Glossary
Emergency Management Director Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential emergency management director terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key emergency management director vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in emergency management director training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- After-action report
- A review of what worked and what didn’t.
- Continuity of operations
- Keeping essential functions running.
- Declaration
- A formal disaster declaration that unlocks aid.
- EOC
- Emergency operations center.
- EOP
- Emergency operations plan.
- Evacuation zone
- An area ordered to evacuate.
- Full-scale exercise
- A realistic practice involving responders.
- Hazard mitigation
- Actions that reduce disaster risk.
- ICS
- Incident Command System.
- Mutual aid
- Help between jurisdictions.
- NIMS
- National Incident Management System.
- Public Assistance
- FEMA aid to governments after disasters.
- Shelter-in-place
- Staying indoors for protection.
- Tabletop exercise
- A discussion-based practice scenario.
- THIRA
- Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Emergency Management Director practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Emergency Management Director training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.