Chief Kanterman’s Journal Entry 72
Considering the command process when implementing your battle plan, there are numerous interferences that do not allow the incident commander to fully execute said plan. Let’s look at the ordinary everyday citizen. When bad things happen, ordinary people tend to band together and want to help. If you examine examples of emergencies, disasters and catastrophes, you will see that people will respond to aid others. It was believed years ago that people panicked under most emergent circumstances, however people normally panic when all hope is lost. An example: When people have sight of an exit door in a nightclub in a medium smoke condition and know that if they keep moving, they will make it out alive. When the lights go out or the smoke obscures their exit, a loss of hope occurs, and panic may set in followed by a human crush, stampede, or other phenomenon. In case after case, however, it’s been found that ordinary people do extraordinary things during an emergency. People came out of the Bayou in boats in Louisiana to help save people during and after Hurricane Katrina. People carried others down numerous flights of stairs at the MGM Grand fire in Las Vegas in 1980 and at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, just to name a few. Looking at the national news and seeing the aftermath of an earthquake, you will see ordinary people on top of piles of ruins and collapsed buildings trying to find survivors. Note that volunteers can have both good and bad intentions. People have different motives for their actions. Most will not be looking for credit or recognition, but others may be. In addition, an ill-intentioned person may be trying to delay aid or assistance on purpose, whether they have an issue with the business, the building owner, the workers, the people who occupy the space, or us. There have been cases where people were “pretending to help” an engine company connect to the hydrant and the helper either cut the suction line or simply didn’t connect it at all. This fits the arson model where a homeowner cuts down a tree across the driveway to delay a response to the house when a fire breaks out—or in this case, is started intentionally. On your initial response, you may not be able to control or coordinate these people. So know that ordinary everyday working folks may be in your way and may interfere with your operational battle plan, intentionally or not.
Trying to Control the Interferences
So, how do we control these “volunteers” and possibly use them to our advantage? What can we do to ensure they have a positive impact on our battle plan? A good starting place is public education. A well-informed public can be an asset during or after an emergency, however it would work best if this same informed public had enough information to prevent an incident from happening in the first place. Since the fire service first stepped into the school systems years ago to teach young children the merits of fire safety, we’ve understood that the impact of those fire safety sessions were lasting for those children but did not necessarily carry over in to their adolescence or adulthood. As people get older, their priorities change, and unless they were a victim of a fire, it becomes a case of indifference. “Someone else will take care of it. I need not worry about it.” What have we done to increase fire safety awareness amongst working adults? Well, we stay after the kids and still do what we do in schools because we know the kids are our best messengers. In the 1980s, after the Loma Prieta (CA) earthquake, the California authorities noted that there were throngs of people who helped or wanted help. They organized the Citizen Corps, which eventually morphed into the Citizen Emergency Response Team (CERT) program, spearheaded and moved forward by then FEMA Director James Lee Witt. We took the opportunity to organize our adult volunteers, along with giving them some basic training and equipment. Through educating kids and CERT-type programs, we get yet another chance to further educate our populations.
Getting back to the fireground, as the fire service has realized in recent years, controlling flow path, ventilation, and fire travel through a building will give us and the people who are trapped in said buildings the advantage. What’s old is new, however. Chief Keith Royer joined the Wichita (KS) Fire Department in 1946. In 1949, he began a 39-year career as a fire service educator, accepting a position as chief instructor of the Fire Service Extension at the University of Kansas. In 1951, he assumed a similar position at Iowa State University (ISU). He later became the director of the Fire Service Institute. While at ISU, he established the university as a national leader in fire behavior research and application. In his early years there, he did major fire behavior investigation and research with his partner, Bill Nelson, which resulted in the Iowa Rate of Flow Formula. The formula is still a major fundamental in basic firefighter training. After this research, he was established as a national leader in the fire protection and education field. He served in advisory positions under both Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. It just took us this long (about 60 years) to memorialize what Royer and Nelson wrote about and back it up with scientific data, thanks to NIST and UL.
We also need to apply our lessons learned to public fire safety education. We’ve been telling our citizens to sleep with their bedroom doors closed for a very long time. Most don’t, but they know they should because they’ve heard it before, over and over again. We can further educate them by telling them: “Close the door behind you, do not break the windows, keep the front door closed, etc.” This may help our battle plan before we get there or as we pull up. This public education also includes other emergency services. A northeast police department instructed all their officers for years that “if you come upon a burning house, break as many windows as you can while waiting for the fire department to arrive.” Partner with local law enforcement and show them the way.
There are other “human elements” programs that can be implemented to assist your battle plan. Many heavy commercial, industrial, or high-rise buildings have fire brigades, industrial fire departments, evacuation teams, hazmat teams, fire wardens, and emergency management teams. These are trained, organized groups of dedicated employees who wish to help their companies, preserve their jobs, and generally do some good. Placing emphasis on what to do and what not to do can only assist you when you’re in command.
It’s important to note that, whatever plans are in place, they need to be tested for them to be valid. A well-written plan will only be successful if it’s tested and consistently retested to ensure it’s a valid, workable, and viable plan. Failing to plan is planning to fail.
For more on fireground command interferences, check out High-Rise Buildings: Understanding the Vertical Challenge, Chapter 8: ‘Command, Management and Administration of High Rise Fires and Emergencies.” Tracy, Murphy & Murtagh, Fire Engineering Books & Videos.
Good luck, be safe, stay well,
Ronnie K
RON KANTERMAN is the executive inspector of the Bureau of Fire Prevention for the Fire Department of New York. He is a more than four-decade veteran of the fire service and recently retired as chief of the Wilton (CT) Fire Department. He has a B.A. degree in fire administration and two master’s degrees. He’s a contributing author for Fire Engineering, the Fire Engineering Handbook for Firefighter I and II, and the 7th edition of the Fire Chief’s Handbook.
