Keystone: Incident Management and Support Keystone (IMSK)

The Incident Management and Support Keystone (IMSK) establishes broader doctrine that applies primarily to the FEMA Response and Recovery mission. It is the primary document from which all other FEMA disaster response directives and policies are derived.

The IMSK leads a family of other document guidance that supports the implementation of FEMA disaster response operations. Specifically, the IMSK:

  • Standardizes FEMA procedures to more effectively integrate at all levels of government and across the country.
  • Institutionalizes best practices—it uses principles initially established in wildfire management processes and widely adopted in the fire service throughout the country.
  • Serves to guide planning, training, equipping, and staffing processes to bring all levels of emergency response across all disciplines to a common management process.
  • Differentiates between incident support and incident management, which are addressed in greater detail later in this lesson.
Doctrine Hierarchy: Capstone, Keystone (focus), Manuals, Procedures
Cover of FEMA Incident Management and Support Keystone January 2018 cover
FEMA Incident Management and Support Keystone cover
Select the IMSK cover to review the doctrine.