Your time as a Dirt Ranger has probably shown you that Rangers handle many different kinds of incidents. Some kinds of incidents are very common to Ranger shifts, and a big part of your job as an Operator is making sure that certain critical pieces of information get captured about those different incident types (WHAT) and when different things happened (WHEN). The IMS logs are used during the off-season to evaluate Ranger shift command operations and show us where and how we can improve, and Operators (yes, you!) are the first entry point for capturing those key details, as well as the overall context of what happened in an incident (also, why Rangers were involved and/or care about what’s happening).
Your Task: Review the key facts listed under the different types of calls below, and complete the activity at the end.
Medical Calls
1) when it’s called in
2) when ESD arrives
3) when Rangers are clear
Vehicle Calls
Lost Child
Other Must-Reports (SV, DV, etc.)
Some priorities when using IMS:
These are areas of high priority for Operators when using IMS:
CLOSE YER INCIDENTS! An important part of Passdown in Shift Command is knowing which incidents are active and which are closed. About an hour and a half before the end of your shift (or earlier!), fetch a Shift Lead to sit with you to close incidents out from your shift, and from previous shifts as needed. Leave the incident queue tidy for the next shift; they will be grateful.
→ You may have to get in Khaki’s face to get her/his attention (just a little bit). Don’t be obnoxious, DO be persistent.
#Hashtags Increasingly, we are relying on our IMS to find recurring and related incidents, to connect the dots and get a sense of the bigger picture. Consequently, we are using #hashtags to make searching IMS easier. You will see hashtags in IMS, and you may be asked to add hashtags to incidents. Ask a Shift Lead if you aren't sure if an incident gets a hashtag, or if you should create a new one for related incidents.
MV tags - get those tag numbers! Call the reporting Ranger as Operator and ask for them if you have to. A distressing number of vehicle calls from previous years involving mutant vehicles that we handed off to the DMV post-event were missing the MV tag number, which means they can’t actually do anything about it.
→ When you hear a Ranger reporting a misbehaving art car, you can call out as Operator and ask for that tag number!
Call it in, call it out. This idea continues to be emphasized in training, and means that Rangers 1) call in to request something, 2) the requested something arrives, and 3) the pair is clear of that thing. Try to get all three parts into the logs -- this helps us keep track of response times and whether Ranger pairs are still busy with active incidents.
→ Listen for phrases like “LE is on scene”, “Medical is on scene”, “I’m clear of that incident at [address]” → all of these are details that should get logged in the relevant incident! Keep an ear out for the handle of the reporting Ranger (or their partner) to help you figure which update goes with which incident.
Use the incident type & Rangers fields in the top section. Use those pulldowns! Add Rangers to incidents, add a Summary in the top line once the nature of the incident emerges, use the Incident Types pulldown menu. Be consistent as much as possible. These fields are very valuable when crunching the data post-event, so we want to make them as awesome as we can.