The primary mission of the IHC's is to provide a safe, professional, mobile, and highly skilled hand crew for all phases of wildland fire operations.

Program Emphasis

IHC's can be used to meet management objectives other than their primary mission of wildland fire operations. Utilization of IHC's shall be initiated with strict compliance to accepted interagency and agency specific safety standards, e.g., Fire Line Handbook. Responsibility for compliance with these standards and the safe operation of an IHC ultimately lies with the Crew Superintendent. The priority for the use of IHC's will be as follows:

1. Wildland Fire Operations

IHC's are staffed, conditioned, equipped, and qualified to meet a variety of strategic and tactical wildland fire assignments. The overhead structure allows the IHC's to form into squads and perform independent assignments.

2. Disaster Incident Assistance

Within the limits of their experience and qualifications, IHC's are capable of providing a disciplined, self-contained, and adaptable workforce to meet the needs of incident managers in a variety of situations and emergency incidents.

3. Resource Management Objectives

When not committed to fire assignments, IHC's can provide a workforce to accomplish a variety of resource management objectives while maintaining availability for incident mobilization.

4. Training Cadre

The IHC's can provide a high quality cadre for fire management training at the local, geographic area, and national levels.