BY ALAN BRUNACINI
Last month we presented a cheerful description of the confusing, rapidly changing, dangerous conditions that typically await us when we show up at a working fire. In spite of these challenges, the initial arriving officer (IC #1) has an obligation to act and must somehow develop an accurate front-end size-up that produces quick, effective tactical action. This initial size-up is based mostly on what IC #1 can see from his position on the outside. The IC visually evaluates the critical physical factors (i.e., building, layout, and access) and what is showing (products of combustion). This information place/problem combination becomes the raw material that is processed into fireground intelligence. Critical fireground conditions typically occur in combination with other closely connected conditions. The combo of conditions creates a critical factor (i.e., most urgent) context for that stage of the situation. This intelligence (i.e., processed information) becomes the very practical beginning point for initial incident condition size-up and is the basis for ongoing incident evaluation. The basic objective of managing fireground intelligence is to develop and continually verify an action-oriented overall strategy and a related incident action plan.
This information into intelligence routine can come across like a term paper gobbledygook word game, but it is a big deal for us. It is what thinking action, as opposed to nonthinking action, really means in the street. It is very natural (instinctive) for us to see a condition and go right to the immediate action we connect to solving the problem that condition is creating. When this happens, we begin to go into a nonthinking action mode that sometimes kills us. When we review such a sad event, everyone says, “How in the world did they not see what killed them?” Many times, nonthinking action is the killer.
The simple, basic way we produce thinking action is to take in a set of conditions and then run that factor combo through a quick mental evaluation process. Then, we must use that processed information (i.e., intel) to make a basic position/function fireground decision. There is a huge, instinctive, action-oriented temptation to immediately react to just the visual image that is “popping out of the smoke.” When we skip the thinking and go for the action, we do not invest the absolutely necessary short processing time to run the what, where, when, how, who, why (and sometimes the most important, IF) checklist that looks behind that initial visual picture. Once we take the time to make that intel-based initial decision that has emerged out of a processed set of information factors, we then operate in a way that verifies, modifies, or disproves the checklist items as we initiate action and continue to operate. Experienced fire officers automatically do this info-into-intel conversion almost unconsciously and instantly. They probably don’t think much about it-they just do it. They have learned in their “studies” at “Road Rash University” (RRU) that reacting only to the most visible piece of information can be very painful. Their training at RRU has taught them that a major fireground condition is the product of a set of smaller connected conditions. If the size-up leaves out one of those critical related factors, it can produce a huge, not nice surprise when that unconsidered condition suddenly “announces” its presence.
Another major capability is to understand the regular inventory of critical factors that “go with” that particular tactical situation. This becomes the information factor outline that organizes the “knowns” and the “unknowns”-being able to do this quickly and accurately becomes a major information-processing skill. Many times, the IC can initiate action without complete information based on being able to verify the critical factors that will allow fast initial action and the “luxury” of adding to the info inventory as operations continue. Other times, the IC identifies a critical unknown that goes with that particular situation and goes after that fact before sending firefighters into the hazard zone. Many of us got to go home because a cagy old (or young) fire officer did not like the message something was sending and took the time to make that message come out in the open before taking the action that would have scuffed us up. This ability is the result of developing a simple system of evaluation and decision making based on being able to attach tactical intelligence that goes with every phase of fire operations. This understanding creates the ability to effectively start and then continue operations in a regular, predictable, standard way.
A current management term being batted around is “predictable surprises,” or more specifically, how bosses deal with them. There could not be a more painful/fatal place for such surprises than on the fireground. The best surprise prevention is for us to continually process, in correct order, complete pieces of information into fireground intelligence that becomes the basis for safe and effective position-function assignments. Smart managers use a standard spreadsheet of information that quickly lays out a picture of what is known and unknown about the situation with which they are dealing. They learn that surprises are nice on your birthday but not when it comes to safety and survival.
ALAN BRUNACINI recently retired as the chief of the Phoenix (AZ) Fire Department, where he has served since 1958. He was promoted to chief in 1978. He formerly was chairman of the NFPA board of directors and headed the NFPA’s Fire Service Occupational Safety and Health Committee, which developed Standard 1500. He is chairman of the NFPA’s Career Deployment Committee. He is the author of Fire Command and Essentials of Fire Department Customer Service.
