the incident command system (ics) was developed in the aftermath of a devastating wildfire in california in 1970. during the fire “16 lives were lost, 700 structures were destroyed, and over one-half million acres burned” at the expense of “$18 million per day” in overall costs. the responding agencies worked as well as they could together but they had many communications issues. three years after the incident, in 1973 a system known as “firescope” (firefighting resources of california organized for potential emergencies) was developed. this is where the ics and multi-agency coordination system (macs) were developed. soon there was agreed upon ics common terminology and procedures and conducted limited field-testing of ics the system was used on several fires and adopted by the los angeles fire department. during the 1980’s it was realized that the ics could be used on many different large scale incidents to manage personnel and so all responders used the same terminology to create easier communications between responding agencies. the characteristics of the ics include the following points: common terminology, modular organization, management by objectives, reliance on an incident action plan, manageable span of control, pre-designated incident mobilization center locations & facilities, comprehensive resource management integrated communications, establishment and transfer of command, chain of command and unity of command unified command, accountability of resources and personnel, deployment, information, and intelligence management. These multiple aspect and objectives created 5 major management activites to handle incidents. Each activity has things that they are responsible for and what roles that they must accomplish. The Command activity is responsible for all aspects of the response, including developing incident objectives and managing all incident