Do fire departments that receive SAFER grants have to comply with the requirements of the National Incident Management System (NIMS)?
Yes. Beginning October 1, 2005, all recipients of Federal preparedness funds (including recipients of Federal grants and contracts) must adopt NIMS as a condition for the receipt of the Federal funds. Recipients of 2008 AFG funds will be considered to be in compliance with the NIMS requirement if their command staff has an operational knowledge of the Incident Command System (ICS) and an understanding of NIMS principles and policies, which meets 2008 requirements. In addition, they must adhere to any NIMS requirements passed down through local governing bodies in 2008. Responders who have already been trained in ICS do not need retraining if their previous training is consistent with FEMA standards. In order for us to document compliance, grantees will be required to certify their recognition of NIMS/ICS as part of their grant closeout process.

There are four levels of compliance in terms of organizational responsibility and training requirements. They follow:

• Entry level first responder or administrative staff
  IS100 and IS700

• First Line Supervisor, Single Resource Leader, Field Supervisor
  IS100, IS200 and IS700

• Middle Manager (station/shift commander, battalion or division chief)
  IS100, IS200, IS300, IS700, IS800B

• Command and General Staff (chief, deputy/assistant chief, agency head)
  IS100, IS200, IS300, IS700, IS800B and IS400 in FY 2009.

If you have completed a previous version of IS800, it is strongly recommended (but not required) that you complete 800B.

NOTE: Not all persons required to take ICS-300 and ICS-400 will need to take IS-800.B.  Emergency managers and personnel whose primary responsibility is emergency management will need to complete this training.

See NIMS Alert Number 0308 at the following web address:
http://www.fema.gov/emergency/nims/nims_alert.shtm

FEMA offers training for those fire departments that have not implemented ICS or are unfamiliar with the principles and policies of the NIMS. For information regarding ICS and NIMS training, visit the NIMS Website at http://www.fema.gov/emergency/nims. For more information about ICS training, contact the FEMA Centralized Scheduling and Information Desk (CSID) at 1-800-368-6498, or visit the Website of the FEMA Emergency Management Institute (EMI) at www.training.fema.gov and the National Fire Academy (NFA) at http://www.usfa.fema.gov. Your State emergency management training office may also be a source of information in this regard. Recipients of AFG funds should also participate in any community-wide NIMS efforts that may be initiated to implement NIMS in accordance with the guidance that was provided to each State Governor on September 8, 2004.

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For Regional applications, are all of the benefiting organizations required to be NIMS compliant or just the host applicant?
We expect all departments that receive equipment or services from a regional project grant to be compliant with all local edicts regarding NIMS.
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