In his review of some lessons learned by the United States (US) Army in World War I, General George C. Marshall wrote:

"In studying the examples of the orders issued to our troops in France, several important points deserve consideration in determining the relative excellence of the orders issued. It is frequently the case that what appears to have been a model order was actually the reverse, and a poorly and apparently hastily prepared order will often be erroneously condemned. Many orders, models in their form, failed to reach the troops in time to affect their actions, and many apparently crude and fragmentary instructions did reach front-line commanders in time to enable the purpose of higher command to be carried out on the battlefield. It is apparent that unless an order is issued in time for its instructions to percolate down throughout the organization sufficiently in advance of an engagement to enable each commander to arrange his unit accordingly, that order is a failure, however perfect it may appear on paper. Our troops suffered much from the delays involved in preparing long and complicated orders due to the failure of the staff...to recognize that speed was more important than technique."

So that started the evolution and by 1940, we had the 5 Paragraph Field Order format - it was tweaked during WW2 and today it is remarkably similar now to what it was then. In fact - one of the case studies today for the near perfect order was VII Corps operations order to attack near Remagen in March 1945.

Here is a detailed breakdown of the Marine version - which is nearly identical to the Army version, but a good quick glance at the sub-categories:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_paragraph_order

The IRPG briefing format came directly from the military mission briefing format, which follows the "5 Paragraph Field Order."

The 5 Paragraph Field Order format is:

1. Situation
2. Mission
3. Execution
4. Service Support (Administration/Logistics in the Marines)
5. Command & Signal

The IRPG Briefing format is:

1. Situation
2. Mission/Execution
3. Communications
4. Services/Support
5. Risk Management

Questions or Concerns?

Evolution of the IRPG Briefing Checklist

Quality of operational briefing protocal was questioned in the follow up reports for the 1994 South Canyon fatilities. (IMRT in 1995 and TriData Phase III in 1998). TriData pages 3-70 to 3-86 deal with this...most specifically stated under Goal #20...Implementation strategy #1 = Improve the quality of briefing at incidents and Implementation strategy #2 = Develop and use checklists for transmission of information.

The following year, in 1999, the first IRPG was issued and there was a briefing checklist on the back cover, though significantly different than what is there now.

In 2001 incident briefing again becomes a focus following the 30 Mile fatalities in 2000. The Accident Prevention Plan established briefing requirements for fireline supervisors and incident commanders.

In 2001 and 2002 the leadership development effort began to gain traction with NWCG. The Fireline Leadership course (later L380) was getting stood up within the Interagency Hotshot Crew and Smokejumper world and the Leadership Committee was chartered and quickly established a working relationship with the Marine Corp University.

When the IRPG was next revised in 2002, the wildland fire service had a briefing format that looked a lot like the marine's SMEAC or the army's SMESC.