The Mutual Aid Box Alarm System (MABAS) is an organization of hundreds of fire departments in Illinois and surrounding states. MABAS began in 1968 as a way for Chicago-area Fire Departments and Emergency Medical Services to both assist neighboring areas and still handle their own calls.

Each agency signs a standard agreement, which has changed little since MABAS began, stating that they will help in an emergency and are subject to MABAS policies.

MABAS is organized into Divisions, with each division made up of mutiple, adjacent, Fire and EMS emergency services. MABAS both full time and volunteer fire and emergency medical services across the state and continues to grow in Illinois. There are currently over 50 divisions and MABAS has been adopted as the statewide plan for Fire and EMS Mutual Aid in Illinois. More divisions are being added and eventually the entire state will be divided into MABAS divisions.

MABAS provides an orderly mutual aid response to the scenes of fires, accidents or other incidents. Equipment is sent to the scene according to predetermined lists, called "Box Cards". Each Box Card covers specific types of incidents in specific areas. Help is sent from many surrounding agencies a little at a time, instead of one adjacent agency sending everything it has. This keeps equipment available for the assisting agency in case they also have an incident. As the original incident escalates, more equipment and manpower are drawn from surrounding agencies slightly further away. If more help is still needed, equipment and manpower can be sent by surrounding agencies to relieve the crews on scene. This "cascade" effect insures that no agency is left unable to respond to an incident.

All responding units report to an "Incident Commander" (who is in overall command of the incident). MABAS has adopted the National Incident Management System to coordinate responses in an orderly and recognized manner. This allows agencies that may be unfamiliar with each other to work together under a unified command and with common procedures.

For a good article on MABAS, click here.

MABAS Division 39 offers a course called "MABAS 101" that teaches how to create and use Box Cards. This is about a two hour session based on materials used by the State MABAS organization. It is suitable for both Firefirghter/EMS and Dispatch personnel. To schedule a session, or for more information, contact Don Adams by e-mail.