04 - Fire Service: Initial Command

Fire Service: Initial Command is a title in Action Training Systems' Incident Command and Management range, and SkillsTrain, the authorised Action Training Systems (ATS) distributor in South Africa, supplies it locally. It covers the first-arriving officer's job in the opening minutes of an incident: establishing command before the command structure grows.

The title presents the roles and functions of the Incident Command System (ICS), the standard structure used to organise an emergency response, and discusses how that system can be expanded as the size, complexity and demands of an incident increase. It focuses on fire service response for the lower-complexity incidents classed as types 4 and 5, the everyday incidents most services handle most often. It works through the key early actions: establishing command, building a command structure, and setting up divisions, groups and branches within the ICS organisation so that responsibility is clearly divided as more resources arrive.

It uses the same teach, test and track model as the rest of the ATS range: a learner is assessed as they move through the title, and any section answered incorrectly is replayed before they are allowed to continue. The programme runs about 29 minutes and is supplied on USB or as a classroom streaming option.

This title belongs to the wider Incident Command and Management range that SkillsTrain supplies; it pairs naturally with the companion command titles, which carry the structure on into the expanded command of larger incidents, so a service can develop command capability in a logical order.

Who it is for: first-arriving company officers and the training officers developing them, building confident initial command of the everyday incident.