GREAT FALLS — Cascade County Disaster & Emergency Services (DES) is teaching Incident Command System courses to prepare responders. One of the classes began Tuesday morning, and they will hold other classes in the future.
The main goal of the class is to equip responders to better handle large-scale incidents at the local level.
Aaron Frick, a patrol lieutenant with the Great Falls Police Department is taking the course and explained, “Experience doesn’t necessarily translate to success, you know, a lot of the things we practice a lot, but we don't get to put into actual use.”
Frick has been with the Great Falls Police Department for over 15 years. He said you should never stop improving or learning, which is why he and several other first responders are taking the course.
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“This class establishes that framework and the protocol, so that everybody knows I have an assigned role, this is my assigned role, and this is what I’m going to do and how I can contribute,” explained Frick.
David Hamilton, incident commander with the Montana DNRC, is one of the instructors for the Incident Command Course.
“[The course] kind of talks about the bigger operation and the planning cycle and really staying organized when you're responding to an incident,” Hamilton said.
Oftentimes when a large-scale incident occurs, agencies from other jurisdictions or even out-of-state will come together to assist.
“The biggest need is so that local government agencies, local responders are able to take care of those incidents that happen inside their jurisdictions, and they don't have to call in outside help,” explained Hamilton.
Cascade County DES said the classes are open to everyone, and they encourage all responders to attend. To contact Cascade County DES, click here.
