Fireground Accountability Policy Quiz

Fireground Accountability Policy

• This policy focuses on establishing accountability systems for personnel working at emergency incidents, aiming to increase firefighter safety.

Definitions

• Personnel Accountability Report (PAR) - A roll call of all personnel assigned to an incident at specified times. The purpose of the PAR is to account for every member's location and activity, ensuring their safety.

Policy

• New Lenox Fire Protection District mandates supervisors to periodically account for personnel under their direction at emergency incidents.
• All members are required to participate in the accountability system.

Responsibilities

• A personnel accountability system should be implemented via thorough training procedures.
• This system should continually monitor the status of all emergency personnel: both department members and personnel from assisting agencies, from their arrival until their official release from the incident.
• The primary focus of the system is to track personnel, not resources. However, smaller incidents might require one person to track both personnel and resources.
• A written system like the Incident Command System (ICS) Form I-201, status boards, helmet shields, passports, and name tags should be maintained.
• Crew names are to be displayed in a visible location in the cab of department vehicles.
• Supervisors are responsible for tracking personnel under their direction during emergency incidents.
• Personnel should be tracked from dispatch to demobilization.
• Supervisors are tasked with ensuring sufficient tracking methods are in place at the individual, company, division, group, and unit levels to account for personnel during all phases and locations of an incident, including travel between locations and assignments.
• The Incident Commander (IC) should designate an accountability officer to monitor the assigned area for each crew, their location, and assignment.
• Division or group supervisors should be responsible for keeping track of all crews under their supervision.
• Lieutenants should know the location and assignment of each firefighter in their crew.
• All members are accountable for participating in the accountability system, including checking in at approved locations – this applies even to members who arrive on scene individually or in privately-owned vehicles.

Reporting

• Ongoing, routine strategic and tactical accountability at all emergency incidents, including wildland fires, should be accomplished through periodic reporting or visual observation using a CAN report, which includes conditions, actions, and needs.
• Members should report:
  • Emergency situations
  • Inability to meet objectives with revised timelines and/or resource requests
  • Notification of completed actions
  • Changes in strategy
  • Changes in fire conditions, such as crossing planned control lines.

Personnel Accountability Reports (PARs)

• For structure fires, a PAR should be conducted within the first 10 minutes of an incident and repeated every 20 minutes for personnel at the scene.
• PARs should also be conducted after any change in conditions that may compromise firefighter safety, like increased fire conditions, fire crossing planned control lines or trigger points, or after ordering an emergency evacuation of an area.
• A PAR should be conducted for each division, group, and organizational element where operations personnel are working.
• If any person involved in the operation is unaccounted for, emergency procedures, including notification to the IC should be initiated.
• The IC may discontinue regular PARs when incident stabilization is achieved and hazards are sufficiently reduced.

Test your knowledge on the Fireground Accountability Policy which establishes critical accountability systems for personnel during emergency incidents. This quiz will cover definitions, responsibilities, and procedures to ensure firefighter safety and effective incident management.