What does an Incident Action Plan (IAP) typically contain?

An Incident Action Plan (IAP) is a crucial component in managing emergency responses, particularly in hazardous materials incidents. The primary purpose of the IAP is to outline the strategic goals of the response effort, facilitating effective and coordinated activities among various responding agencies and organizations.

The inclusion of general objectives ensures that all responders are aligned on what the immediate priorities are, such as containing a spill, protecting public health, or ensuring safety at the scene. Additionally, resource assignments detail which personnel and equipment will be deployed to meet those objectives, enabling a structured and efficient response.

While an IAP may tangentially reference aspects of environmental impacts or hazardous materials inventories to some extent, those elements are not the main focus of the plan. Instead, it is the overarching strategy and tactical assignments that guide the collective efforts during an incident, making the outline of objectives and resource management the correct context for understanding the core components of an IAP.