Tactics, command, leadership

pointed by a fire chief. This is done in advance in the great majo-
rity of cases and the work that a fire chief at a municipal structure
for providing rescue services conducts is in accordance with plans
established beforehand in some form of delegation structure. The
delegation structure should specify who is superior to whom at an
incident site, as well as at other times. An operational commander
also has a superior who can provide the incident commander with
guidelines or directives for how work is to be conducted during a
response operation.
If a specific delegation structure has been specified for who
is super ior to who at a municipal structure for providing rescue
services, this does not exclude a senior commander from making
a so­called command visit. The fire chief app oints a person as the
incident commander for an incident calling for a municipal
emergency response. This is often a practical issue, because one and
the same person (the fire chief) can hardly be expected to serve as
an incident commander in the event of simultaneously occurring
emergency response operations. Note that certain difficulties can
arise in cases in which the fire chief is the incident commander
during a response operation. Assume, for example, that an
emergency has occurred and an incident commander (not the fire
chief, however) is at the incident site and leading operations. The
fire chief can visit the incident site and conduct a command visit,
without assum ing the duties of an incident commander. The fire
chief is still superior to the incident commander, regardless of
whether the fire chief is at the incident site or not. The fire chief
cannot divest himself of overall responsibility for the response
operation being conducted by the incident commander within
certain given frameworks. The incident commander must observe
the guidelines and instructions that are issued by the fire chief.
The fire chief can appoint a new incident commander, even during
an ongoing response operation.
If units from several municipalities are involved in the response,
the normal delegation structure applies in the respective municipa-
lities. The incident commander at the site is responsible for conduc-
ting operations, while the assisting organisation retains its ordinary
command structure if not otherwise regulated through agreements
or similar arrangements. This is a form of collaboration between
authorities, which entails that the assisting authority should also
dispatch a commander to serve as the employer representative
from the assisting authority. Regardless of how one resolves the