State Emergency Management and Serious Incident Reviews

Part 1: Interpretation

1. Meaning of words

1. "The Office" means the Office of Emergency Services, and "the Director" means the Director of Emergency Services or a member of the Office's staff the Director names in writing.
2. "Agency" means any fire, emergency medical, law enforcement, dispatch or rescue service in San Andreas, whether State, county or municipal.
3. "The Standards" means the Emergency Services Standards (GR 1/2026), as amended.
4. "Governing body" means the body an agency answers to: for a county agency, the Board of Supervisors; for a State agency, the Governor.

Part 2: Serious Incident Reviews

2. When a review may be opened

1. The Director may open a Serious Incident Review into: the death or serious injury of an emergency services member on duty; an incident with mass casualties; a major fire; a crash involving an emergency vehicle; a response that failed or was seriously delayed; or a breakdown in co-operation between agencies.
2. The Director must give written notice to the head of each agency involved, and publish a notice in the Gazette, within 48 hours of opening a review.

3. Purpose and protections

1. A review finds facts and makes recommendations so that the same thing does not happen again. It does not decide blame, guilt or discipline.
2. A written statement or interview given to a review may not be used in disciplinary proceedings against the person who gave it.
3. A review does not replace or delay a criminal investigation. Where both are running, the review gives way to the criminal investigation on any point where the two conflict.

4. Records

1. The Director may require an agency to provide, within 7 days, records relevant to the review, including call and dispatch logs, timelines, duty rosters, equipment and vehicle check records, radio logs and written accounts.
2. An agency may remove personal medical information and the details of members of the public who are not relevant to the review.
3. Where releasing a record would harm an ongoing criminal investigation, the agency head may delay it by giving the Director written reasons. Either side may ask the courts to decide.

5. Interviews and scenes

1. The Director may ask to interview any member of an agency involved. The agency head must make the member available at an agreed time within 14 days. The member may bring a colleague or representative.
2. Once a scene has been released by the agency in charge of it, the Director may visit and record it.

6. Reports

1. The Director sends a draft report to each agency head involved, who has 7 days to point out factual errors.
2. The final report is published, with a notice in the Gazette, within 45 days of the review opening unless the Director publishes reasons for needing longer.
3. Each agency must answer every recommendation in writing within 14 days of publication, accepting it with a plan, or explaining why not. Answers are published with the report.

7. Referrals

1. Where a review finds evidence of a possible crime, the Director refers it to the District Attorney or the courts and takes no further step on that matter.
2. Where a review raises concerns about the conduct of an agency head, the Director refers it to the governing body.

Part 3: Declared emergencies

8. Coordination

1. When the Governor declares a state of emergency, the Office coordinates the response across all agencies for the area and period the declaration covers.
2. The Director may set up unified command, ask agencies to send people and equipment outside their own area under mutual aid, and direct State resources.
3. An agency may decline a mutual aid request only where sending help would leave its own area without adequate cover, and must give the Director its reasons in writing.
4. Agencies are reimbursed for mutual aid in full. This duty may never be withheld under any regulation or order.

9. Limits

1. Outside a declared emergency the Office has no command over any agency's operations.
2. These powers end when the declaration ends.

Part 4: Training and certification

10. Standards

1. The Office may set minimum training standards for these certificates: Firefighter, Emergency Medical Technician, Emergency Vehicle Operator, Incident Commander and Emergency Dispatcher.
2. Before setting or changing a standard, the Office must consult agency heads for at least 14 days and publish the final standard in the Gazette.
3. Members serving in a role when a standard is first published are treated as certified for 90 days, to give them time to qualify.

11. Suspending a certificate

1. The Office may suspend a certificate only for a serious risk to safety, or for dishonesty in obtaining it.
2. Before suspending, the Office must give the member written reasons and a hearing before a panel of three: the Director or a nominee, and two serving members of other agencies of at least the same rank as the member.
3. The member may appeal to the courts within 14 days. A suspension does not end the member's employment; what duties they may do meanwhile is for their own agency to decide.

Part 5: 911 and dispatch

12. Standards and statistics

1. The Office may set standards for answering emergency calls and for recording calls and dispatches.
2. The Office publishes response times and call numbers for each agency every month. Statistics never name individual members or callers.

Part 6: Public emergency alerts

13. Alerts

1. The Director, or the Office's duty officer, may send an official alert to every phone in an area where life or safety is at risk: an evacuation, a fire, a hazardous material release, severe weather, or an instruction to shelter in place.
2. Every alert must say who sent it, what is happening and what people should do. An all-clear must follow when the danger has passed.
3. Every alert is logged and published. Sending an alert that is false, misleading or for any other purpose is a breach of this order.

Part 7: Fire safety and hazards

14. Inspections and notices

1. The Office carries out the functions of the State Fire Marshal. Its inspectors may inspect public buildings and business premises for fire and life safety, with 24 hours' notice to the occupier, or without notice where they believe there is an immediate danger to life.
2. Where an inspector finds a hazard, they issue a written hazard notice saying what must be done and by when.

15. Temporary closure

1. Where there is an immediate danger to life, the Director may order premises, or part of them, closed for up to 72 hours.
2. A closure may be extended beyond 72 hours only by the courts.
3. The occupier may appeal any notice or closure to the courts at any time.

Part 8: Grants and wellbeing

16. Grants

1. The Office administers State grants to emergency services, including the increase to fire service budgets, and publishes every grant made.

17. Firefighter wellbeing programme

1. The Office funds a wellbeing programme for emergency services members, led by Fire Chief Cole Walker, who proposed it, with the support of the State.
2. The programme offers confidential peer support and a debrief after traumatic incidents.
3. Nothing a member shares with the programme is passed to their agency without their consent, unless there is a serious and immediate risk to life.

Part 9: Safeguards

18. What this order does not allow

1. Nothing in this order allows the Office to discipline, suspend or remove a member of a county or municipal agency, to arrest anyone, to direct an agency's day-to-day operations outside a declared emergency, or to withhold money owed to an agency.
2. No step may be taken under this order that reduces an agency's ability to respond to emergencies.
3. The protections in the Standards continue to apply in full.

19. Accountability

1. Every decision under this order is recorded in writing with reasons, and anyone directly affected may challenge it in the courts.
2. The Director publishes a report each year on how these powers have been used.

Part 10: Commencement

This order is made under the emergency powers of the Office of the Governor and comes into force on being made, except Part 4, which comes into force 30 days after it is made. It is to be reviewed with the Standards.