Which Factor Does Not Impact the Complexity of an Incident

Which Factor Does Not Impact the Complexity of an Incident’ is one of the questions that is available on FEMA online course. It is known that online courses related to FEMA will provide the questions about Incident Command System (ICS).

If you want to get a high score when taking a FEMA online course, you surely need to know and understand deeply about ICS. If you come to this page to find out the correct answer of ‘Which Factor Does Not Impact the Complexity of an Incident’, you’re at the right page now. Let’s dive into our post to find out the answer!

Which Factor Does Not Impact the Complexity of an Incident

We got the answer for the question of ‘Which Factor Does Not Impact the Complexity of an Incident’ at classroomstruggle.org. There are four answer choices for this question available, here they are:

a. Community and responder safety
b. Potential hazardous materials
c. Political sensitivity, external influences, and media relations
d. Cost considerations of responding agencies

According to the Classroom Struggle site, the correct answer for the question of ‘Which Factor Does Not Impact the Complexity of an Incident’ is D. Cost considerations of responding agencies.

The answer shows that the costs of the response agencies do not change the complexity of any incident. Moreover, the events are not affected by expenses that are incurred by these agencies. Well, other options may complicate or worsen the situation and impact the event negatively.

About Incident Complexity

The complexity of an incident refers to the combination of factors that impact the probability of an incident being controlled. Certainly, the complexity of an incident is totally influenced by a bunch of factors including:

  • Political sensitivity
  • Threat to life and property
  • Area involved
  • Organizational complexity
  • Values at risk
  • Jurisdictional boundaries
  • Weather
  • Strategy and tactics
  • Agency policy

Moreover, the incident complexity will influence the incident management levels, safety decisions and staffing. It is known that the complexity of an incident is assessed on a five-point scale that ranges from type 5 to type 1.

In this case, a variety of analysis tools have been developed in order to evaluate the essential factors that are involved in the complexity of an incident. Here are the following factors that are considered when analyzing the complexity of an incident:

  • Impacts on life, economy and property
  • Potentially hazardous materials
  • Community and emergency response safety
  • Probability of cascading events
  • Influences of the environment and the events
  • Threatinng crime scenes such as terrorism
  • Area affected, jurisdictional boundaries
  • External influencer, politics and media relations
  • The availability of resources

Well, multiple operational periods and multijurisdictional and/or multidisciplinary efforts will actually need outside resources and support in large and complex incidents normally type 1 incidents.

What Are the Factors To Identify the Complexity Types of an Incident?

The extent, severity and difficulty of control of an incident are totally affected by the combination of involved factors. Here are a bunch of factors that determine complexity type:

  • Weather
  • Values at risk
  • Agency policy
  • Strategy and tactics
  • Jurisdictional boundaries
  • Organizational complexity
  • Geographic area involved
  • Level of threat to life and property
  • Policatic sensitivity

In the case of making decisions about staffing, training and safety for incident management, an incident management personnel needs to consider complexity type.

What Are the Types of Incident Complexity?

There are five types of the incident complexity, including

Type 5

  • Resource: One or two resources with up to six personnel are necessary. In this case, the Incident Commander is the only member of the Command and General Staff which is activated.
  • Time Span: Within a few hours once resources arrive on the scene, the incident will be contained within the first operational period. Well, the incident plan will not have to be written.

Type 4

  • Resources: Command Staff and General Staff functions are activated when needed and also several resources should be created available to contain the incident.
  • Time Span: During the control phase, it will last no longer than one day. For non-HazMat incidents, there will be no necessity for an incident action plan. In this case, documented operational briefings will be conducted.

Type 3

  • Resources: The proper ICS position must be added to fit the incident complexity in the event that capabilities exceed initial attack capabilities. Furthermore, the Division or Group Supervisor position and/or Unit Leader will be activated, as well several or all the positions of General Staff and Command Staff.
  • Time Span: Some Incident Action Plans may be required, depending on the length of the incident.

Type 2

  • Resources: The regional and/or national resources will be needed to manage the operations effectively and safely. The General Staff and Command Staff position will be filled to a large extent. For more information, the average number of operations personnel per operational period is roughly 200 with no more than 500 operations personnel.
  • Time Span: Several operational periods will be expected for this incident where each operational period will need a written Incident Action Plan.

Type 1

  • Resources: The national resources will be needed to conduct the operations effectively and safely. In this case, branches should be built and all staff and command positions have been activated.
  • Time Span: The incident action plans will be required during each period of operation with an extensive amount of time being expected for this incident.

What Is an Incident Complexity Guide?

Incident complexity guides including Planning, Preparation and Training actually support the National Incident Management System (NIMS) doctrine by building guidance to support the incident management and emergency management community.

With Incident complexity guide, incident and emergency response personnel will be able to identify the complexity level of each operational incident, exercise, planned event  or training. with a consistent method in order to describe incident complexity principles, the guide actually promotes a common understanding within the whole community.

Additionally, this guide also builds a framework to determine incident complexity level to inform emergency planning, preparing and training and also to improve operational readiness in order to respond to real incidents and events.

Last but not least, NIMS and the National Preparedness System are more efficient and effective with a consistent approach and method to determine complexity types.

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