We have all been on a fire and have seen the public watching and hanging around the scene. Usually they are curious as to what is going on and will watch for however long the fire burns. They will take pictures and video and immediately upload those to the web.
Bystanders are the norm at most fire scene. Mostly they are harmless, but at times there are going to be a few who will want to interject themselves into the situation.
These types of bystanders are the ones that we want to be aware of as they will be an interference with our operations and quite possibly handicap our efforts in the process.
Mr. Helpful
This video shows one example of a bystander trying to help. His efforts are valiant perhaps in thought, but in practice they are useless. Worse than useless, they become a distraction.
Notice how at first the bystander is able to foray right into the scene and pick up the garden hose. No one notices him there, except the other bystanders making the video — this is where we have the first domino lining up.
Without accounting for every person on the scene, we cannot protect every person on the scene. This is why we must keep out those who do not belong there as a way to protect them from the dangers present at an emergency scene.
The second domino lines up when the team leader is alerted to and must confront the “helpful” bystander.
Dangerous distraction
The team was tasked with making entry into the structure, and as they prepare themselves they are distracted by the bystander. This momentary distraction also shifts the team leader’s focusing from the assigned task to now dealing with a pesky bystander who doesn’t want to comply.
The bystander is putting that team in jeopardy and delaying the assignment from being initiated.
The third domino lines up when the incident commander gets involved with the bystander. You can see that the incident commander must deal with the bystander physically by moving him away from the scene and deal with him verbally.
This is not the job of incident commanders. Their job is to focus on the incident and ensure that all things are running as they should per the incident action plan. With the incident commander being distracted by this individual, perhaps a radio transmission will be missed, or a thought about what to do next or a resource needed will be forgotten.
Just one bystander can be enough to cause a scene to become distracted from the focal point, which is to protect lives, stabilize the incident and conserve property.
This is where we want to have the police be involved with our operations. Have them establish a perimeter right away to keep out these “helpful” people so that the dominoes of this particular situation will be removed.
