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Field Operations

Our Mission

The mission of the Field Operations Directorate is to support FEMA’s mission by serving as the Agency’s force provider. FOD organizes the incident workforce, provides field leadership, ensures training and qualifications of the incident workforce, and coordinates effective and efficient availability and deployments to ensure the Agency is able to help people before, during, and after disasters.

What We Do

  • Through our Office of Policy & Analysis, we establish effective and integrated end-to-end process and consistency across the Directorate to define priorities, set performance standards, allocate resources, develop policies, and assess/analyze progress.
  • Through our Workforce Development Division, we coordinate resources and develops and executes all training, education, experiential learning, standard qualification processes, and professional development to ensure that the incident workforce is prepared to support disaster survivors and first responders in all hazard events. We administer the FEMA Qualification System (FQS), coordinate course delivery and development requirements for the incident workforce in coordination with the cadres, and lead initiatives related to expeditionary workforce efforts. We also manage the FEMA Incident Workforce Academy (FIWA) for individual, team, and collective training, as well as mission rehearsal events.
  • Through our Workforce Management Division, we support FEMA’s operational readiness and execution of field operations by providing oversight for the timely management and deployment of an incident workforce for the national, all-hazard response needs of FEMA's integrated field operations that support all mission areas. We coordinate workforce generation including cadre support, the FEMA Corps program, the Surge Capacity Force (SCF) program and personnel mobilization. And we also administer the Deployment Tracking System (DTS) and deployment support.
  • Through our Operational Coordination Division, we ensure the operational readiness and coordinate the rapid deployment of FEMA’s disaster Field Leadership, Federal Coordinating Officers (FCOs) and Federal Disaster Recovery Coordinators (FDRCs), and Incident Management Assistance Teams (IMATs) to support federal response to an incident during a Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act declarations, or when responding under other federal authorities.

Leadership

Visit the FEMA Offices & Leadership page to learn more about the Office Response and Recovery Field Operations Directorate.