TVF&R chief helps put order to Haiti crisis chaos

By Christina Lent

The Beaverton Valley Times, Feb 4, 2010

Christina Lent / Times Newspapers

Kirk Hale

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Kirk Hale brought order to response efforts in a devastated Haiti.

The federal government called on Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue’s assistant fire chief to help advise FEMA’s National Response Coordination Center in Washington, D.C. The center worked around the clock to monitor and coordinate international, federal and state agencies responding to the Jan. 12 earthquake disaster in Haiti.

Hale was selected for the special assignment by the International Association of Fire Chiefs due to his 30 years of experience in emergency response and knowledge of both the National Incident Management System and Incident Command System. He joined chiefs from Texas, Illinois, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., in heading up the command center.

“Our goal was to create an action plan to keep everybody working together on the same recipe,” Hale said.

The West Linn resident returned home Jan. 24 following a hectic six days. Hale talked about his role and the challenges of responding to the natural disaster.

On getting the call:

“I was excited,” Hale said. “One of the things I like best about my job is running incident management teams. I like going into chaos and helping organize it. I really like watching the teamwork and making sure everyone is communicating and building a plan based on priorities. For me, it’s invigorating.”

On his responsibilities coordinating six urban search and rescue teams:

“The majority of our time consisted of helping coordinate the flow of information and efforts of our teams, which all had their own needs and priorities,” he said. “We had to blend the priorities of six different agencies, including FEMA, the Department of Defense and United Nations. We had to wrack and stack them on what was important.

“In the end, we helped produce the incident action plan for the next operational period. We were kicking out one of these a day.”

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