Background:

Mobilizations are generally called when an emergency occurs in a local jurisdiction. When a local jurisdiction needs assistance beyond the capabilities of local resources and mutual agreements, a request is made for state mobilization.

Under the Washington State Patrol's (WSP) statute, a "mobilization" is defined to mean that resources beyond those available through existing agreements will be requested and, when available, sent in response to an emergency or disaster situation that has exceeded the capabilities of available local resources. During a large scale emergency, mobilization includes the redistribution of regional or statewide firefighting resources to either direct emergency incident assignments or to an assignment in communities where firefighting resources are needed.

The Chief of the WSP has the authority to mobilize jurisdictions under the Washington State Fire Services Mobilization Plan. The State Fire Marshal in the WSP serves as the state fire resources coordinator when a state mobilization plan is mobilized.

State fire mobilization plans are generally needed:

because of the possibility of the occurrence of disastrous fires or other disasters of unprecedented size and destructiveness;
to insure that the state is adequately prepared to respond to such a fire or disaster;
to provide for redistribution of personnel, equipment, and other logistical resources from around the state when a wild land fire or other emergency exceeds the firefighting capacity of local jurisdictions;
to establish a mechanism and a procedure to provide for reimbursement to state agencies and local agencies that respond to help others in time of need or to a host fire district that experiences expenses beyond their allocated available resources in that district; and
to protect the public peace, health, safety, lives, and property of the people of Washington.

The WSP in consultation with the Office of Financial Management and the Washington Military Department is responsible for developing procedures to facilitate reimbursement to state agencies and local jurisdictions from appropriate federal and state funds when state agencies and jurisdictions are mobilized by the WSP Chief under the Washington Fire Services Mobilization plan.

When a mobilization is declared by the Chief of the WSP, all firefighting resources including those of the host fire protection authorities, are deemed mobilized. All non-host fire protection authorities providing firefighting resources in response to a mobilization declaration are eligible for expense reimbursement from the time of the mobilization declaration. Once a state mobilization is declared, all state and local agencies that participate in a fire service mobilization generally receive reimbursement through the state's Disaster Response Account (Account).

Disaster Response Account. The state's Account is a dedicated account in the State Treasury. Money may be placed in the Account from legislative appropriations and transfers, federal appropriations, and other lawful sources. Expenditures from the Account are used to support state agency and local government disaster response and recovery efforts. There have been 156 mobilization events since the inception of the Washington Fire Services Mobilization plan back in 1994: 154 of the events were fire-related and two of the events were non-fire events (the 1999 World Trade Organization riots and the 2008 Rosalia Motorcycle Rally).

Summary of Bill:

The legislative intent for state fire service mobilization is expanded. The Legislature finds that due to the possibility of a fire or other disaster, there is a need to establish a mechanism and procedure to provide for reimbursement to state and local agencies that respond to help others in a time of need or to a host fire district that experiences expenses beyond the resources of the fire district. Thereby it is declared necessary to provide the policy and organization structure for large scale mobilizations of all risk resources in the state through the creation of the Washington State Fire Services Mobilization plan.

The term "mobilization" is expanded (from general firefighting) to include other services, or all risk resources, regularly provided by fire departments, districts, and regional fire protection authorities.

"All risk resources" means those resources regularly provided by fire departments, fire districts, and regional fire protection authorities required to respond to incidents, including but not limited to wild land fires, landslides, earthquakes, floods, and contagious diseases.