ICS-219 T-Cards

Origin of T-Cards: Love them or hate them, it’s hard to argue the effectiveness of T-Cards to manage and track resources on an incident. But where did the idea for this colorful system come from? It came from the French military. The development of LFO and ICS were shaped in part by veterans returning from World War II and their experiences. One of the management tools they observed in the European Theater were T-Cards. During World War II, the French used a T-Card system to track and maintain status on pieces of artillery. Thus, T-Cards were incorporated into LFO and continued on in ICS. Today, there are several software applications that perform the same function, but T-Cards are still a valuable and effective means of tracking resources.

To learn more about the History of the Incident Command System click here!