Costa Olymbios

A former tactical level Fire Service Commander with over 30 years of operational experience, Costa spent the last 7 years of his fire service career working in Learning and Development, leading the Incident Command and Assessment Department. Costa’s qualifications are GIFire, Incident Command Assessor ILM.

Validated to Level 3, he has also attended TEEX A&M University Texas for ICS 400 (strategic) and petro-chemical courses.  He is a qualified Command Training Instructor and Assessor with experience in Hydra Minerva, Hazardous Materials Environmental Protection, Petro-Chemical Firefighting, Water Rescue and Fire Investigation.

In Service he was responsible for Command Course Development and Assessment of firefighters and fire officers, including the Chief Fire Officer.  Costa has assessed and provided feedback and development to principal officers from his former Service, his region and across the UK.

He has delivered a considerable number of projects related to Incident Command, such as the design and build of a Command Training Facility, introduction of new command vehicles, the introduction of the Incident Command verification process, Service Command Policy, the delivery of Level 4 Assessments to Strategic Officers from neighbouring Fire & Rescue Services, as well as the delivery of JESIP during the initial National delivery. 

He designed and delivered training aligned to the UK Fire National Framework and CAP 699 which has included themes such as multi-agency widespread flooding, MTA, Hazardous Materials, and large-scale petro-chemical response.

Costa has travelled to China, representing Essex Fire & Rescue and the UK Fire and Rescue Service, where he presented to the lead Chinese Officials on “Command Excellence in the UK”.  He was also a guest speaker at the Emergency Services Show.

Since working for KLA, Costa has continued to build and deliver training as well as mentor fire officers from numerous fire and rescue services in the UK, Europe, Middle East, Asia, Australasia, and North America.  Additionally, he has contributed to the writing of new Skills for Justice Incident Command qualifications and the Command Support Officer qualification.