EDMG230 w2
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Jan 9, 2024
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Rogers Building Fire Waterville, Mn 2014
https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/multi-unit-structure-fire-in-waterville/
This was a fire I responded to with my previous department as mutual aid for the first alarm.
This fire occurred in the small city of Waterville, Minnesota, which is approximately 60 miles
south of the Twin Cities. Many of the fire departments in this area are entirely volunteer, with
one being a mix of paid on-call staffing and volunteers. Le Sueur County, where Waterville is
located, has provided extensive ICS training for local fire departments and has an adequate
emergency management department.
The ICS model was used during this incident and was effective overall, with only a few mistakes.
The initial arriving units established command, and when the Fire chief arrived on the scene,
they became the IC. As additional mutual aid companies arrived, they staged until the IC
assigned them to divisions. The divisions were Alpha on the main street, Charlie in the alley, and
Water, which was located five blocks away. As the city's municipal water system could not
supply multiple master streams, the water division's objective was to fill water tenders from the
lake in town and shuttle water to drop tanks where engines could supply aerial master streams
used in the defensive fire operations. The biggest mistake was the IC not appointing a water
division chief. The IC span of control grew too large, and communication breakdowns led to
shutting down master streams on multiple occasions due to low water supply.
The IC did a good job establishing division supervisors to oversee operations for the Alpha and
Charlie divisions, and this lowered their span of control to acceptable numbers. However, in
keeping the water division under their command, their span of control was close to 20 units.
The recommendation for this incident is to recognize the importance of maintaining the span of
control to acceptable numbers. In this case, establishing a water division boss would have made
a single point of contact for each of the Charlie and Alpha division bosses to communicate with
and would have prevented backlogs of full tenders waiting to offload on for Charlie operations
as the Alpha operations shut down due to lack of water.
-Kevin
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