5th-Saturday Training Exercise – Critical Information Requirements (CIR)

This month’s 5th-Saturday exercise will focus on addressing gaps identified during the Catastrophic Communications Exercise 2025 (CCE 25)

Format

This training exercise will be conducted using Zoom and over-the-air (OTA) activities.

BE PREPARED TO JOIN THE ZOOM MEETING WHEN INSTRUCTED. Please contact your Team EC if you are unable to join Zoom.

Summary

‘Critical Information Requirement’ or CIR is a term that defines the essential pieces of information about a situation and the environment needed by an Incident Commander (IC) or EOC Manager to make sound decisions.

CIRs are the critical questions that need to be answered to make timely decisions. Answers to the questions are the inputs to the planning, preparation, execution, and assessment of operations.

CIR is a crucial tool in emergency operations that identifies actionable information.

Objective

The objective is to understand CIR and how to capture and communicate actionable information using the SPOT Report (see Card 404 in ARES ARFOG.)

Exercise Play

The scenario for this exercise is based on the cyber and kinetic attack scenario from the Catastrophic Communications Exercise 2025 (CCE25) held in December of 2025. Remember, CCE25 is a ‘grid down’ scenario. Players should prepare to operate in a contested environment. Grid power, repeaters, GPS, mobile phones, and internet are affected. Test your backup systems! The exercise will focus on sending and receiving CIR via voice and Winlink using an ICS-213 message template formatted as a SPOT Report in block 7.