Because Incident Command System (ICS) is the basis for managing FEMA incident-level activities, all incidents to which FEMA responds require the use of the ICS incident action planning process. All members of the UCG and the command and general staff on FEMA incidents play specific and essential parts in the process. This includes not just FEMA staff, but also State and Federal interagency partners who are active in incident management.

Those involved in FEMA response and recovery must recognize that it will, in all probability, not be the only incident action planning process being executed. As illustrated below, FEMA and the State jointly develop one IAP at the incident level but FEMA’s other partners—local and municipal organizations—will develop their own IAPs to guide the actions of their first responders. For a catastrophic incident there could be hundreds of concurrent incident action planning processes taking place. The joint IAP that the State and Federal incident management personnel develop must support all local IAPs and synchronize all of those at the State and Federal level.