NIMS Training at Meeting

Twelve Hams from all four counties came early for the meeting on January 18th, to take part in an Introduction to NIMS Training session. Instructor W3BC described the courses availble from FEMA that are now required for the ARRL EC-001 and EC-016 courses, and other free NIMS courses that are useful for all hams wishing to imporve their understanding of emergency communications and the structure of incident management involving multiple agencies.

Those attending learned about the structure of the Incident Command System, and the National Incident Management System. They discussed the role of the Amateur Radio Service within this framework, and the positive contributions our service provides as a voluntary agency. The class concluded with an overview and discussion of the IS-700 course, and those attending were encouraged to complete self-paced, online IS-100 and IS-700 training.

The Website for the NIMS courses is training.fema.gov/IS. The public is encouraged to take any of the courses, and the cost is free.

Recommended Courses

Although there are many interesting courses, and no restrictions on taking any or all of them, hams interested in completing NIMS courses identified as prerequisites for the ARRL EC-001 and EC-016 courses are encouraged to complete the following courses first:

For EC-001 “Level I”

• IS-100 b Introduction to Incident Command System
• IS-200 b National Incident Management System (NIMS) An Introduction

For EC-016 “Level II”

• IS-120 a An Introduction to Exercises
• IS-230 b Fundamentals of Emergency Management
• IS-235 b Emergency Planning
• IS-241 a Leadership and Influence
• IS-241 a Decision Making and Problem Solving
• IS-242 a Effective Communication
• IS-244 a Developing and Managing Volunteers

(Note: For EC-016, an additional prerequisite is Skywarn certification)

Of course you can (and should) take any others that interest you.

All members completing each of these courses are asked to send an email to Public Service Coordinator, Kevin Snyder KA3YCB for his records at PublicService@qcarc.org