In
an effort to enhance the security and readiness of the
country's first responders to deal with potential terrorist
threats, the Administrator of the U.S. Fire Administration
(USFA), R. David Paulison, today signed an agreement
with the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC)
Director, Ronald L. Dick, in support of the newly established
Emergency Fire Services Information Sharing and Analysis
Center (ISAC). This partnership between the USFA, acting
on behalf of the country's career and volunteer fire
and rescue personnel, and the NIPC, will allow vital
security-related information to move more effectively
between the multi-agency NIPC, based at FBI headquarters
in Washington, DC, and the national fire associations,
the 50 State Fire Marshals, and the over 32,000 local
fire and emergency medical departments throughout the
nation.
The
Emergency Fire Services (EFS) ISAC will be operated
by the US Fire Administration (USFA), at its headquarters
in Emmitsburg, Maryland, which is also the site of the
National Fire Academy. USFA is a component of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, which was designated lead
responsibility for the emergency fire services sector
in Presidential Decision Directive-63 signed in May
1998. The EFS ISAC will allow the nation's leading experts
in fire and emergency services to assess threat intelligence
provided by the NIPC and then assist the NIPC in preparing
warnings of threats against emergency fire services
personnel and infrastructure. In turn, the nation's
fire and emergency departments will have a fast and
reliable means through the NIPC to pass incident information
to national level agencies responsible for looking for
patterns that may indicate an organized attack is in
preparation or underway.
"While
everyone is doing their utmost to prevent terrorist
attacks, today's threat environment reflects that potential
targets are not limited to federal government sites.
That is why information sharing between the national
and the local level is vital in the war against terrorism,"
said Ron Dick, Director of the NIPC. Mr. Dick added,
"Our country's fire and emergency medical departments
are in every community. They are the ones that will
be first to deal with the consequences of any domestic
terrorist attacks. We must be able to give them warnings
as early as possible so they can take actions to minimize
the potential loss of life and property. Advance knowledge
of the target area and the type of attack (bomb, chemical,
radiological, biological and/or cyber) can make a vital
difference in their readiness to mitigate the consequences
of an attack. The intelligence, law enforcement and
other agencies that make up the NIPC are committed to
giving our nation's first responders that vital edge."
"The
understanding we sign today recognizes the necessity
for a robust and timely exchange of essential information
about threats to and attacks on the fire and emergency
medical services infrastructure," according to
R. David Paulison, Administrator of the USFA. "It
is most appropriate that USFA establishes an ISAC to
serve as a mechanism for the two-way trusted exchange
of information in order to analyze and disseminate actionable
intelligence on threats, attacks, vulnerabilities, anomalies,
and security best practices involving the emergency
fire sector."
"The
creation of the EFS ISAC is one more step in our efforts
to integrate State and local resources into an efficient
and effective national effort to fortify our homeland
defenses," Dick added. " The EFS ISAC communications
network, leveraging the existing dissemination mechanisms
of national fire associations, the 50 State Fire Marshals,
and law enforcement networks will allow the NIPC to
quickly transmit critical physical and cyber threat
information to local fire departments. The emergency
fire leadership at the USFA can give us expert interpretation
on raw sensitive threat intelligence, and help us turn
it into useful information that first responders can
directly act on. Collectively, the eyes and ears of
our best trained safety professionals in each community
will serve as the sensors for a national early warning
system to alert us to a possible attack on the emergency
services infrastructure itself."
According
to Paulison, "The National Fire Academy expects
to have a new training module ready in the near future
for first responders on how the ISAC can best serve
their critical infrastructure and counterterrorism information
and preparedness needs".