BY THOMAS DUNNE
You’ve been a chief now for a month. Your newly issued white helmet in the back seat is still shiny and clean, as your only responses so far have been for routine emergencies. Your pulse suddenly picks up as you are notified by radio to respond to a structural fire. The dispatcher has already received numerous phone calls with reports of children trapped on the second floor.
The column of smoke is visible from a quarter-mile away. When you arrive at the scene, you observe substantial fire on the first floor that is beginning to extend into the exposed apartment building. The engine chauffeur is desperately trying to get water; both hydrants on the block are inoperative. The ladder, responding from the other side of town, has yet to be seen.
Suddenly, you are in that position you have feared and have tried to prepare for. Fighting your own adrenaline, you slip on your helmet and ponder, “Where do I begin?”
The transition from a company officer and leader of four or five firefighters to an incident commander and supervisor of numerous units is one of the most challenging and most difficult learning experiences in the fire service. All of your fire background will help in this process, but much of the perspective you developed as a company officer may be too myopic when compared with the overall view of a fire situation you as a chief officer must provide.
Following is what I hope can be a practical guide to help ease you into your new role. It is based on the lessons I learned (and the mistakes I made) while going through this process myself.
RESPONDING
You can begin preparing for response as soon as you leave your fire station: What are the anticipated weather conditions? Will there be extreme heat or cold that could adversely affect firefighters’ operating ability? Will there be excessive winds that might affect ventilation decisions? Will there be snow to slow down or limit apparatus response?
Snow or rain can also affect your response. If you are responding from your station, it might be helpful to get on your bunker gear before getting into the car instead of waiting until you arrive.
One of my most miserable weather experiences involved a response to a potential construction collapse in midtown Manhattan during a period of heavy rain and 50-mile-per-hour wind gusts. My regulation black socks were immersed in three inches of water as I struggled into my bunker gear after I arrived at the location. Needless to say, the experience disrupted my attempt at a systematic and orderly size-up of conditions.
While responding to an incident, routinely obtain and record the identities of the units responding as well as any unusual information about the building. By doing this, you are organizing the operation before you get there and answering the size-up questions of who is responding and in what order.
EARLY DECISIONS
The first decision you will make is where you will physically position yourself at the fire. Make a quick overall assessment as you approach the scene. Often, you will be able to see two sides of the building as well as the positioning of the first engine and ladder apparatus.
The spot you pick to begin supervising the fire (i.e., your command post) must be close enough to the building so that you are visible and in touch with the operation. However, you must also allow enough physical separation so that you are out of the way of the smoke, water, and falling glass. This separation will also help provide you with the overall perspective you need to manage the incident.
Avoid the temptation to be sucked in too closely to any one part of the fire attack. In your first few experiences as an incident commander, you are going to have to consciously resist the patterns you set when you were the first-arriving engine or ladder officer. As a company officer, it was fine to aggressively lead the first hoseline or rescue effort into the building. Your new role demands a more objective overview of the fire.
One new chief I worked with had to force himself to keep his hand on the side of a fire truck in the street when he first arrived on the scene. He had been a company officer for so long that this was the only way he could overcome the urge to get inside the building. Remember, you are now more concerned with the strategy of the fire than with the individual tactical operations.
After you have initially positioned yourself, it is helpful to move around as needed to view other sides of the building or other aspects of the operation. However, it is a good idea to do two things before you start moving.
- First, notify the key personnel already at the scene that you have arrived. They must know that you are now functioning as the incident commander.
- Second, make sure that everybody knows what is being considered as the exposure number one side of the building. Usually, this is pretty obvious; but if it isn’t, establishing the building exposures will be your call. Ensuring that they are clearly defined from the beginning will avoid costly or deadly miscommunications later on.
“GUT REACTION”
By now you will have started to develop your “gut reaction” to the fire. You may sense that this is a manageable fire, a rapidly expanding one, or one with still unknown potential. Whatever you feel, it is a good idea to ask yourself, “What is the worst-case scenario in this operation?”
Fire extending to the floor above, building collapse, loss of water, and exposure problems are all possibilities, depending on your observations to this point. But even if things are going well, always force yourself to consider the worst-case scenario throughout the operation. With this mindset, you will be mentally dealing with problems before they happen. One of your early tasks is to identify and deal with the “what ifs” this fire presents.
As you develop a picture of the fire situation and potential problems, you will also get a sense of whether you have enough resources at the scene. If you are not comfortable with the equipment and personnel present, you should be calling for more to arrive.
Remember that your sense of time may become very distorted at a fire. How long have you been there? How long has the fire been burning? How long have the units been operating? You will be surprised at how quickly time passes in the early stages of a fire. Again, if your “gut” is getting nervous about having enough resources available, you’ve probably already waited too long to call for additional help.
Part of my self-critique after a multiple-alarm fire involves reading a computer printout that gives the exact times I transmitted a request for a second- or third-alarm response. There have been instances where time passed much more quickly than I had perceived. At one fire, I felt I had been operating with a second-alarm assignment for about 10 minutes before requesting a third alarm. The printout showed it was closer to a half hour.
USEFUL TECHNIQUES FOR MANAGING THE FIRE
You can’t be everywhere at once, so you are going to have to delegate some tasks to others. How much you delegate will depend on the number of tasks at hand as well as on how well you know your personnel. The more confidence you have in someone’s ability, the more you will be willing to delegate an assignment to him.
The key point here is that as the incident commander, the ultimate responsibility is always in your hands. That is why you let people know you arrived at the scene as the officer in command. In the past, you were the one being delegated to do a job. Now, you are the one giving orders. Just remember that you can’t delegate the responsibility.
Sectoring will simplify even the most complex operation quickly. You can’t arrive at an advanced fire with 25 units and 100 firefighters operating and get an instant handle on it.
What you can do is establish the logical sectors for the fire. Many times, the fire floor can be one sector, with the floor above being a different sector. In some cases, the entire fire building might be considered a sector, and a seriously threatened exposure would be a different sector. If you are having water problems and many personnel are engaged in providing a reliable water source, the water supply aspect of the operation could be a functional sector on its own. As the incident commander, the locations and functions of sectors are entirely up to you.
Do not initially concern yourself with identifying everyone working in a particular sector—this will be overwhelming. What you must do is ensure that one individual has been assigned to supervise each sector. That person (the sector commander) can get back to you with the details.
As a chief, you will be intimately involved with the incident command system (ICS). Do not feel intimidated by the sometimes complex organizational charts you may have seen in a book or heard about in a lecture. Your “organization” need only be complex enough to accomplish the job you are facing.
As you command a fire, there is often a need to record a lot of information. Names and locations of units and personnel, lists of apartments to be searched, and the status of the searches in various sectors are just some examples. A word of caution: Despite the pressure you may be working under, take the time to write down the information slowly. It will be useless if you can’t read your own writing. If you are in a very cold climate, use a pencil—a pen may not write at all.
One of your biggest challenges as a chief will be learning how to tune out the “static” while you record information and think out your strategy. A great deal of background noise and radio traffic, along with a constant flow of people asking you questions, are part of the standard fire environment. Train yourself to slow down and concentrate despite the noise and confusion. This will take time, but it gets easier as you gain fire experience.
A technique I find helpful is to occasionally step aside by myself as I manage the fire. This briefly removes me from excess radio noise and puts me in that “command bubble” I need to plan the fire attack. This is a frame of mind that allows me to absorb the necessary input and still maintain the detachment needed to objectively evaluate how well the operation is going.
Over time, you will develop your own techniques as an incident commander. Don’t allow visible fire, panicky individuals, or the presence of victims to distract you from maintaining a professional view of the operation. To some extent, you must learn to ignore the visible flame. The pressure or color of the smoke in a different part of the building may be less obvious but more significant, or a threatened exposure that is not yet burning may require your attention.
Fire venting from a window is a good focal point for a photographer. But as a chief, your focus is on what other damage this fire may cause and how to contain it. It may be a very different view from the one you had as a firefighter or company officer. Again, think and plan for worst-case scenarios. You may want to position that tower ladder before the exposure is actually threatened or set up that additional water supply before the first one proves to be inadequate.
There sometimes is a danger in getting narrow minded or stuck in your thinking. If that initial hoseline is not putting out the fire, perhaps there is substantial hidden fire or a ventilation problem—or maybe that line has already been operating too long and this entire operation should now be an exterior attack. Be receptive to other ideas, and don’t be afraid to change your strategy if things are not working.
FUNCTIONING IN YOUR ROLE AS INCIDENT COMMANDER
While managing your first few fires, you may experience what some trainers refer to as the “imposter syndrome”: Your lack of experience does not allow you to feel as though you are the incident commander even though your title is “Chief.”
Generally, it takes time to grow into feeling comfortable functioning as a chief. As your confidence and experience grow, you will also develop your own command style. The best means of achieving this is to simply be yourself. There is no one preferred type of personality or style for an effective leader.
Think of the good fire officers for whom you have worked. They may have displayed certain qualities while supervising at a fire, but the likelihood is that they had a wide variety of personalities. Try to pick out and imitate those qualities that best suit you. Remember that you are “borrowing” these factors not to change who you are but to reinforce the leadership skills you already posses.
A key aspect of any chief’s style should be projecting calmness when supervising an operation. When giving directions at a fire, make a conscious effort to communicate in a calm manner both in person and on the radio. Even if you don’t feel confident, slow down and try to project confidence (a little acting may be necessary). As the incident commander, you set the tone for the entire operation. The way you speak and carry yourself can instill confidence in your firefighters or make them more nervous than they are in what is already a very stressful job.
As the incident commander, you receive a constant flow of information from various sources. Some of these messages are urgent and have to be acted on immediately. Some are suggestions you may want to consider for a while before acting on them. Occasionally, some of the information you receive will be totally inaccurate.
Consider all of your input, but learn to recognize what is urgent and what is accurate. Again, your “command bubble” should make you available but just distant enough to make objective fireground decisions.
It is important to realize that there will be times when you should not be open to suggestion. Firefighting is not a democracy. If personnel inside the building are telling you that they are making progress extinguishing the fire but your perspective from the street tells you otherwise, you have to change your strategy despite their message.
Even with a good strategy in place, do not force yourself to see only good news. There is a psychological element that may cause you to resist suggestions that problems may be developing. Such information threatens the security of the feeling that you are gaining control over the fire.
Accept the bad news if it is there, and deal with it. Perhaps the smoke condition in the rear exposure is indicative of a big problem and not just a mild side effect. Your communications should not only be clear and calm but devoid of leading questions. “What are the conditions on the floor above?” would be an appropriate radio transmission. “You’re in good shape in your sector?” implies that you want a certain kind of answer.
Since you can’t be everywhere, use your sector commanders as an extension of your senses. Accept what they sense without trying to influence them.
As an incident commander, you will also have to develop the skill of prioritizing the problems and the people you encounter at a fire. At a major incident, the building occupants, other agencies, the media, and your own personnel will all want your ear. Not all are going to comprehend the job you are trying to do. Until the fire is under control, deal with people who have vital information, and walk away from those who don’t.
I recently had a fire on the second floor of a six-story apartment building in Manhattan. While the units were still trying to get water on the fire, an elderly resident approached me in the street and demanded to know why we were placing an aerial ladder to the roof when the fire was on a lower floor. Obviously, I was not in a position to explain the concept of vertical ventilation to this person. I had to walk away. On other occasions, people have questioned me about the causes of a fire while we were still very involved in the process of trying to control it.
AFTER THE FIRE IS UNDER CONTROL
Always conduct a mental critique of the operation. Evaluate the effectiveness of the firefighting units as well as your performance. If something was done especially well, make sure that all the firefighters are made aware of it. If a part of the operation went poorly, address the problem with the appropriate personnel while they are still at the scene. One of your jobs as chief is to create as many training opportunities as possible. Was there an efficient hose stretch or a good roof cut? Was there anything unusual about the building construction?
It’s always a good idea to express your appreciation to the firefighters after the fire is extinguished. First of all, they deserve it because of the difficult work they perform under very dangerous conditions. In addition, if you get a reputation as someone who cares about their well-being as well as their performance, you likely will establish a good rapport for future operations.
Review both the good and bad decisions you made during the fire. Highlight your mistakes, but don’t beat yourself up over them (there may well be someone in your bureaucracy who would be very willing to perform that function for you).
You are likely to have a series of fire operations that go very well and give you a feeling that you are getting a handle on the job. Then there will be those at which you forget something or make a questionable decision. A single fire that doesn’t go smoothly will teach you more than 10 fires that go by the book.
Remember that you are trying to master a very difficult profession. This Winston Churchill quote defines what a chief is aiming for: “True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.”
Of course, none of us ever achieves that “true genius” level. However, your work as a chief should be guided by a continued learning process that strives for that level. It is a process that begins the day you accept that new white helmet and doesn’t end until the day you retire.
THOMAS DUNNE is a deputy chief and 22-year veteran of the Fire Department of New York, with experience in midtown Manhattan and the Bronx. He is a graduate of Fordham University and an instructor at the Westchester County (NY) Fire Academy.
