Mutual aid (emergency services)

Mutual aid (emergency services)

In emergency services, mutual aid is an agreement among emergency responders to lend assistance across jurisdictional boundaries. This may occur due to an emergency response that exceeds local resources, such as a disaster or a multiple-alarm fire. Mutual aid may be ad hoc, requested only when such an emergency occurs. It may also be a formal standing agreement for cooperative emergency management on a continuing basis, such as ensuring that resources are dispatched from the nearest fire station, regardless of which side of the jurisdictional boundary the incident is on. Agreements that send closest resources are regularly referred to as "automatic aid agreements".

Mutual aid may also extend beyond local response. Several states have statewide mutual aid systems. Examples include Washington and Oregon statewide mobilization programs. MABAS (Mutual Aid Box Alarm System) is a regional mutual aid system, headquartered in Illinois, with 1500 member fire departments in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Missouri.

Utility companies usually also have mutual aid agreements.

Examples

Large municipalities typically have enough fire and emergency medical services resources to handle large local incidents. However, in the case of multiple alarm fires, mass casualty incidents (MCIs) or large-scale hazardous material - HazMat - incidents, that municipality may call in resources from surrounding towns to either respond directly to the incident scene or take up quarters in their fire and EMS stations and respond to other incidents in that city or town when local crews are handling a protracted incident.

Other agreements are common in small towns that have either no resources or limited resources. In these cases, local crews are capable of handling small incidents themselves, but in the case of larger incidents, surrounding municipalities will be called in along with the local resources upon initial dispatch. For instance, local fire and EMS departments will typically handle fire alarm activations and automobile crashes while reports of structure fires will cause the automatic dispatch (automatic aid) of surrounding towns.

Where a town has no resources of its own, it will contract with a surrounding town or towns to provide all coverage.

Such calls for mutual aid are the results of incident escalations as determined by the incident commander. The responses required from other towns is predefined, so all the dispatcher has to do is call the appropriate resources as determined by the "run card" for such an incident.

International mutual aid is also common on border communities in places such as Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, and others.

Industrial mutual-aid organizations

See also

  • Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) – An interstate mutual-aid compact in the United States

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем решить контрольную работу

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Mutual aid — may refer to: Mutual aid (organization), a tenet of organization theories. Mutual aid (emergency services), an agreement between emergency responders. Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, a biology book by anarchist Peter Kropotkin Mutual aid, in… …   Wikipedia

  • Mayday Mutual Aid Medical Station — The Mayday Mutual Aid Medical Station was a tent set up in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina, in part as a response to a call by Malik Rahim and other community activists in Algiers put a call out for an… …   Wikipedia

  • Mutual Assistance Program — is a generic term denoting any form of international and in the United States inter states cooperation projects, treaties or joined ventures related to a specific issue both civilian or military regarding e.g. health, culture, global or local… …   Wikipedia

  • Emergency management — Accident preparedness redirects here. For Safety related articles, see Safety. Disaster preparedness redirects here. For other articles related to disaster preparedness, see Category:Disaster preparedness. Emergency management is the generic name …   Wikipedia

  • Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) — The Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) is a mutual aid agreement and partnership between states and territories. It exists because states share a common enemy: the constant threat and occurrence of natural and man made disasters as… …   Wikipedia

  • Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 — This article is about one division of an enacted statute. For the entire statute, see Public Law 110 343. For the enacted rescue program, see Troubled Asset Relief Program. The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (Division A of Pub.L.… …   Wikipedia

  • Mutual Ownership Defense Housing Division — The Mutual Ownership Defense Housing Division of the Federal Works Agency part of the United States government, operating from about 1940 to 1942 under the leadership of Colonel Lawrence Westbrook, was an attempt by the United States Government,… …   Wikipedia

  • Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 — Plan Paulson Immeuble abritant le Département du Trésor des États Unis Le Plan Paulson, ou TARP[note 1], est l une des mesures mises en place par les États Unis à partir de septembre 2008 pour faire face à la crise financi …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Dutchess County Department of Emergency Response — The Dutchess County Department Of Emergency Response has the responsibility of governing Emergency operations in Dutchess County, New York. This encompasses Police, Fire and EMS. Contents 1 Dispatch System 2 Unit Identifiers 3 Divisions …   Wikipedia

  • Oklahoma Emergency Management Act of 2003 — Emergency Management Act Full title Oklahoma Emergency Management Act of 2003 Enacted by the 49th Oklahoma Legislature Effective May 29, 2003 Purpose …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”