A few months back, a member of my fire department — we’ll call him FF1 — had his nose broken nose as a result of a lack of thorough communication between multiple incident commanders.
Here’s what happened: We were at a wildland fire with structures involved. FF1, as well as two other firefighters we’ll call FF2 and FF3, were engaged in a defensive firefighting effort at the structure. Incident commander 1 (IC1) was commanding the structure fire; incident commander 2 (IC2) was commanding the ground attack on the wildland fire; and incident commander 3 (IC3) was commanding the air attack on the wildland fire.
While putting water on the structure, FF2 noticed a helicopter headed straight for him and his hose team. He managed to alert the crew, and they moved closer to the side of the structure to brace themselves for the coming impact of water. Water then hit the crew’s hoseline about 20 feet behind them, ripped the line from their hands, and the nozzle struck FF1 in the face, breaking his nose and blackening his eyes.
Why did this happen? The reports I received from the firefighter and command clearly stated that there was a lack of communication between the three ICs — pure and simple.
The critique revealed this fire could have (and should have!) been handled by one IC and sectored off. Here’s what should happen: The air attack sector should be no farther than two arms length from IC to ensure crucial communications are not missed. Air attack sector recommends a course of action to IC for the aircraft, and IC approves or disapproves the course of action, ensuring all crews are aware that an air drop is coming and where and when it’s going to happen. Crews then report back that they are clear or not clear of the area. The air drop is held until crews are clear of the area.
Communication between ICs, sectors and crews is essential to the safety of your operation. If the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing, it can get real bad real fast. In fact, this isn’t the first air-drop incident we’ve had in my county. A few years back, one of the departments was dropped on because they didn’t get the word a drop was coming. Fortunately, they were in the truck, but the windows were down. You can still see the slurry stains on the inside roof of the cab. In a separate incident, a local reporter decided the plane headed right for him would be the perfect subject for a photo. And it likely did, but the camera was broken open in the impact, exposing the film.