Emergency Response Planning Environmental public health professionals should play an active role in emergency response planning to determine duties and responsibilities, first at the local level, then at the state and federal levels. Familiarity with your local and state emergency response plan helps you understand what can and should be done and how to access additional resources. If a wildfire is significant in size or juris - dictions impacted, additional resources (includ - ing those through mutual aid/assistance) may be necessary. This should be discussed at the regional and state levels. Messaging, public advisories, and acting as local public and environmental health technical special - ists for responding agencies will be important roles for staff. Some issues will arise during the wild - fire, but most will be a concern after the wildfire has been contained and recovery operations have begun. Local environmental public health staff will be called upon to perform many functions directly or indirectly related to normal program responsibil-
ities. The environmental public health agency must decide its involvement. All-Hazards Planning Wildfires are only one of many disaster scenarios that a local environmental public health agency could face. Prudent planning and consideration of an all-hazard 13 approach with collaboration and interactions of key response agencies are critical. Environmental public health agencies recognize the key role they play in various disaster situations and must consider prepara - There are numerous governmental, non-govern - mental, and quasi-governmental entities that staff will potentially interact with during and following a wildfire. They are too numerous to list specifically, as every fire will be somewhat different. How - ever, key players are listed here. Some entities are indicated as local/state/federal because of their involvement at all levels, not that they are neces - sarily government operations. tions common to any disaster. Agency Coordination
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