Objective: The overarching purposes or aims of an incident response is expressed as an objective. Objectives are priority based, specific, measurable to a standard and a timeframe and are both reasonable and attainable.

Officer:  The title for the personnel responsible for the Command Staff positions, Safety, Liaison, and Information.

Operational Guidelines:  An agencies' written procedure(s) that establishes a commonly accepted course of action and specifies the functional limitations of personnel in performing emergency operations.

Operational Period:  The period of time scheduled for execution of a given set of operational actions as specified in the action plan.  Operational Periods can be of various lengths, although usually not over 24 hours.

Operations Branch Director (OPBD): The person responsible for implementing the portion of the IAP applicable to the assigned Branch.

Operations Section:  The Section responsible for all tactical operations at the incident.  Includes Branches, Divisions and/or Groups, Task Forces, Strike Teams, Single Resources and Staging Areas.

Operations Section Chief (OSC): The individual responsible for supervising the Operations Section, who reports to the Incident Commander and is a member of the General Staff. This position may have one or more deputies assigned.

Out-of-Service Resources:  Resources allocated on an incident but temporarily unable to respond for mechanical, rest or staffing reasons.

Organization: Any association or group of persons with like objectives. Examples include, but are not limited to, governmental departments and agencies, private-sector organizations, and nongovernmental organizations.

Overhead: Personnel assigned to supervisory positions, including incident commander, command staff, general staff, branch directors, supervisors, unit leaders, managers and staff.