BY ALAN BRUNACINI
For the past couple of COLumns, I have written about some of my early fireground bosses. The “left turn/right turn” battalion chiefs I wrote about provided a comparison in how they performed as fireground commanders. That comparison created a reference I have used throughout my career. As I see/hear/think/talk about tactical and command stuff, I think back to those two characters as early and profound examples of calm/excited, well organized/not organized at all, under control/out of control, and safe/unsafe.
Both chiefs were role models: one positive, the other negative. They both taught me a lot. Little did I know that observing them at that early age was the beginning of a 50-year project to try to understand and simplify tactics and command! Happily, seeking understanding and simplification continues. The following are some random 50-year observations.
• The fire officers called on to command fires in 1958 did not have the benefit of being able to operate in any kind of organizational incident command system and, essentially, never received any related command training. They were either the beneficiaries (BC2) of a set of very positive innate personality traits that enabled them to naturally be effective in managing firefighting operations, or they were victimized (BC1) by a set of almost opposite dysfunctional traits. It was almost impossible for them to come out of a command experience with any more (personal capability) than they had going in.
• In fairness to their generation of fire officers, the real challenge was not so much their personal traits as much as a lack of organizational preparation and support for what they were expected to do as a commander under the most difficult fireground conditions you could imagine. When I look back at the two old bosses, even though they were quite different, they were both smart, experienced, basically capable officers during routine times. The difference was the way they were originally wired at the factory. One was suited based on his basic personality (very calm, well organized, strong communicator) for the fireground management job and did it very well naturally. The other had a set of natural personal traits (autocrat, micromanager, poor listener) that quickly emerged under difficult incident conditions and created huge safety and effectiveness problems.
Little did I know that 15 years later I would become the boss of the battalion chiefs and it would be my job to import and implement a command system and a related training program. Very early ICS development was just beginning to occur in the mid-1970s, and we converted that basic (larger-scale) ICS structure into a set of very locally oriented command functions designed to be applied to managing regular day-to-day tactical activity. They were produced in the form of written departmental SOPs and were packaged in an operations manual.
The SOPs became the basic curriculum for a training program used to teach department members. The command system was (and still is) closely connected to the manual labor (i.e., firefighting), so we also developed a set of tactical guidelines (more SOPs) that describe the details of how firefighting operations are conducted. In later years, we extended those command SOPs to manage the all-risk services we developed in the ’70s and ’80s.
The close connection between command and tactics has been a very practical and effective part of the local service delivery system, because it required the command part to always focus on and facilitate “putting water on the fire.” On the local level, Mrs. Smith calls us because her kitchen is on fire. She could care less that we have a team of command geniuses operating in a gigantic polished aluminum, air-conditioned, computer-driven, Space Age command tank. If the command system does not help make the fire go away, we simply don’t really know what business we are in.
As we plugged our battalion chiefs into the SOPs and the training, we started to see improvement in everyone but particularly in some of those whom the organization had given up on because of their poor command performance. Developing procedures that describe standard organizational performance, then patiently training the players in those procedures, and letting them practice in a supportive and coached environment (what a shock!) improves their performance.
As the process continued, actual street incident command became adequate and a lot more uniform, no matter who the IC was. The difference between the superstars and the “regulars” became less and less. As we continued to use the five-step model, we began to see three distinct operational and command layers emerge. The task, tactical, and strategic levels became a major way the organization began to address the tactical needs of the incident and to more effectively arrange and support itself. Task-level work is done by fire companies who use water to murder the fire and tools to manipulate the building and to move stuff. Tactical-level bosses serve as geographic and functional (sector/division/group) middle managers. They provide a critical connection between the IC and the troops. The IC serves as the overall command boss who determines the overall offensive/defensive incident strategy, keeps that strategy current, allocates resources, and manages the initial and ongoing deployment process.
It was really difficult for us to conduct any real level of strategic command until the tactical and task functions were clearly identified and how those levels must operate together was refined. Before those levels were developed, the IC did not have a regular “place” to delegate tactical and task operational and command details. It did not take long at a significant event for the inability to manage all those details to quickly become “tactical quicksand” that suffocated the IC.
It was an interesting experience to see the system change in such a positive way so that it no longer made any difference if you turned left or right.
Retired Chief ALAN BRUNACINIis a fire service author and speaker. He and his sons own the fire service Web site bshifter.com.
