Commitment to doing our jobs better (and safer) on the fireground requires effort. The fire service is an interesting group. Collectively, firefighters are high spirited, physical, aggressive, caring, honest, trustworthy, (sometimes) smart, confident and generally well trained. It is difficult to find an occupation where the members of a group are passionate about their work in the same way we are. However, this passion and the inherent dangers of our work also make us hardheaded and sometimes opinionated to the point of being dogmatic. This is true if for no other reason than we tend to “know what we are doing,” for the most part, and we like the way we are doing it.
Overcoming such resistance sounds simple in theory, but actual change is harder to pull off. The first step is agreeing there’s room for improvement. The next step is reviewing our current methods, which includes the discussion of “hot topics” in the fire service-sensitive issues such as who’s in charge of fireground safety, or whether incident commanders (ICs) need support officers.
It should come as no surprise that we have strong opinions about the way we conduct business. I am no exception: As a shift commander, I have some fairly strong views about tactics and strategy. (My boss would not want it otherwise. In fact, I could not fill my present responsibilities if I were indecisive.) I run into my counterparts around the country and find that they’re cut from very much the same cloth. It makes sense, then, that when we discuss things that really matter, the ensuing exchange of ideas sometimes causes strong (or even passionate) reactions to surface. It may help to lay some ground rules.
Ground Rules
Recently, a co-worker of mine conducted a class discussion composed of members from several fire departments. Class members engaged in a spirited and productive debate on a current hot issue in the fire service. Things were good: Ideas were flying, participants were wearing gloves and no one was hitting below the belt. It was about this time that two members from one department got up and walked out in a spit. Nobody is quite sure why they left, but they did not return for the remaining 2 1?2 days of training. That’s a shame. We can only guess what happened, but it’s a fair assumption that someone said something they found so objectionable, it was too painful for them to endure the class any longer.
Being married to an idea or view in such a way can be dangerous. How are we supposed to learn if we can’t share our passions? How did we become so fragile and/or hardheaded? When did we become so smart that the other guy’s views need not be heard? This is almost the stuff cults are made of, and it’s disturbing at the very least.
We can avoid such arguments if we all agree to five simple ground rules for hot topic discussions:
- Be nice. You can be “committed” and nice at the same time. This includes packaging your views with care. Remember: If you ever have to retract your words, you’ll be expected to eat them in the same manner they were served.
- Let the other person have their turn-no fair being a bully. Interrupting or talking louder doesn’t make you right.
- During the other person’s turn, listen more and think less about getting even. Try to understand the other person’s point. They may actually have one.
- During your turn, don’t mischaracterize the other person’s views to strengthen your own.
- Prepare for the worst: The other person may never agree with you, no matter how right you are. Worse yet, the other person may be right-and you’ll never agree.
In the end, aren’t we all trying to accomplish the same thing? We need to trust one another enough to believe we are. Why then do hot topic discussions-many of which produce positive changes-have to be so painful?
Maybe they don’t. Let’s apply these ground rules on three hot topics.
Who’s in Charge of Fireground Safety?
Finding zealots in the area of safety is no problem, but there’s considerable disagreement on the best way to accomplish fireground safety. When referring to safety zealots, I include myself; however, a recent discussion in my department about the best way to ensure fireground safety changed my view somewhat.
My department has traditionally used dedicated safety officers (SO) to assume scene safety. But through trial-and-error methods, we discovered deploying these officers in a timely manner is challenging to the point of diminishing returns. The premise: Safety should be a routine, regular operating piece of our deployment from the onset-not limited to one person. In addition to the challenge of timeliness, in our system these SOs responded alone, as an add-on layer of protection during deployment.
In many systems, the SO is a staff officer who reports to fire scenes and assumes safety sector functions, as was the case in my department. It makes sense in theory; however, in practice there are some unresolved issues: Where does the SO report their arrival? If it is the command post, then what view of the fire do they get from that vantage point? Certainly a second pair of eyes in the command post is valuable, but this view is a strategic one that makes them more of a support officer than an SO. If the SO reports to the hazard zone, why then would they be sent there alone? Nobody can be considered truly safe when working alone in or near the hazard.
Many SOPs state that one of the functions of the SO is to complete a 360-degree lap around the fire building. Again, this recon information is valuable to the IC, but it serves as recon, not necessarily scene safety. In fact, many conversations between the IC and the SO after the SO’s 360-degree lap sound very much like tactics. These conversations, although valuable, again put the SO in the role of tactical support, rather than safety. We can also argue that some fires require more than a single SO.
The debate regarding SOs is most frequently about their position on the fireground. I’ve never heard anyone take issue with the value of the SO’s function. Accordingly, my department decided to revisit the functions of the incident safety officer (ISO) in hopes of better matching the position with the function.
In reviewing the ISO’s functions, it makes sense to position the SO in a way that makes incident safety their focus, while ensuring safety is a routine, timely component of any fireground organization. Our ISOs are a regular piece of our fireground organization, however, we no longer have so-called SOs who report to fires (in addition to many other duties). Instead, we have trained a number of our members in the ISO curriculum. All of our chief officers, as well as their drivers, have completed this training. When we assign chief officers to a sector (tactical boss), they are not sent alone. An ISO is assigned to go with them, and they operate together, the chief as the tactical boss (sector officer), and the ISO as the SO for that sector. They stay together, they work together and they leave together. In trying to make some sense of the hit-and-miss nature of the SO’s presence on the fireground, this has been a good fit for us. Other strategies may work better for your department; however, I advise that neither the tactical boss nor the ISO should complete their functions alone or without an assigned position. For us, positioning them together has improved their safety and their effectiveness.
How Much Help Does the IC Need?
Another sensitive topic in the fire service: command teams. Most local incident command systems still operate with an IC who runs the fire without creating a command team. Some systems feel it’s necessary to give the IC support staff only when things get a bit dicey or when the fire gets big enough to warrant help. (Often times, this is too late.) The truth is, most fires end the way they began-offensively-and sooner rather than later. ICs operating by themselves can handle most of these events easily, provided nothing gets too screwed up.
If this describes your system, consider this: The command organization should escalate at least as fast as the incident organization. The concept of command teams is not an indulgence limited to resource-rich organizations. It is a necessity for all of us. A command team’s strength is seamless and transparent when things go well. If and when things go wrong, however, command teams provide the support necessary to continue the command functions that make or break operations where life and survival matter-at the tactical level.
Find a way to provide your IC with a support officer early in the incident. Veteran officers may be resistant to accepting this kind of help, particularly at first, but eventually they may come to see that an overwhelmed IC is not in command of anything. There is a limit to how well any of us can function without help. We shouldn’t test that limit on the fireground. We support everybody on the fireground, and that support needs to extend to the IC. It’s not a compensation for weakness, but rather the extension of everything else we do on the fireground. If for no other reason, provide support for your IC for the day that things go sideways.
In my department, we support the IC operating from a stationary (sitting) strategic location. We have been using command teams to run incidents for about 20 years. There is not a single officer who wants to go back to doing it alone.
More RIT, RIC & Fast Truck Discussion
It was not very long ago that I sat as a member of a national working group studying practices used in the United States to “save our own”-practices used in the event of a mayday. Hot topic, you think? From a very informal survey of fire-service symposium topics and speakers over the last year, it appears approximately 30 percent of conference time and material have been devoted to saving our own-more than qualifying it as a hot topic. Views on this subject are particularly strong, often intensely personal due in part to the continued loss of firefighters on the fireground and the personal nature of these losses. It’s a worthwhile debate.
My department has been consistently engaged in trying to tackle this issue, along with nearly every other fire service organization in the country. Much has been written about our efforts (see “All Decked Out,” Dec. 2004, p. 50, and “Rapid Improvement,” Aug. 2005, p. 56). To summarize, approximately 18 months ago, we rolled out a new deployment model called On Deck that addresses many of the drawbacks we experienced with rapid intervention teams (RIT). On Deck is a comprehensive deployment model that focuses on strengthening interior operations, making them safer and reducing the need to deploy a RIT in the first place. The principles of On Deck can be customized to fit any department.
There is no organization that wanted to make sense of rescue training more than mine. Losing one of our firefighters motivated us to test our system, tweak it and test it again. It was tough, and yes, almost painful, but in light of what we learned from our own experiences and those of many others, we were compelled to put our entire deployment model on the table for review. (At some point tune-ups give way to overhauls.)
Thankfully, adversity spawns opportunity. Those of us who questioned rapid intervention irritated some fire-service personnel. But the problem isn’t that we don’t understand RIT; the problem is that we aren’t buying it. I do not say this in an attempt to pick a fight. As I mentioned earlier, in the end aren’t we all trying to accomplish the same thing? For my department, it made sense to use what is right about the “save our own” training and create a deployment model that gives that training a better chance to work in the real world. (Note: We make a clear distinction between RIT operations and “save our own” training.) It’s been said before, but at the end of the day, no matter what your department’s size, your last line of defense should not be your RIT-for obvious reasons.
Looking ahead to Other Hot Topics
Passionate discussions in the fire service won’t end if we resolve the above three topics. We need to talk more about the use of thermal imaging cameras (TIC): how they are used in firefighting and in strategic and tactical decision making. As the technology improves and our ability to use TICs gets better, we may need to review our deployment models to better incorporate the use of TICs. The same can be said of SCBA intercoms (which enable companies to talk on their own radio frequency) and their impact on the other parts of fireground management. Fire departments and SCBA manufacturers are also considering looking at emergency air egress bottles, which may bring us to revisit the whole subject of RIT bag deployment. Expect continued debates on air management and work cycles. There is a great deal of progress being made in these areas.
Conclusions
Firefighters are an interesting breed. We would not hesitate to place ourselves in harm’s way to save a brother or a sister. But we can be just as quick to eviscerate that same brother or sister for failing to see things our way. Instead, we should trust one another enough to question one another. Let’s keep talking and challenging one another to achieve our best. When we need to, let’s do it passionately. At the same time, remember that this exchange of ideas is not a competition. We are, at the end of the day, all on the same team. We owe that degree of respect to one another, and to ourselves
