An Incident Support Team will provide support to a large emergency by providing highly skilled Command and General Staff and unit leaders. This will provide needed staff to organize, manage and document incident objectives. The IST staff will provide critical documentation such as Situation Status, Resource Status, and a written Incident Action Plan. This will allow the Incident Commander to have the needed information to move the response forward in a safe and effective manner.

One of the key benefits that an Incident Support team can provide, is incident documentation. State and Federal Emergency Management reimbursements require extensive and specific response information to be provided in order to recieve full reimbursement for response activities. This has proven to be challenging at best for most jurisdictions. The documentation, situation and resource status that is an integral part of the Incident Action Plan developed by the IST may help the jurisdiction in having the needed information and documentation to assist in this process. Also the Administration and Finance Section can assist in tracking financial information so the jurisdiction is up to date on the financial impact of the response.