“If there’s a 1 percent chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response…."- Former Vice-President Cheney (1)
Applied to the fire service, the one percent doctrine would mean that if there was even a one percent chance that we could be injured or die in a fire we should treat it as a certainty. In other words, we should not engage. And there are many who argue that the fire service is at the top of a slippery slope that leads to us not engaging more often.
As Cass Sunstien explains, "…People, who are sensible, or even sane, do not treat a one percent risk of loss the same as certainty of loss.” (2)
Firefighters should not treat a risk of death fighting a fire as a certainty, because if they did they would fight all fires from the curb. We attempt interior attacks and searches even though the possibility of death or serious injury exists.
It is not a valid thought process to say that firefighting from the inside is dangerous and therefore we will not do it. Driving a car is more dangerous and we continue to do that. Where we struggle is that we have somehow normalized the risk of being injured or dying in a car crash. We accept that as some random uncontrollable event.
However, when faced with a house fire, we seem unable to develop a rational approach, even though the chances of a firefighter dying in a fire are lower than his/her chances of dying while driving to work. We are no more in control or death or injury at a fire than we are in control of crashing our car.
The valid statement is to say that we understand that there is both risk, that which is known, and uncertainty, that which is not known when responding to emergencies. When we as firefighters are dealing with risk, we should proceed aggressively. When we are dealing with uncertainty, we should still proceed, albeit at a much slower pace.
The 90% doctrine
In my mind the truth is pretty simple: 90 percent of the fires we go to fit into the category of fires that can be put out quickly from the inside with a single, well placed hand line. These fires are simple problems that are solved by a single crew stretching a hand line into a structure and violently distributing water on burning surfaces. Ninety percent of the time we don’t have to stop and think; we can just act. Ninety percent of the time it all turns out all right.
We should build our systems around the needs of the 90 percent. BUT, and it is a big but, we should also be able to recognize when we are operating in the 10 percent range. In the 10 percent, we are going to have to take a deep breath and figure out exactly what we are expected to do and what we really need to do it.
We need simple approaches to simple problems. Most of all we need firefighters and officers with organic knowledge of the limits of their ability. You only get to know how far you can go safely after you have bumped up against the limit.
If we are good at the 90 percent, our chances are much improved for the remaining 10 percent. Despite counsel to the contrary, we should not aim for perfection because one should not set goals that are impossible to meet. We should, however, design systems and processes that understand that failure exists and are capable of mitigating the effects of that failure.
We should use strong narratives based on documented experiences, like those found at the near miss Web site or at the average firehouse coffee table to build a base of vicarious memory. The learning is not only about the 90 percent because that is mostly a function of what we do every day. The learning we need is about recognizing the 10 percent — that small percentage of fires and other emergencies that end in serious injury or death.
If we can learn to accept that we can live with uncertainty and if we can learn to really expose our errors and talk about them, we will improve. If we proceed always with the aim of recognizing the 10 percent of the time when we are in over our heads and slow down when we see it, we might have a better shot at seeing fewer firefighters die next year.
References
1. www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_percent_doctrine
2. Worst Case Scenarios. Cass Sunstein. Harvard University Press. 2006.