Editor’s note: Deputy Chief Eric Linnenburger will speak about preparing to be first due at major events at Fire-Rescue International 2026 on Wednesday, Aug. 12. Learn more about the event and how to register.
Arriving first to any emergency scene comes with a heightened level of anxiety and pressure to perform. Everyone else in the response group — and many people outside it — are tuned in to your every word on the radio. You have seconds to size up the scene, give your arrival report, deal with emotionally charged bystanders, and direct your crew on how to engage.
This is just the routine call. Now, what about the type of incident where you know even before you arrive that your crew will be outmatched and under-resourced — and likely will be for some time? It may require choices like whether to put all your resources toward rescue, whether to simultaneously attack the fire, or whether the scene covers so much physical geography that you will need to choose where you will take action, knowing it means you are neglecting other parts of the scene. When that big career-impacting event happens, will you be ready?
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The decisions the first-arriving company officer makes can set the tone for the whole incident. As Alan Brunacini said, “Most of the time on the fireground, the first five minutes are worth the next five hours.” So how do we prepare for it? The same way we prepare for anything else. It starts long before the tones drop, plays out in the decisions we make on the scene, and doesn’t end when the fire goes out.
Before the incident
We can train and prepare for these events, but it doesn’t require building elaborate, far-fetched scenarios to match every possible event. These big events really aren’t that different from the smaller ones. The skills are the same, but more of them are needed, and often the difference is not having enough resources to complete all the necessary tasks initially.
Mastering the basic skills as a crew should be the company officer’s primary focus before chasing specialty techniques or the flashy YouTube rescue that will never be required in your jurisdiction. Making basic skills second nature to the crew frees mental bandwidth for sound decision-making and safer operations.
The following are some of those skills that can make the difference and should be trained on frequently regardless of crew size:
- Coordinated vent-enter-isolate-search (VEIS) and other rapid targeted search techniques
- Quick mask-ups and rapid PPE donning
- Quick water and hose management proficiency with stretches beyond the pre-connect
- Real-world ground ladder proficiency away from the wide-open, sterile drill ground
- Radio communications: using the cab headset, transitioning to the portable radio and operating on the fireground as a working officer
- District and building familiarization
- Systems knowledge: communications plans, policies, expanding incident command system
- Go/no-go decision-making as a crew
- Physical fitness — don’t be a liability
Train within the margins by using data and analytics as a professional athlete would. Utilize tools like the Firefighter Rescue Survey and UL Research Institutes’ Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI) to stay up on current science and recommendations to help build your training drills.
According to the Firefighter Rescue Survey, 85% of the recorded rescues were made by the first- or second-arriving company, with the majority of those made by the first arriving. Additionally, 76% of victims were found in the initial room of entry with VEIS. The findings support targeted search as an effective tactic, especially for small crews, and reinforce the need to train with an expectation of rescue.
We don’t have enough time or the ability to anticipate every possible scenario, but we can train to the statistics and increase our likelihood of success. Preparation ends when the tones drop. Breathe, read the cues and execute.
Executing on game day
For a sports team, game day is the time to call the play, not teach it. When the officer and crew are prepared and the physical skills become second nature, mental bandwidth is unlocked to read the important cues that present themselves on incident scenes. The same goes for the relationships they build prior to the call. The officer who knows their crew — their strengths, weaknesses and motivations — will respond with greater confidence and make faster, more intuitive decisions about how to deploy them on the scene.
Research psychologist Gary Klein’s work on recognition-primed decision-making found that experienced decision-makers under time pressure focus on the most relevant cues and filter out the rest. That is not sheer instinct. It’s pattern recognition built from years of preparation.
Daniel Kahneman supports this in Thinking, Fast and Slow, noting that as you become skilled at a task, its demand for energy diminishes. The more automatic the basic skills become, the more bandwidth the officer has to read the scene. Still, the mind must be calm enough to receive the cues.
Dan Dworkis, in his book The Emergency Mind, calls this sangfroid — the ability to remain calm and competent under significant stress and danger. These scenes are chaotic and emotions run high.
The officer who can detach from that chaos, normalize it and operate with a measured calm will set the tone for every crew that arrives behind them. Calm is contagious.
From research to the fireground
The first few actions are key and can set the tone for the entire incident. The goal of the first-arriving company should be to set the incident commander and all the other incoming companies up for success. A few of those important actions are as follows:
Apparatus placement: You typically only get one chance to get apparatus placement right. Placement should anticipate the worst-case scenario. This is especially true for truck companies. Truck companies should position apparatus to support immediate aerial rescue and a possible transition to defensive operations while remaining clear of collapse zones. EMS transport units should stage far enough away to maintain a clear exit route.
Arrival report: Give a clear and concise arrival report that paints the picture for the incident commander and the companies coming behind you. This is not the time for a dissertation, but a few additional details can improve the operation and are worth the extra seconds on the radio.
- General building and scene characteristics. What are the conditions? Are there known victims trapped? Are there exposure issues? Are there access issues?
- Name the building sides and your location in that context. Depending on the building type, location and size, this is not always immediately clear and can prevent significant confusion as the incident progresses.
- Verbalize initial actions, operational strategy and water supply status.
Additional resources: These scenes are resource-intensive and can span hours, if not longer. Get ahead of the game and get them coming if it is within your capacity to do so. Resources can always be staged or turned around. Don’t let EMS be an afterthought. These incidents can become mass-casualty incidents (MCIs) before responders recognize the escalation. The longer the incident is, the more victims will present themselves. The heroic rescue is all for naught if we don’t have a plan to immediately provide lifesaving treatment and transport to definitive care.
Time to work: So how do we decide to engage when there are so many things to do? Simplify the problem and understand that we can only do so much. Every fire incident comes down to three components that must be prioritized and dealt with: people, fire and smoke. When the incident exceeds the available resources, you have to decide where you can have the most impact. Any confirmed life threat makes that the priority; however, you may need to decide whether to go directly to the victims or remove the threat. You just need to make the call, communicate it and act on it. Expect to make mistakes, recognize them and adjust.
After the incident
When these incidents involve fatalities, significant property loss or arson, the investigation can extend well beyond the authority having jurisdiction, and the fire scene quickly transitions to a crime scene. When that happens, everyone on the scene becomes a witness and could be interviewed and required to provide written accounts of their actions and experiences. Personal devices and communications can be sequestered. All on-scene actions, as well as fire department activities for years prior, will be scrutinized by people who weren’t there and often don’t have all the context behind the decisions you made.
Documentation becomes paramount and must be taken seriously. Crews can prepare long before a major incident by practicing clear, accurate documentation on routine calls. Subpoenas may arrive years later, and documentation may become the primary record of a member’s actions. That record can also be used in court to challenge those actions.
These events are also messy in ways that are hard to quantify, even when things go well. The armchair quarterbacks will show up, and so will the media. Human nature will cause people within and outside of the organization to point fingers. We just need to expect it and do our best not to take it personally.
Most importantly, take care of your people. Even when everything goes right, an incident can affect personnel in unexpected ways. When the adrenaline wears off, emotional weight and second-guessing may remain. Check on your people.
Because large-scale events are rare, departments must learn from each one. Formal and informal after-action reviews can prepare the next company officer and support closure for those who were there.
It’s not if but when
These events are coming, and they will never arrive on your terms. This isn’t something to fear. We’ve earned our roles and are here to do hard things. We can’t control when these events occur or what challenges they will bring, but we can control how we prepare. Prepare with intention before the tones drop. Execute with discipline and a calm approach when you arrive. Take the aftermath as seriously as you took the fire. Those first five minutes will be examined long after the incident is terminated. Those first five minutes are worth the next five hours, but they may well be worth the next five years.
REFERENCES
- Brunacini, A. (2010, January 1). The first five minutes are worth the next five hours. Fire Engineering.
- Dworkis, D. (2021). The emergency mind: Wiring your brain for performance under pressure. Worth The Read LLC.
- Firefighter Rescue Survey. The first 5,000 rescues.
- Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
- Klein, G. A. (2017). Sources of power: How people make decisions. The MIT Press.
