Division Commander: Lieutenant Orns

The Field Operations Division is commanded by a Lieutenant and staffed by those holding the rank of Officer or higher. The Field Operations Division provides response and public services related to the following core functions:

Incident Management
The staff within the Field Operations Division devote most of their energies to incident management. Officers are deeply trained in ICS, position-specific responsibilities, and overall incident coordination. The division assists incidents commanders and local responders in any areas of incident management requested.

Managed Incident Communications
Reporting to Logistics, Managed Incident Communications is charged with developing an incident communications plan, obtaining approval for the plan, and implementing the plan at the scene of significant incidents. Incident communicators spend some time on the radio, but devote much of their efforts to developing a managed communications plan, scribing major developments, scribing command staff decisions, issuing radios, and developing primary and redundant modes of communications between incident responders, the command post and the appropriate PSAPs.

Mass Casualty Incident Support
The Field Operations Division manages the county's Mass Casualty Incident (MCI) trailer. The trailer has BLS, ILS, and ALS supplies to support up to 100 victims. Officers works with local hospitals to rotate consumable supplies and participates in regional and county disaster drills.

Severe Storm Operations
McLean County EMA is charged with coordinating the county's severe storm spotter network. Managed at the County EOC, Officers operate radio communications between the EOC and spotters and other elements of public safety. The EOC staff also coordinate with neighboring county EMAs and the National Weather Service.

Damage Assessment
McLean County EMA is the lead damage assessment agency in the county. McLean County is required to report storm damage to the Illinois Emergency Management Agency (IEMA) and Field Operations Divisions Officers perform much of the structured damage assessment activities. Division Officers also liaise with municipal EMAs and ESDAs who perform their own damage assessment activities. At the conclusion of all Damage Assessment activities, the McLean County EMA prepares a consolidated report for IEMA and the National Weather Service.

Winter Weather Operations
In the event of significant inclimate winter weather, the Field Operations Division offers transportation services for critical employees, medicines and public safety responders. The agency can also check on the welfare of stranded motorists and arrange for a tow or transport the stranded motorists to aid stations. The Field Operations Division can also assist municipal EMAs, ESDAs and the American Red Cross of the Heartland on the staffing and supplying of shelters.

Supplemental Lighting and Power
The Field Operations Division maintains a number of generators and portable lighting units that can be utilized to power and light critical infrastructure and incident scenes.

Telecommunications Asset Management
A significant portion of the services provided by the McLean County EMA rely heavily on complex telecommunications assets including networking infrastructure and data systems, telephony and voice services, audio/visual equipment, and two-way communications systems. Given the strong relationship of telecommunication asset functionality to overall services within the Field Operations Division, a Corporal is charged with managing, upgrading, enhancing, and decommissioning telecommunications systems within agency assets.