • Receive briefing and provide support to the IC.
  • Set up CV32 radios – Dispatch - Operations – Tactical – Mutual Aid
    • Motorola Radios:
      • Radio 1 VHF high band: set to Dispatch Western Broome 1
      • Radio 3 VHF high band: set to Fire Ground 2 (Vestal Operations)
      • Radio 5 VHF high band: set to the assisting agency option (Police, EMS, Fire Police, DEC)
      • Radio 2 VHF low band: Broome Co. low band Ch. 1 or operations channel
      • Radio 4 UHF band: set to UHF channel as needed
      • Radio 6 VHF low band: set to Tioga Co. low band Ch. 1 or Ch. 2
    • Kenwood Radio: set to channel as needed and/or Special Ops 9 – (consider GPS tracking if needed)
  • Documentation – ICS 214 (Activity Log) and 201 (Incident Briefing) forms
    • Situation Status
      • Incident name / number if known
      • Date and time of incident:
      • Address and sketch layout:
      • Primary situation encountered:
        • Objectives
          • Priorities set by IC
          • Actions
      • Secondary situation encountered:
        • Objectives
          • Priorities set by IC
          • Actions
      • Resources supporting incident:
        • Initial response units
        • Mutual Aid response units
      • IC notes / comments:
        • Post strategic and tactical information that may be needed to convey to others
      • Incident Organization: IC-F-L-O-P
      • Resource tracking:
        • Initial response units
          • Organize resource tracking / sign in / accountability process
        • Staging units
        • Special Teams
        • Station coverage