GSN Awards Dinner Winners and Sponsors: Tony Wilder, Incident Commander, Southern Agency Type 1 Red Team

The Bastrop County, TX  Unified Command was named Winner of GSN’s 2011 Award for “Most Notable Emergency Response – Federal, State or Local.”. Trophies were awarded to the Incident Commanders of all  four participating agencies.”

The Southern Agency Type 1 Red Team, the final unit to join the Bastrop County Unified Command, is described by Tony Wilder as an interagency incident management team which responds when called to major incidents such as large fires, floods, hurricanes and other disasters. It is one of two elite Type 1 Incident management teams in the Southern United States, made up of an elite all volunteer force that Wilder says he would rate a 10 out of 10 for effort, dedication and intensity. After he received the call from the Texas Fire Service saying that Bastrop County needed his help, team members on the roster were notified and given travel instructions according to a standard procedure that included  briefings and meetings resulting in a strategy and incident plan. If you follow the process, says Wilder, the results will come. Wilder confides that every year the Red Team borrows from the military, traveling to the battlefield of Shiloh with retired marines to discuss and evaluate decisions that were made. At this battlefield, he says, we learn how the Southern attack failed by not having a plan and having poor organization and communications. But the difference between a military battle and a fire, he concludes, “is that we don’t accept casualties. Everybody comes home at the end of the day, and they bring home all their toes and fingers, arms and legs.”