“As I entered the structure with a charged 1 ¾-inch line I had a very strong gut feeling: ‘It is so hot that I should not be here.’ What happened later led to me being trapped, with no air, narrowly avoiding falling through the floor into the fully involved basement and into certain death. Instead, I ended up being off work for three months. And the scars from burns will always remind me of that hot July night’s fire.”
This was just one of the stories I heard after the publication of my column last month about recognition-primed decision making. Several people contacted me to describe their own experiences of either heeding or ignoring those gut feelings that tell you what pure logic cannot.
But why do some people ignore these signals? And what is the price of not attending to these instinctive feelings?
Pressure to perform
In the case above, the firefighter was new on the job, just off probation. He felt pressured to perform, to be aggressive in his firefighting effort.
He knew people were watching him and judging him. Even though he felt strongly that the situation was too dangerous for an interior attack, he continued on.
Another factor was the lack of leadership on his hose team. His partner that night was a firefighter as inexperienced as he was. Neither felt they had the experience to make a decision, despite their gut feelings. Neither wanted to look weak to the other.
As often happens, that particular night there was key information available that had not been effectively transmitted.
Vital information
The basement of the house, where the fire was located, was actually a shop that contained flammable gases and other hazardous materials. A resident at the scene knew this information and tried to convey it, but the message never reached those who were actually entering the building.
The result was that someone almost died.
There were several reasons for this dire outcome. The first is that information was not adequately gathered or passed along at the scene. If the incident commander had full access to this information, the hose team certainly would not have been sent in for an interior attack. If the hose team had known about the hazardous materials in the basement, they would not have chosen to go in.
Or would they? As this firefighter wrote, “I was just off probation and had a lot to prove. This led to an overly aggressive attitude.”
And really, what firefighter is going to say no when an officer tells him or her to take a hoseline in to attack the fire? Even when that bad feeling washes over you, who is willing to stand up and say, “This doesn’t feel right. Can we reconsider?”
On a fire scene, there is no room for debate. But there should be the ability to think, to give input and to make sure that all critical information is known before committing personnel to a potentially deadly effort.
A slower approach
In this situation, effective size up did not occur. The critical information was available, but was not gathered or conveyed.
But this is often the case. This fire came in late at night, was intensely smoky and was just a few blocks from the first-due fire station. There was not much time between dispatch and fire attack.
It is when firefighters are most in a hurry that critical factors sometimes get overlooked. In the rush to attack the fire, sometimes things that should be said go unspoken. Things like, “That’s a lot of smoke and heat from just a room-and-contents fire. What do we know about this building? Does anyone know how long this fire has been burning?”
Even without direct knowledge, firefighters sometimes have gut feelings about situations. In this case, a new firefighter had such a feeling, and silenced it in the interest of following orders and proving himself.
Realistically, it would have been very hard for someone in his position to speak up. But good leaders will create an environment of open communication, of wanting to know how their crews feel and what they see. They will not purposefully silence others in the interest of efficiency or order.
It is not insubordinate to be an active observer and report what you see and feel. The price of forcing silence is simply too high.
