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small noaa logo Home | Software & Data Sets | Responding to Oil Spills
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Electronic ICS Forms

To prevent confusion and ensure clear communication during emergency response, people responding to oil spills or hazardous chemical accidents (as well as other kinds of emergencies) use the Incident Command System (ICS). Under this system, the roles of different people working on the response, their lines of command, and the tasks each must complete are carefully specified. Another important aspect of the ICS system is that people working on specific response tasks complete standard ICS Forms. For example, early in a response, the people responsible for planning the response complete a Response Objectives Form. Responders then can refer to this form whenever they need to review the objectives of the response.

You can download electronic versions of the ICS forms to use on a Macintosh or Windows PC. You can choose either

  1. a database containing the ICS forms, or
  2. a set of all the ICS forms in PDF format

You can use either version to complete ICS forms and then print them out from your computer. The latest versions were posted on June 26, 2007.

Note: The electronic ICS Forms do not run on Macintosh computers with Intel microprocessors. The development team is researching this problem and hopes to identify a solution.

About the Electronic ICS Forms

The California Standard Oil Spill Response Management System (STORMS) Task Force has developed guidance and forms for implementing a National Interagency Incident Management System Incident Command System (ICS) for oil spills. They published their guidance document as the STORMS Field Operations Guide.

The ICS Forms Database is an electronic catalog containing the ICS forms included in the Field Operations Guide. We also have created a set of the same ICS forms in PDF format. Versions for both Macintosh computers and Microsoft Windows are available. The electronic ICS Forms can be distributed freely.

The electronic ICS forms were developed by the Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R), National Ocean Service, NOAA. We cannot provide any support for them, and NOAA cannot warrant accuracy or completeness. We appreciate your suggestions for changes or reports on program bugs. To make comments or to report bugs, email our Spill Tools Specialist.

More Information
  • Incident Command System (ICS) To access this U.S. Coast Guard page, click the Library tab at the top of the page, then click "Incident Command System ICS" in the left column. [leaves OR&R site]

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