By Battalion Chief Daniel Arthur
The fire is out. The hose is picked up, equipment is being returned to the apparatus, and companies are beginning to clear the scene.
For the firefighters who spent the last several hours operating inside and around the structure, the incident may feel like it is coming to an end. From a training standpoint, however, some of the most valuable work may just be beginning. Every working fire gives us an opportunity to learn.
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No two firefighters experience the same incident in the same way. The first-arriving company sees the fire before anyone else. The engine company stretching the initial attack line has one perspective, while the truck company conducting searches has another. The incident commander (IC) is trying to develop a larger picture from radio reports, face-to-face communications and what can be observed from the command post. Dispatchers, automatic-aid companies and later-arriving resources each experience a different part of the same incident.
An after-action review (AAR) gives us the opportunity to put those pieces back together.
AAR basics
Within the Charleston Fire Department, post-incident reviews are intended to focus on three basic areas:
- What went well
- What needs improvement
- Information distribution
Our department’s process ranges from an informal tailboard review or hot wash conducted at the scene to a more formal incident critique conducted after the incident. For significant fires, we have found tremendous value in the more formal review process.
For an AAR to be effective, firefighters must understand its purpose. This is not correction; it is training. We are not gathering everyone in a room to determine who made a mistake or to criticize decisions with the benefit of hindsight. We are trying to understand what happened, why decisions were made, what worked, what didn’t, and what we can carry forward to the next incident. It’s an important distinction because if firefighters enter the room believing they are there to defend their actions, meaningful discussion becomes difficult. If they understand that everyone, including the ICs, are there to learn, the conversation changes. The objective isn’t to make the last fire better. It’s to make the next one better.
Going back to the fire
Before we can start an incident review, we first have to “go back to the fire.” When we conduct an AAR, we don’t want to begin by putting a list of successes and failures on a screen. We want the firefighters in the room to mentally return to the incident and remember what they knew, what they saw and what they heard at the time.
We start at the beginning: the original 911 calls. From there, we establish the timeline: when the call was received, when companies were dispatched, when the first company arrived, when the incident was upgraded and when additional resources arrived. For example, one of our recent reviews documented not only the time the 911 call was received and the initial dispatch, but also the elapsed time between the call, dispatch, arrival of the first-due engine, dispatch of the working-fire assignment and achievement of the NFPA’s Effective Response Force benchmark. Those times establish context for everything that follows.
We then begin rebuilding the physical fireground. Maps and aerial imagery help orient everyone to the structure, access points, surrounding streets, exposures and apparatus positioning. Photographs help establish building construction and conditions. When available, video can allow the entire room to see the conditions encountered by the first-arriving companies. Then we listen.
Radio traffic is one of the most valuable tools we have for reconstructing an incident. Listening to the actual transmissions takes us beyond what we remember happening and allows us to hear what was actually communicated. In one of our AARs, the review included the first 10 minutes of fireground radio traffic as well as significant transmissions surrounding an urgent message and the decision to exit the structure. Now the room is beginning to experience the fire again.
Use your existing tech
The fire service has embraced technology on the incident scene. We use thermal imaging cameras, mobile data terminals, mapping, accountability systems, drones, photographs, video and increasingly sophisticated communications systems to help us make decisions. We should be equally willing to use that technology after the incident.
Depending on what is available from a particular fire, our reviews can incorporate photographs, initial-arrival video, drone footage, infrared or thermal imagery, GIS mapping, 911 recordings and radio traffic. The goal isn’t to build an impressive PowerPoint. Every piece of technology should help answer a question: What did our firefighters experience?
Aerial imagery can show the location and the challenges that were present or unsee by the arriving crews as well as any initial-arrival video showing conditions encountered responding crews. Fireground photographs documented fire development, while photographs taken afterward allowed crews to see interior conditions and damage they could not necessarily observe during operations.
Each source provides another piece of the incident. That becomes especially important when evaluating fireground decisions. We have to resist the temptation to judge a decision made during the first few minutes of an incident using information that became available 20 minutes later, or photographs taken the following morning. Instead, we should ask: What did that firefighter or officer know at the moment the decision was made?
Let the firefighters tell the story
A radio recording can tell us what was transmitted, and a video can show us what a camera captured, but neither can completely explain what a firefighter or officer was experiencing at that moment. To understand the incident, we need to hear from the people who were actually there.
Our process gives officers and firefighters an opportunity to describe what they encountered, what their assignment was, what actions they took and what challenges they experienced. Our department’s Post-Incident Review process generally works through officers in order of arrival before opening the discussion to the other personnel involved in the incident. Going in order of arrival helps reconstruct the incident naturally. The first-due officer describes the initial conditions and actions. The next-arriving companies begin adding their perspectives. As each company speaks, another piece of the fireground becomes visible to everyone in the room.
This is also where we begin asking questions: What did you see? What was your assignment? What were the conditions inside? Did you have enough personnel? Was your water supply established? What was happening on the floor above the fire? What did you hear on the radio? Was there something you needed that you didn’t have?
While we have a formal Post-Incident Review Form that gives structure to that discussion, addressing areas such as size-up, command, water supply, RIT, search, accountability, communications, staging, rehab and mayday considerations. This form is a guide, not the full conversation. This is when the most valuable information actually takes place — when firefighters begin talking to each other, rather than simply answering questions from the person facilitating the review. And increasingly in today’s fire service, the firefighter sitting across the room may be wearing a different department uniform.
Engage your partners
The modern fireground doesn’t always stop at jurisdictional boundaries. As automatic- and mutual-aid systems continue to bring departments together, we increasingly find ourselves operating at significant incidents alongside firefighters and officers we may not see or train with every day. That makes their participation in the AAR particularly important.
When our automatic-aid partners operate an incident with us, we want them in the room whenever possible. Charleston’s formal incident review process specifically provides for response partners and other agencies involved in the incident to be included. This is where the AAR can become something larger than a review of one fire. An officer from one department may explain why their company positioned where it did. Another company may describe how it interpreted an assignment. A firefighter may explain what conditions were encountered during search or fire attack. Those conversations expose differences in terminology, expectations, tactics and operational practices that may otherwise remain undiscovered.
There is time to ask a question. There is time to explain why something was done. There is time for one department to learn how another operates. Perhaps most importantly, there is time for firefighters who may have known each other only by a radio designation during the incident to actually talk to one another. This interaction builds familiarity so, the next time those companies meet may not be in a classroom or around a conference table. It may be at another working fire in the middle of the night. If we have already talked about how we communicate, how we operate and what we expect from one another, we have removed some of the uncertainty from that next incident.
In that sense, the AAR isn’t only training for the department that conducts it. It can become regional training built around an incident everyone actually experienced. And that changes the way we think about the purpose of the review. We aren’t trying to change the fire that has already happened. We are using that fire to prepare firefighters and increasingly multiple departments, for the one that hasn’t happened yet.
Beyond the AAR
At some point, every AAR has to come to an end. The 911 recordings have been played, the radio traffic has been discussed, the videos and photographs have been reviewed, and the firefighters and officers in the room have had an opportunity to tell their part of the story. But the value of the AAR shouldn’t end when everyone leaves the room. The lessons identified during the review need to follow us back to our companies, our training grounds and ultimately to the fireground. Sometimes those lessons identify something we need to improve. Other times, they validate that a tactic, communication practice or operational decision worked exactly as intended and should be reinforced. Our department’s Post-Incident Review process is built around identifying what went well, identifying what needs improvement and ensuring that information is shared. That last piece is critical.
A firefighter who wasn’t at the incident should still be able to benefit from what was learned from the incident. A company that encounters similar conditions six months later should be better prepared because another company was willing to talk about its experience. And when our automatic-aid partners participate, those lessons can extend beyond the walls of a single fire department. We cannot change the decisions made at the last fire, nor should that be the objective of an AAR.
The Charleston Fire Department uses a formal Post-Incident Review Form covering size-up, command, water supply, RIT, search, accountability, communications, staging, rehab and mayday considerations. Officials say the form guides discussion, but the real value comes when firefighters start talking to each other rather than just answering a facilitator.
Bringing it all together
Again, this is about training. Our responsibility is to take an honest look at the incident, understand the decisions that were made with the information available at the time, recognize what worked, identify where we can improve and carry those lessons forward. Technology gives us an unprecedented ability to do that. The original 911 call, radio traffic, photographs, videos, drone footage, thermal imagery and other information allow us to reconstruct a fireground in ways that were not possible in the past. But technology alone doesn’t create an effective AAR. It happens when firefighters are comfortable enough to talk about what they experienced. It happens when officers are willing to explain their decisions. It happens when an incident commander is willing to listen. And increasingly, it happens when firefighters from different departments sit in the same room and learn from one another.
Eventually, those firefighters will meet again. It may be six months from now. It may be next shift. And it probably won’t be sitting around a conference table. It may be at 2 a.m. with a building on fire. When that happens, the relationships we’ve built, the conversations we’ve had and the lessons we’ve learned together will come with us. The fire we reviewed is over. The reason we reviewed it is for the next one.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daniel Arthur is a battalion chief assigned to the Operations Division of the Charleston (S.C.) Fire Department. He has more than 25 years of experience in emergency services and emergency management, including over 16 years in the fire service. He holds a bachelor’s degree in management, and has extensive experience in incident command, emergency operations and fire service leadership.
