I first heard of the term “Rules of Engagement” in the fire service context at last year’s FDIC Educational Committee meeting in New Jersey. I’m not sure of the context within which the phrase was presented. When I was working on my most recent book, Managing Major Fires, I devoted a chapter to this concept subtitled “Risk Assessment in the Fire Service.”
When I was a recruit firefighter, my father gave me my first “rule of engagement” (although it was never thought of in those terms). His first piece of “advice” (as it was thought to be then) was, “If your ears are burning, then it’s too hot.” Quite a simple rule, but it established one of the first parameters of the “battleground” for me back then. (As we all know, with the advent of “hoods,” that rule must be modified now!)
Other “rules” back then included the following: “If you’re crawling inside with poor to no visibility and suddenly the smoke clears, something ‘bad’ may be happening” and “Don’t open up a building if smoke is ‘puffing’ from the eaves and other small openings.” We were taught these “cues” so we could learn when to retreat and when to change the battle plan. Life was simpler then.
One of the courses I teach at the National Fire Academy defines a simple risk policy, which my department has adopted as one of its procedures. A copy has also been placed at each watch desk. The policy is as follows:
We will take great risk to save life,
We will take some risk to save property, and
We will risk nothing for life or property already lost.
This policy is easy to understand and memorize. It still allows for aggressive interior firefighting and for risk (aggressiveness) when life is or could be at stake. It allows for aggressive firefighting when property of value (how do we define “property of value”?) is involved. Most importantly, it prohibits risk when life is already lost or property is destroyed or of no value to begin with.
We could even take the Rules of Engagement a few steps further and look at other rules such as “No life hazard is involved; therefore, no crews can go above the fire without a secondary means of egress or backup lines” or by defining “the size of initial lines.”
–John (Skip) Coleman, deputy chief of operations, Toledo (OH) Department of Fire and Rescue; author of Incident Management for the Street-Smart Fire Officer (Fire Engineering, 1997) and Managing Major Fires (Fire Engineering, 2001); an editorial advisory board member of Fire Engineering; and a member of the FDIC Educational Committee.
Questions: Does your department have a risk policy or any “rules” in place that define the steps to be taken prior to initial actions? Should de-partments develop Rules of Engagement similar to those established for haz mat?
Garry Morris, assistant chief, Phoenix (AZ) Fire Department
Response: Since I initiated a request to place this question in the column, please allow me to explain the purpose. The rate of firefighter fatalities for the American fire service is higher than that for any other industrial country. In the decade of the ’90s, the United States lost 965 firefighters in the line of duty. That’s nearly 1,000 firefighters! Half of these deaths occurred on the fireground. Virtually none occurred at hazardous-materials incidents.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has clearly established a set of Rules of Engagement for dealing with hazardous-materials incidents, confined-space rescues, and trench rescues. Prior to these rules, many firefighters were killed at these incidents-11 firefighters were killed in a boiling-liquid, expanding-vapor explosion (BLEVE) in Kingman, Arizona, for example.
The training literature we see in our industry has little discussion about risk assessment and the first-arriving crews at a structure fire. On the other hand, if we were to look at the British fire service as an example, we would see that risk assessment and “safe person” practices are discussed extensively in the training literature. It should come as no surprise that that country’s 33 line-of-duty deaths for the decade of the ’90s is nine times lower than ours. We would have to conclude that the British emphasis on safety has a positive impact on firefighter survival.
If we look at National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1500, Standard on Fire Department Occupational Safety and Health Programs, and NFPA 1561, Standard for Incident Management Systems, we would see that a simple risk-management profile is recommended for fireground operations. The criteria given are as follows:
1. Activities that present a significant risk to the safety of members shall be limited to situations where there is a potential to save endangered lives.
2. Activities that are routinely employed to protect property shall be recognized as inherent risks to the safety of members, and actions shall be taken to reduce or avoid these risks.
3. No risk to the safety of members shall be acceptable when there is no possibility to save lives or property.
The NFPA 1500 rules seem reasonable. For Phoenix, the rules, with some minor modifications to simplify the language, have been in place since 1986:
1. What is the survival profile of any victims in the involved compartment?
2. We WILL NOT risk our lives at all for a building or lives that are already lost.
3. We may only risk our lives a LITTLE, in a calculated manner, to save SAVABLE property.
4. We may risk our lives a lot, in a calculated manner, to save SAVABLE LIVES.
This simplified version works very well, and the rules are well integrated into the department’s SOPs and training programs.
So the question remains, Are the above Rules of Engagement reasonable? Is further modification necessary? Has your department adopted the NFPA 1500 rules, and have they been integrated into SOPs and training programs? Are they routinely applied at structure fires?
Ronald Hiraki, assistant chief of employee development, Seattle (WA) Fire Department
Response: The Seattle Fire Department does not have written Rules of Engagement that define initial actions for firefighters. The fire department has taken several actions to minimize risks to firefighters. They include the following.
- The Seattle Fire Department continues to use the National Fire Academy’s Managing Company Tactical Operations (MCTO) as the basis for its tactics training. MCTO’s decision-making module teaches incident commanders (ICs) the Command Sequence of think (size-up) and plan (develop strategy and tactics) before taking action (implementing tasks). Thinking and planning are critical to implementing a risk policy. Additionally, MCTO provides us with several useful acronyms to support the Command Sequence of think, plan, and act. Incident priorities of life safety, incident stabilization, and property conservation are recalled by the acronym “LIP.” The seven factors involved in developing a strategy are remembered by the acronym “RECEO VS”: rescue, exposures, confinement, extinguishment, overhaul, ventilation, and salvage.
Following the 1995 Pang Warehouse Fire in which four Seattle firefighters were killed, the fire department instituted a Dangerous Buildings Morning Report and procedures. This report is distributed each morning to every station. Operations Division members are instructed to review the Dangerous Buildings list and their associated hazards at the start of each shift. The procedure allows members working in various divisions to declare a building dangerous and initiate the notification process. This process includes entering the warning into the computer-aided dispatch system and conducting a preincident survey.
At the incident scene, Seattle Fire Department ICs need to conduct a 360°, three-dimensional assessment of the situation. Identifying the location of the fire and what is on all four sides, as well as above and below, are critical to the risk assessment. ICs are challenged to extend identification to analysis in the risk assessment: In a two-story building, if the fire should extend to the room or floor above, what hazards would be created for the firefighters on the first floor and on the second floor?
Training, identifying dangerous buildings and warning of their risks, and completely identifying and analyzing the fire and its associated hazards are good steps to take before initial action. Our department does not have any immediate plans to develop Rules of Engagement. Although there is value in making rules of this type, the first priority should be on providing training and notifications that will help ICs make good decisions at emergency incidents.
John J. Salka, Jr., battalion chief, Fire Department of New York
Response: In theory, a Rules-of-Engagement policy sounds awfully attractive. With any number of firefighter injuries and fatalities, whether that number is rising or falling, any program or policy that would reduce these numbers would have to be looked at seriously. The problem here is that unlike hazardous-materials incidents, where Rules of Engagement apparently work, structural firefighting operations are too dynamic, chaotic, and time-sensitive to begin applying rules. We generally don’t have the luxury of time at rapidly extending structural fires. We must arrive, size up, and go to work as rapidly as possible to have any chance of successfully getting a handle on the fire and saving any endangered victims.
The Fire Department of New York has volumes of firefighting procedures for just about every situation and building type that can be encountered here. These procedures have served us well over decades of firefighting and continue to be updated and amended. Adding another layer of rules, in my opinion, would only confuse, dilute, and limit our firefighting expertise and ability. If we were to develop such rules, we would be even more restricted and limited on the fireground than we already are.
Another point that should be considered is that we already have many SOPs, SOGs, size-up considerations, response policies, OSHA rules, NFPA standards, and some yet to be named “safety” philosophies that are all aimed, with the best of intentions, at reducing firefighting hazards. The real problem will arise when some day in the future a fire department company will arrive on the scene of a working fire in a private dwelling with reports of people trapped and will not be able to go to work because the Rules of Engagement will not allow them to start the game for lack of compliance with a rule.
We already have enough obstacles to overcome on the fireground, such as the building’s construction and stability, the locations of victims and the fire, water and personnel challenges, environmental situations, and a whole host of other ordinary roadblocks. Let’s not start creating and posting our own set of stop signs on the fireground.
Frank C. Schaper, chief, St. Charles (MO) Fire Department
Response: I have been thinking about this interesting topic for some time. It is a topic I feel the U.S. fire service should think on long and hard. Perhaps if we did think about this subject more, then true Rules of Engagement would be developed and then perhaps firefighter injuries and deaths on the fireground caused by flashovers and structural collapses would go down. I am all for that. My comments are restricted to structure fires.
- Rule #1. Never enter a burning building until proper risk assessment and size-up have taken place. A book can be written on these subjects, but let’s try to keep it simple. If it is too risky to go in, then don’t go inside. If the building is not worth saving, then don’t go inside. If the building on fire has a truss roof, stay off the roof, and do not go inside.
- Rule #2. Never enter a burning building without a charged hoseline. This includes rescue situations. I maintain that the best way to rescue people is to put out the fire. You do that by leading off an attack line.
- Rule #3. If you advance a charged hoseline inside a burning building, establish a water supply-that is, get the engine on a fire hydrant, or set up the drop tank with a tanker shuttle.
- Rule #4. Once the first line goes inside the building to attack the fire, advance a backup line.
- Rule #5. Know thy roof. Ventilate the building by opening up the roof over the fire if it is safe to climb on or work around. WATCH THOSE TRUSS ROOFS!
- Rule #6. Remove the smoke by breaking out the windows. Use ventilation fans to help clear it out. Be careful when using positive-pressure fans, and always have a charged line ready.
- Rule #7. Keep account of all firefighters on the scene.
- Rule #8. Evacuate the building (in hot, smoky conditions) if the fire cannot be found within 20 minutes or if the fire is not under control. Get all firefighters out, and reassess your situation.
- Rule #9. Overhaul properly by using thermal imaging cameras, plaster hooks/ pike poles, and a hoseline. Pull the ceilings and walls completely. Clean out the windows, and pull down framing from around windows and doors. If you think it is hot, pull it, and wash it.
- Rule #10. Know your vacant buildings, and perform risk assessments before they catch on fire. Always ask the questions, Is someone really in there? Is this a real rescue mission or a body recovery or a suicide mission?
One last thought: Many departments operate like my department-three firefighters on an apparatus coming a long way. We can only do so much to control the fire and save the property. Once the rescues are over and the exposures are covered, my fourth-in company is the insurance company. I didn’t start the fire, and I didn’t construct the building. I’m just trying to put it out with a few firefighters.
Bob Oliphant, lieutenant, Kalamazoo (MI) Department of Public Safety
Response: Our risk policy is a general statement to the effect that we will risk lives in a calculated manner to save a life, take moderate risks to save property, and risk nothing to save life or property already destroyed. This statement in one form or another has been around the fire service for years. The closest we come to any type of Rules of Engagement is our incident command system, which defines how fireground operations will be organized but does not restrict when or how certain operations will be performed. It’s the IC’s decision to make, based on his training and experience.
As to whether departments should develop Rules of Engagement for structural firefighting, that would depend on the extent to which the emergencies are comparable, and I don’t think they really are. I think that fires are far more dynamic than haz-mat events. Fires require quick thinking and the ability to stay one step ahead of the incident. Haz-mat incidents require a significant amount of time to identify the hazard and prepare the action plan.
One aspect of haz mat that could be applied to structural firefighting is OSHA’s mandates for specific levels of training according to the response that will be rendered. Mandated training requirements for ICs involved with structural firefighting would seem reasonable.
Terry Vavra, battalion chief, chief of training, Lisle-Woodridge (IL) Fire District
Response: It may be a stretch of logic to say that the OSHA rules and regulations for haz-mat incidents have virtually eliminated firefighter fatalities at these types of incidents. Fire service Rules of Engagement have been in place in many departments for many years, even prior to the two-in/two-out provision of the respiratory standard. In NFPA 1500, the Rules of Engagement are very clear: We will risk our lives to save a life known to be in the structure; we will take a calculated risk to save valued property (we are still in the life safety and property conservation business); and we will take no risk to save that which is already lost or of no value. These practices have been made clear in the policies of the Lisle-Woodridge Fire District.
There is a critical distinction in the time restrictions for identifying the hazard(s) and determining the appropriate level of protection and response in hazardous-materials and fire-suppression incidents. In firefighting, once at the scene, time is a luxury. We cannot afford the amount of time it takes to make strategic decisions at hazardous-materials incidents. In fire suppression, we make an informed, experience-driven decision that we can properly and adequately handle and overcome the hazards we are about to face. Unfortunately, we are mistaken some 100 times a year.
In a fire or hazardous-materials incident, we must analyze the risk we face. If the situation before us is the rescue of a victim, we know that we will risk our life to do that. It doesn’t matter whether the situation is a fire or a chemical spill. If the situation involves the protection of property, we will take a calculated risk-specifically weighing the advantage of the risk vs. the gain. All too often, firefighters die in the attempt to save that which is already lost or of no value. In hazardous-materials incidents, we have been able to set forth a course of action that entails surrounding and protecting the environment and reducing and mitigating the imminent hazard.
Education, awareness, and experience are needed to reduce the number of firefighter fatalities. To save firefighters’ lives, we must educate our firefighters in fire behavior and building construction, instill an awareness of their surroundings at all times, and continually relate the experiences of the past so that we do not continue-as we have-to repeat the mistakes in the future. The safety and welfare of our firefighters must be the most important issues. No number of OSHA rules can regulate these changes in firefighter behavior.
Leigh Hollins, battalion chief, South Manatee (FL) Fire & Rescue District
Response: Our department does not have a specific risk policy in place, although I believe many parts of our SOP manual, specifically the “safety” section and the “operation” section, would certainly fall under the heading of risk policy.
We do have rules that define the steps to be taken prior to initiating actions on any emergency scene. It is imperative that such rules be written and in place for all emergency operations. It is irresponsible not to have them, although I am aware that some fire departments do not have SOGs or SOPs because they fear they will subject them to liability. I believe that that approach will create an even greater liability risk.
The key is to have SOGs/SOPs that leave enough leeway for common sense and the multitude of situations firefighters face at the various scenes they encounter. It must also be noted that the best SOG/SOP is sitting on your shoulders and that these guidelines should not be followed blindly.
Larry Anderson, deputy chief, Dallas (TX) Fire Department
Response: The Dallas Fire Department does not have strict Rules of Engagement for routine structure fires. The IC is responsible for fireground operations-that is not to say that we don’t adhere to two-in/two-out, adequate water supply, strategic priorities, and so on.
The strict legislation of rules can often limit flexibility and creative tactics that may be necessary to mitigate an emergency. Whether the IC is a fire and rescue officer riding the seat on the first-due apparatus, a lieutenant, a captain, a battalion chief, or levels above, the incident itself should dictate the rules to be followed to handle the situation as safely and efficiently as possible. This approach may seem simplistic, but, somewhere along the line, we need to trust the judgment and expertise of the person actually looking at the emergency scene.
In my opinion, trying to set hard-and-fast rules that must be followed at all emergencies only serves to hamstring an IC. I prefer to stress the strategic priorities that must be addressed at each incident and leave the individual tactics for accomplishing those priorities to the IC, who is responsible for everything that occurs at the incident, including safety.
Adding a dedicated incident safety officer to all working incidents is a great asset to the IC because this person provides an extra set of eyes and ears to ensure that the risks taken are justified by the probable outcome of the tactics employed. Risk assessment and management must be constant and ongoing at all incidents.
