The United States Fire Administration (USFA) has been designated as the lead agency for staffing the newly created Fire Desk at the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) National Operations Center (NOC).

Having qualified USFA personnel located at the NOC addresses two critical needs: to serve as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) for the Nation's fire service that provides valuable first responder insight to decision makers in support of the DHS mission; and to act as a vanguard for the fire service in information sharing and intelligence information analysis.

The NOC is the primary national-level hub for domestic situational awareness, common operational picture, information fusion, information sharing, communications, and coordination pertaining to the prevention of terrorist attacks and domestic incident management. The NOC is the primary conduit for the White House Situation Room and the DHS Leadership for domestic situational awareness. The NOC facilitates information sharing and operational coordination with other Federal, State, local, tribal, and nongovernmental operation centers and the private sector.

The primary role of the Fire Desk staff is to provide technical assistance directly in support of the DHS core missions to provide situational awareness and a common operating picture for the entire federal government, and for state, local, and tribal governments as appropriate, in the event of a natural disaster, act of terrorism, or other man-made disaster; and ensure that critical terrorism and disaster-related information reaches government decision-makers.

During it's relatively short time at the NOC, the Fire Desk staff has provided valuable expertise into the validity of several purported terrorist threats against major cities water supplies, as well as to provide first responder insight to numerous hazardous material incidents, plane crashes, and wildland fires. Additionally, the staff has been engaged with DHS's Office of Intelligence and Analysis in an intelligence information sharing enterprise and is now fully integrated to receive both classified and unclassified Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) and threat information. As a result of this effort, USFA is obliged to share this information, as appropriate, with not only the major metropolitan fire departments, but with all fire departments nationwide.

In an effort to accomplish this voluminous task, USFA proposes a layered approached first by having the senior leadership of every fire or emergency medical services (EMS) department become registered users of the USFA's Emergency Management and Response - Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EMR-ISAC) where they can directly receive CIP and DHS threat information.

The second approach is through the Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN). HSIN is a Web-based encrypted network providing for the delivery of real-time interactive information exchange among federal, state, Tribal, local, and private sector partners. When the Fire Service portal on HSIN is completed, all registered users in the EMR-ISAC system will automatically be given access to the Fire Service portal where they can review and post additional relevant fire service information.

Police, fire, EMS, hazardous materials, 9-1-1, and emergency management personnel currently occupying leadership positions in their respective departments and agencies who subscribe to the EMR-ISAC system will receive CIP Infograms and For Official Use Only threat information after their online application has been reviewed and validated.

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