The IRP can be imagined as an umbrella.

The Incident Response Policy (IRP) represents a fundamental shift in how MCFRS conceives of, prepares for and executes incident operations. The IRP is an umbrella policy under which there are a series of appendices that provide specific direction for various incident types.

Policy Structure

The IRP provides a structured, universal approach to incident management. It was written to survive the current generation of firefighting. As with all things, in time it will require adjustment but it should be relatively long lasting.

The IRP can be thought of as the handle and wire framework of an umbrella. Because individual situations are addressed in appendices, the time from when the Fire Chief decides to make changes and when those changes are made is reduced. This will increase our flexibility and speed, enhancing future operations.

The ODS

Keeping with this umbrella analogy the Operational Doctrine Statement (ODS) is the fabric of the umbrella. It provides coverage for all the appendices and serves as a reference point for situations that do not fit neatly into an SOP box.

It too was crafted to survive the current generation of firefighting. The ODS sets the tone for operational behavior. It describes the fundamental high-level notions on which all other operational matters are based. It is the authoritative statement of the MCFRS philosophical approach to emergency incident response. It is not a policy but you can't choose to ignore it.

The other appendices are of similar scope and format as previous SOPS with the exception that more explanatory material has been provided with the intent of giving the reader a better sense of the assumptions and thought processes the policies are built on.

Themes

There are some themes that are woven into the fabric of the documents.

Embracing Personal Initiative

Historically MCFRS has provided unit officers and incident commanders with operational latitude. More astute unit officers and incident commanders understood this. However, there were some who struggled with leaving the familiar comfort of SOP boxes, preferring the safety of rules to the rigors of critical thought.

While the IRP recognizes the significance of having rules, "boxes," especially for the initial deployment of resources, it also is explicit in its support of personnel exercising disciplined initiative within the scope of their authority.

Initiative is not a license to freelance anymore than crew resource management is a license for insubordination. However, both concepts recognize a fundamental truth: no one person is capable of seeing or knowing everything: incident response is a team effort.

Initiative is about personnel understanding what is required of them, understanding the limits of their authority, and having a desire to ensure that the mission is completed successfully.

Personal Responsibility

Personnel at each level of the organization are accountable. They are responsible for situational awareness. They are responsible for their own safety and the safety of their team. They are responsible for on-going risk assessments.

The organization can not and does not abdicate its responsibility to ensure safety, it simply recognizes that no supervisor can be everywhere or see everything. Everyone must operate at the highest levels of proficiency at all times. Everyone must monitor the situation. Everyone is responsible for their safety.

Organizational Flexibility

Our operational environment is in a constant state of flux. Not only is the built environment, e.g., buildings, construction materials, furnishings, and interior configurations, changing all the time, the tools, equipment, technology, research and experience we bring to the incident management process is constantly changing too. We need to be flexible.

The policy structure makes it easier to react quickly to future changes. But as important as it is to be responsive to our operational environment we must also resist the urge to embrace new things and ideas just for the sake of newness.

The Notion of Embedded Concepts

It was not possible to go into great detail with the IRP. As it is these documents straddle a fine line between policy, procedure, and technical manual. If all the background information and influential events that guided the policy creation process were included the policy would be a rather large volume.

Some concepts were embedded in the language and structure of the policy. For example the ODS lists Operational Principles and Operational Anchors. A careful reading of all the appendices will reveal that these principles and anchors are threads that run just below the surface. They work to tie the document and our thought processes together into a cohesive whole.

Learning

This policy is long and all along the way there are little changes that hopefully make a big difference in our effectiveness. But a policy unread cannot be effective.

The slideshows, videos, documents, and references only cover the major changes and the key points. It is the abridged edition of the policy. It is our intent that if you read every word on this site you will know enough to function on the fire ground but you will not be as good as you could be.

This not the easiest document to work through, much like your job is not the easiest job to do. However, we trust that each of you understands the fundamental importance of all personnel working with a common operational picture and that simply cannot happen if you don't take the time to ready and study the documents.

Support

In addition to the policy we have tried to anticipate some of the questions that people would have and to answer those questions in writing. This policy is complex and it was not possible to include all the supporting information in the policy. That said the MCFRS Policy Training Blog is a tool that was built to support your learning.

The blog provides some detailed background, some supporting documentation, and answers the questions we were able to anticipate. To use the blog you can either just read the posts, you can use the search bar to see if your question is included, you can look at the lists of posts, or you can click on one of the items in the "tag cloud." If you can't get the answer from one of those sources then you can use the "Ask Questions" feature to get your question answered.