(1) Photo by author.
By Zach King
Scenario: You have just been issued bunker gear for the first time and have been educated on its proper usage and donning processes. You’re a young firefighter, so you’re eager to don it faster than your cohorts who surround you at the academy. After several rounds of taking it slow, you think you’ve got it, and the next time your drill instructor yells “GO!” you’re off to the races, donning the gear as fast as you can.
In the process, you now struggle to don your hood and boots as well as the zipper on your jacket, which doesn’t seem to want to zip. By the time you’re strapping on your helmet, you realize you have forgotten to pull your hood over your mask; after going backward, you are now trying to pull your helmet strap over your regulator. You’re now finished, but in your panic you have failed to recognize that the other cadets have already finished and are taking off their gear. Your instructor looks you in the eye and says, “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast” before shaking his head and walking away. You don’t know it yet, but that simple lesson has just set the groundwork for how quickly and efficiently you will perform on the fireground for the rest of your career.
Before I examine what tempo looks like on the fireground, I will examine what it looks like in the world outside the fire service. Consider your golf swing, for instance. My good friend and fellow firefighter Nick Ota tells me that your swing—from start to finish—can be “paced” with a metronome. Each club requires a slightly different swing and “pace” as noted by the number of ticks on the metronome. He also says that when you’re on the golf course, your swing, although now in a real situation, will be the “Same, but different.” Take that idea and compare it to what we do on the fireground. When drilling on stretching hose, throwing ladders, forcing doors, and a myriad of others skills, they all will be the same, but different when it’s “go time.”
(2) Photo courtesy of Streetsmart Firefighter.
If you’re like me and have a hard time relating to a good swing, consider your favorite sporting event where two teams face off. Depending on the sport, the tempo of the match may differ, but the goal is always the same: Maintain control and defeat the opponent. The tempo or pace generated by one team comes from using their strengths to overcome the other’s weaknesses. Compare that to the fireground; we use our training, experience; teamwork; and, most importantly, discipline to overcome the fire.
What does tempo look like on the fireground? Just like the sporting event, we will have two types of tempos: ours and the fire’s. If you attended Leadership Under Fire’s fall 2013 conference, you would also call this “positive” and “negative” tempo. Think of the last working fire you arrived at with fire pushing out of the structure. Is this tempo? Absolutely, and I will call it negative tempo because the fire has gained a lot of momentum prior to your arrival. How about the image of an engine company laying out its hose in a high-rise stairwell or hallway prior to advancing? Or, in case there are not a lot of commercial structures in your district, picture the nozzleman who steps off the engine, locates the structure, uses the conditions to estimate the fire’s location within the structure, locates the attack entrance, and plans his route to the target before even touching the nozzle to make the stretch. Again, absolutely this is tempo, and it’s positive tempo because we are taking the time to set ourselves up for success! These things don’t just happen; they take practice, both mentally and physically.
All of our successes on the fireground do not happen by chance; they are the result of our cumulative experiences, knowledge, and training, which begins long before the tones drop. When you hear someone say, “You need to take time to make time,” what does that mean to you? What is the image you picture? Is it the cadet in the academy who is learning how to don his gear in less than a minute? Perhaps it’s the crew that works on donning its gear before getting in its respective engine or truck. How about the nozzleman who makes sure his hose is loaded the way he wants and practices pulling and estimating “the stretch” every shift? Possibly it’s the truckie that you always see cleaning and maintaining his saws, ladders, rescue tools, and so on. Taking time to make time starts with the basics: donning our gear; estimating stretches; stretching and moving charged hoselines; carrying, spotting, and throwing ladders; forcing doors; and so on. And, no matter where you work in this country, the basics don’t change. Although there may be different theories on how an operation should go, it is our basic skills that win ballgames. If we set out to master the basics, then, when on scene, we will be able to see the bigger picture and focus less on stretching the hose or how to hold the halligan when forcing an inward swinging residential door.
Imagine that you are the company officer sitting around the beanery table at “zero-dark-thirty” having your second cup of sludge that the previous shift calls coffee, and in walks your brand new toy: the probie!
Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and undoubtedly still wet behind the ears, your probie is eager to get started on the day’s work and prove himself worthy of your firehouse. At this point, the first prank has either already gone down or is coming in the near future, but I paint that picture because at this juncture it is quite possibly the most important in a new firefighter’s career (short of getting the job and graduating the academy). Do you sit your newbie down and lay out the expectations, or do you let him figure it out for himself? Do you have a plan to test his knowledge and skill level coming out of the academy, or do you assume that he knows the minimum to get by?
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Every officer will have his own style and way of running the firehouse and welcoming newcomers, but if our officers don’t have a list of basic expectations—in and out of the firehouse—a career could be ruined before it really begins. Lay out expectations—from making coffee to first-in assignments/actions—whenever possible to create less confusion and, most likely, less disappointment on your end. If you are in charge of an engine, why would you not take your crew out to estimate stretch, move, and handle hose? We can’t assume what any member who is new to our crew knows. How are you supposed to know what type of cadet your new firefighter was in the academy? Did he call in sick or stand in the back during hose week, or was he a “go-getter”?
It is imperative that we train as a crew so we are all on the same page. We cannot live by the mantra that “we will figure it out when we get there”! Now, if the tones drop at minute one, you have no choice. But other than that, there is no excuse for not attempting to build a strong foundation in firemanship! By laying down the expectations (and ways to achieve them) of your newbie, you are laying the groundwork for them to be successful not only in your firehouse but also in your department and, maybe even more importantly, in our fire service!
Swap the probationer in the above scenario with a new transfer: a 15-year tailboard or a seasoned driver. Does anything I have already covered change? The only thing that has changed in this scenario is the tenure of the firefighter in question. He is still new to your house and, unless you have worked with him multiple times, the only things you know about him is what you have heard. Do you sit him down and lay out the expectations? Do you train with him to figure out his skill level and ensure he knows the minimum of what you want him to?
Again, I don’t see much difference between the two members, and regardless of their talent, they always need to address the basics. Just like in baseball, the professionals hit off tees, field ground balls, and practice “turning two,” so why would we not stretch and move hose, address how to force doors and throw ladders, and so on? This career is all about growth. If you don’t know where your crew is and don’t make an effort to understand its level and improve on it (yourself included), then you are decaying, and there is no time for that in my fire service.
(3) Photo courtesy of Streetsmart Firefighter.
Now, ask yourself, “Am I the type of officer that likes to keep my firefighters in my hip pocket, or do I create an environment which encourages my crew to think?” Think about the time lost if you have to walk your crew through every task at every scene. There is responsibility on both sides of this coin. Even though I may be talking to the company officer here, it is everyone’s responsibility to know their roles. This will not only result in a quicker knockdown or completion of a task, but crew cohesion as well. When our officers retire, their knowledge, experience, and discipline go with them. All of these things—communication, asking questions, a thirst for knowledge, and getting better are just a few pieces to this puzzle we are building.
On arrival, forget about “taking time to make time” and “slow is smooth and smooth is fast,” correct? Wrong. I was told in my first academy in northwest Washington that after my first fire I would not remember the color of the front door. At the time I thought, who cares? But as time has gone on, I have realized the importance of these two phrases and how they aid in a good tailboard size-up.
If you were to ask a firefighter fresh out of the academy of his first action after arriving on scene of a burner, he would most likely tell you that he is going to grab the line and go to the front door. This is not a knock on the firefighter, rather it is a good time to teach him about slowing down. This is an opportunity to train your members to size up the structure, locate the fire (either through the smoke showing or the fire, if it has already vented), locate the attack entrance and the path to take to get there, and account for obstacles and corners along the way. By taking the time to figure out the path, you’re teaching your firefighter to focus on the bigger picture: the conditions prior to entry and the type of structure you are entering. Where’s the fire? What is its size? How many windows does the structure have, and what do they tell you? No matter the scenario, we can’t get excited; this is our job, and the more excited we get, the more our heart rate increases, and the more tunnel vision sets in.
We have been talking about getting faster on the fireground and outpacing our enemy. However, we have not once talked about running, which would create the tunnel vision that we trying so hard to avoid. As it has been written in numerous articles, speed can kill an operation rather than help it along. If you’re like me, you are late to every fire; your enemy has been burning long before you arrive, and you have to find a way to get back in the lead and back in control. The way we gain control is not from moving as fast as you can (like we tried when donning our bunker gear), but rather doing everything we can to master our craft before the tones drop.
This job is not like riding a bike; if you don’t practice and revisit scenarios, you will either forget your tactics or you will be much slower in remembering them. I know that the job (pulling hose, throwing ladders, forcing doors, and so on) will not change much in my career, but I do know that my approach (as I age and promote) will need to change for me to stay on my game and be a functioning part of this team.
No matter your take on training or how things work at your department, you have to understand that what we do matters. Seconds count for both the fire and emergency medical services. Our patient size-up (from across the room) and continuous monitoring of that patient is the same as an on-scene size-up. They ask similar questions, such as What do I have? What does it look like? Where is it going? What’s changed? Have we helped? How can we improve for the next time?
“Remember what you’re there for.”
– Dan King (my father)
I always think about this quote when I walk through the doors of my firehouse. Today is not about me; it’s about them.
Zach King is a firefighter with the Austin (TX) Fire Department.
