NIMS Alert

January 4, 2007 
NA: 01-07
NIMS Integration Center
202-646-3850

NIMS RECOMMENDED STANDARDS

This NIMS Alert provides information for all NIMS Stakeholders on the NIMS Integration Center (NIC)’s recommended standards for the implementation of NIMS.  The NIMS Integration Center (NIC) conducted a review of incident and emergency management related standards through a multi-disciplinary Practitioner Working Group (PWG) to determine which standards provide the essential guidance for successful NIMS implementation.  As a result, the NIC recommends that State and local governments voluntary adopt the following standards:    

	The National Fire Protection Association standards 

* NFPA 1600: Standard on Disaster/Emergency Management and Business Continuity Programs.
* NFPA 1561: Standard on Emergency Services Incident Management System.

The NIC will conduct another standards review cycle in Fiscal Year 2007 to evaluate additional standards and begin to identify areas of NIMS where there are no current programmatic, technical or operational standards. Likewise, the review will identify where existing standards do not meet the intent of NIMS.   

Because standards development organizations regularly review and update their standards to maintain relevance, recommended standards will be reevaluated as revisions or new versions of the standards are released. The reevaluation of updated NIMS recommended standards will occur during the next NIMS standards review cycle after being released. 

It should be noted that the adoption of NPFA 1600 and 1561 are not NIMS compliance requirements, but is a voluntary effort that is not tied to receipt of DHS grant funds.    

A Fact Sheet on NIMS Recommended Standards containing additional information can be downloaded from the NIMS Integration Center website at http://www.fema.gov/emergency/nims/fact_sheet_standards.shtm.  


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