By Reginald D. Freeman
Published Monday, August 1, 2011
| From the August 2011 Issue of FireRescue
As firefighters and officers, large incidents—whether they’re products of terrorism or natural disasters—cause us to wonder what our brother and sister firefighters are facing when called upon to mitigate the incident. When they happen to us, that wonder can quickly turn to confusion and a lack of confidence on how to direct our crews.
Throughout my fire service career, in both the private and public sectors, I have practiced and held close an ideology that has kept things in perspective for me, especially as a chief officer who has commanded large-scale, mass-casualty incidents. That ideology is the “Five Ps”: Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance. In truth, how you and your department perform on scene often has less to do with specific, grand actions you take during the response, and much more to do with how you’ve worked at the organizational and individual levels to ensure that everyone is prepared to execute their role during a disaster.
Break It Down
The stress that you’ll experience when called to a large-scale incident is momentous. Everything you think you know or have experienced gets foggy as soon as you say, “On scene and assuming command.” Your mind is racing a million miles an hour as you think about things such as: What is the imminent danger? How many casualties do I have? How many casualties could I have? What resources do I have on scene? How many ambulances do I need? How quickly will mutual aid get here? Is my Incident Action Plan effective? Do I need to adjust my operational period(s)?
One method that can help you organize your thoughts and actions: the use of a command book checklist for incident commanders (ICs). Firefighters for the Department of Defense commonly use these command books, which are located in the cab of each apparatus as well as the operations officer’s vehicle. No matter who arrives first and establishes command—firefighter, lieutenant, captain or senior officer—they have access to the command book and can immediately begin using the checklist.
Your command book should include checklists for all anticipated single- and multi-company responses, including large-scale incidents. Many elements on these checklists require advanced preparation. For instance, you must determine as a department when the Emergency Operations Center should be activated, and thus which checklists it should be included on. Different types of incidents will require different support elements and specific resources—these should be determined and added to the checklist so the IC remembers to request them in a timely fashion.
Build It Up
Once your checklists and command books are created, they can’t just sit in the apparatus. To ensure that your organization is properly prepared for large-scale incidents, you must use your command books during your company and battalion training sessions. This can be an effective tool when conducting table-top exercises and practical National Incident Management System/Incident Command System (NIMS/ICS) training sessions.
Identify a realistic scenario, complete with time of day, wind speed and direction, temperature and interjections in time-lapsed intervals—with the only available resources being items that are found in the respective apparatus. This will expose the command book as a viable tool that is commonly underutilized.
But disaster response and preparedness must go beyond scenario-based training; they should be built into our officer development and promotional processes. With staffing and training resources extremely reduced compared with just 10 years ago, and with the baby boomer generation of fire officers retiring, new fire officers are often younger and less experienced than their predecessors. The only way to ensure that we have adequate continuity as it pertains to disaster response and preparedeness is to adequately prepare our workforce through training and development initiatives.
One way you as a new leader can set an example for others in your department is to obtain NIMS/ICS training and certifications. This sends the message to your members that the organization is determined to comply with Homeland Security Presidential Directive #5. Taking this a step further, consider building NIMS training into your advancement process. What precludes us from making sure that everyone in the department completes NIMS 100 and 200, lieutenants complete 700 and 800 and captains and above complete 300 and 400?
Start Now
There’s no simple solution to successfully mitigating a large-scale incident. Nothing can replace experience, but consider that people often prepare for and succeed in positions in which they’ve never served (e.g., the President of the United States).
The bottom line: You must be ready to execute the duties and responsibilities of an IC for a large-scale incident. This is not only applicable to yourself, but to anyone in the department who may be in the position of having to assume command. Through the proper preparation, you’ll find that your organization will be ready to mitigate any incident, no matter how large.
For more articles on leadership, visit www.firefighternation.com/tags-page/Command-and-Leadership.
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Reginald D. Freeman
