What is the first priority in any incident response?

The first priority in any incident response is life safety. This principle is fundamental across all emergency management and incident response frameworks, including the National Incident Management Assistance System (NIMS) and the Incident Command System (ICS). The primary goal of these systems is to safeguard human life, ensuring that responders and civilians are kept out of harm's way during any incident.

When responding to an incident, the immediate focus is on assessing the situation to secure any life-threatening hazards. This means prioritizing rescue efforts, providing medical assistance, and ensuring that everyone involved has the necessary support to prevent loss of life or injury. Once life safety is assured, responders can then shift their attention to protecting property, addressing environmental concerns, and optimizing communication.

In this context, while property protection, environmental concerns, and communication management are certainly vital aspects of a well-rounded incident response, they follow the non-negotiable priority of ensuring life safety. Therefore, all incident response planning and actions are ultimately based on the objective of protecting lives first and foremost.