By Bruce Moore
Growing up, my Mom told me to slow down or I was going to get hurt. Of course, I didn’t slow down, unless she was around, and there were times I ended up getting hurt.
The same thing applies to emergency operations today. We commonly read NIOSH Firefighter Line-of-Duty-Deaths reports that cite contributing factors related to the lack of a 360, proper size-up or building assessment, plus incorrect use of incident command, inadequate communications, even an improper risk management assessment. All these actions come back to a common theme – not taking the time to think.
We need to take the time to gather information, process that information, create an incident action plan (IAP), communicate that IAP, give assignments to other incoming crews, command the incident, and then proceed with our actions based on the IAP.
Backward operations
When we start our firefighting training, we are trained to quickly don our PPE in “X” number of minutes. We then add donning an SCBA to the equation and again it needs to be done in “X” minutes. We are trained to pull and advance a hoseline, throw ladders, make entry, put water on the fire – in short, quickly and automatically complete our assigned tasks.
We repeat these same actions over and over during our career, and it becomes our standard mode of operation. It is important that we can perform these tasks quickly; however, nowhere in this process are the officers and firefighters taught to work in a tactical pause to figure out what they have and then take action. Instead, we are taught to quickly take action and then start thinking about how to perform that action. This results in officers and firefighters performing an action before they have a strategy in place. We are doing it all backward.
When the fire service started responding to hazmat incidents, we quickly learned that we had to slow down and take the time to gather information, process that information, create a plan and then safely initiate action. This was hard to do, as slowing down contradicted how we were used to performing our job, but we learned to do it because slowing down allowed us to be more knowledgeable of the situation and resulted in safer operations.
With our knowledge of modern lightweight construction, vent-limited fires, flow paths and quicker flashovers, we need to go through a similar thinking process that we did in hazmat incidents, except we need to complete that assessment usually in a minute or less.
Tactical pauses
Taking the time to adequately evaluate the incident conditions begins with the first-arriving unit. What we see on arrival is not the whole picture. Here’s the full picture of what we need to do:
- Arrive on a scene
- Give our initial report
- Perform the 360
- Perform life safety assessment
- Conduct building and risk assessments
- Complete the size-up
- Form an IAP
- Give the follow-up report
- Give assignments
- Implement the plan
It’s a long list, but it doesn’t take a long time. It just requires gathering the necessary information and taking that tactical pause to process the incident information, create a plan and then operate based on that plan. It also does not mean that our firefighters cannot establish the supply line, pull hoses and/or perform other duties while the size-up is completed.
Step 8, the follow-up report, is particularly important. The on-scene report should paint a picture for incoming units. However, if we do not give a follow-up report after we have performed our 360 and size-up and determined actions for the next-arriving units to perform, then the incoming units do not have a clear picture of the incident and what they need to do. Not giving the incoming crews an assignment can result in them performing actions to back up the actions the first-arriving unit started or initiate actions based on what they think needs to be done. This creates a scenario where thinking comes after action, rather than action coming after thinking.
The same thing is true for interior operations. We need to take the time to assess the conditions inside, form an action plan and give our conditions-actions-needs (CAN) report. The interior crews are the only ones seeing the interior conditions and are in the best position to determine what needs to be done and how to do it. But if they don’t take the time to size up the interior, then they are operating with incomplete information in a dangerous environment.
We train on recognizing the signs of a potential rapid fire event, but then we read about firefighters entering an environment with zero visibility, high heat and black smoke down to the floor, and they do not apply what they learned. They don’t take that tactical pause to think and assess the situation.
Rescue mode
The thinking process also applies to rescue operations. When we have a fire with a rescue situation, we should do everything we can to rescue the victims. We will take risks and push the envelope. That is part of being a firefighter. However, as we get ready to begin our rescue operations, we need to consider whether we need to use a water application to improve the environment and what rescue method we should employ. Are we going conduct an interior search or VEIS or some other method?
We also need to perform a victim and firefighter survivability assessment. We need to ask ourselves whether the fire environment now, and in the near future, is favorable for a victim to be alive and favorable for firefighters to perform the rescue. If we are using the thought process that victims may be alive to justify the rescue attempt, then we also have to consider that the victims may not be alive. Taking both thoughts into consideration allows us to analyze the situation and then make our decisions.
Strategy first, then tactics
In training and college curriculums, we teach strategy and tactics. And it’s called strategy and tactics, not tactics and strategy, for a reason. You first need to a strategy in order to apply the tactics.
Our training has done a good job preparing us for what we need to do. So let’s take the time to use this information for more efficient and safer operations. Like my military students tell me, slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
About the author
Bruce Moore is an adjunct fire science instructor for Purdue University Global in Indiana and an adjunct fire science instructor for Columbus State Community College in Ohio. He previously served as fire chief with Securitas Security Corporation, the Sturgis (Michigan) Fire Department, the Worthington/Sharon Township (Ohio) Division of Fire and EMS, and the Oshtemo Township (Michigan) Fire Department.