BY ALAN BRUNACINI
Last month we started to look at the incident command component of the safety system we use to protect our troops from the incident hazards. The incident command system (ICS) is a critical part of that safety system. It is the management process we use to evaluate, decide, assign, and move (if necessary) the positions and functions of the firefighters working in the hazard zone. Position/function means the incident commander (IC) must always control where the firefighters are and what they are doing based on the balance of the safety system compared with the incident hazards.
The IC must maintain an ongoing 360° top-to-bottom awareness of incident conditions based on visual evaluation from the command post and reports from all over the fireground. The IC is the only person operating on the strategic level who can—and must—decide if the firefighters will be in offensive or defensive positions (more position/function issues) based on the hazard/safety balance. The IC is also the only person who has the overall capability to command and control the operational location and the action of fire companies operating in decentralized positions all around the fireground.
We have used (for the past 40 years) the eight standard command functions to describe the ICS. So far we have gone through the first three functions: Assume, Confirm, and Position. Command creates a standard front end on incident operations by the first arriver’s assuming the role of IC #1. This creates our best chance to create initial incident command and ongoing operational control. Situation Evaluation describes how the IC sizes up incident conditions to evaluate where to strategically assign fire companies so they can begin work on the tactical priorities. The Communications function outlines how the IC establishes, maintains, and controls incident communication. This process keeps everyone effectively connected.
Now let’s look at the next five functions.
DEPLOY APPROPRIATE RESOURCES
This function has a huge effect on hazard zone safety because it lays out a standard work cycle that describes the basic safe/effective fire company response stages from out the door to back home. The work cycle starts with companies in quarters alerted and dispatched. This is a simple but big deal because how the troops perform in the beginning of the alarm sometimes sets the stage for the whole event. (Remember our often repeated line: Good beginnings produce good endings.)
After the dispatch, the company hits the road and begins its trip to the event. How fast the driver drives and if the driver stops at negative right-of-ways is always a major safety/survival factor. Excessive speed and sailing through red lights are eventually suicidal.
If the company is first due, it assumes the role of IC #1 and must evaluate conditions and then determine and call for the resource level that will be needed to effectively deal with the incident. If it is not first due, it must assume and announce its staged position and wait for assignment from the IC. If, however, the department has initial arriving operational standard operating procedures (SOPs), instead of staging, the company should do what the procedure directs it to do based on the arrival order. Having Command assign companies effectively integrates them into the overall strategy and incident action plan (IAP). This initial assignment by the IC eliminates freelancing and creates the beginning of the accountability system.
When the IC assigns the company, the company reports to the assigned location and goes to work on the task it was given. This process is the basis of the IC’s controlling the position/function of the hazard zone workers. Companies will then rotate between their assignment and rehab/air bottle replacement—either right outside the hazard zone (on deck) or to a rehab sector/group. When the company completes its tasks, it will be released and will return to quarters. The standard work cycle becomes the foundation for actual, practical, street-oriented operational discipline. Free-lancing is not a stage in the standard work cycle.
IDENTIFY STRATEGY AND DEVELOP AN IAP
These are major strategic responsibilities of the IC, who decides if the operations will be conducted inside (offensive) or outside (defensive) the hazard zone based on the conditions. Evaluating current and forecasted incident conditions and then comparing the capability of the safety system to the severity of the hazards is the very practical basis for making the inside or outside Command call.
Problems with establishing, maintaining, and revising the overall operational strategy are critical factors in most cases of injuries and deaths of firefighters operating at structural fires. A major reason we position the IC in a remote, stationary position inside a vehicle is so Command can both visually evaluate and effectively receive radio reports from all over the fireground. That looking/listening input must be continually connected to the current strategy, and the IC must use this input to quickly and decisively decide where the troops can safely operate as long as a hazard zone is present.
The overall operational strategy is where the safety/hazard comparison gets acted out in a very practical and unforgiving way. There is nothing complicated or fancy about strategy management, but that decision has more to do with firefighter survival than any other part of the system. At the end of the day (or night), the other functions of command are really in place to support the “moment of truth”—the strategy function. Operating inside or outside (the fire building/area) involves the IC’s making a standard, functional, definitive decision based on facts, not emotion, tradition, or romance. Very simply, our troops get injured and killed when they are in offensive positions under defensive conditions. The IC must prevent this from happening.
DEVELOP AN INCIDENT COMMAND ORGANIZATION
This standard ICS function outlines how the IC can quickly expand the command structure as the incident response escalates to cover the geographic and functional management needs of the incident. Being able to match the size and configuration of the organization to fit the profile of the fire/area/number of companies is a huge effectiveness and safety advantage for the IC—actually for everyone.
The IC’s span of control becomes overloaded as the incident expands and the number of fire companies increases. Unless the IC can increase the size of the management organization ahead of that growth, the IC will drown in the details of trying to manage an overwhelming amount of information/data/communication. The safety of hazard zone workers becomes a critical issue when the IC becomes overloaded. When this occurs, those firefighters are in fact operating with no effective (protective) level of command and control—simply, the IC can no longer control the position and function of those workers. The IC must be operating within an effective span of control when things occur that necessitate that the IC quickly move the troops away from danger; the most critical of such movements is going from offensive to defensive.
The command organization is built through the assignment of tactical-level sector/division/group bosses to the critical fireground areas and functions. These officers are generally response battalion-district chiefs. They go to their assignment and directly supervise the operating companies working in those areas. They become the IC’s eyes and ears command partners.
Let’s say the incident will require 12 companies to resolve. Twelve active units create a span of control (12) that will make the IC completely nuts. By assigning three tactical-level chiefs to critical areas between the task level of the fire companies and the strategic level of the IC, the span of control of the IC goes from 12 to three. Bingo! Life is now good for the IC and a lot safer for the workers. Most fire departments do not send enough response chiefs early in significant incidents to create an effective tactical level of control. “Saving” battalion chiefs to respond to the “next call” is stupid and dangerous when there are current hazard zones that are unmanaged.
REVIEW AND REVISE STRATEGY AND THE IAP
These are important functions because fireground conditions can be very dynamic, and a major responsibility of the IC is to continually match the strategy and IAP to what is happening and what will happen. Sometimes operations are well placed and effective, and the IC continues to reinforce the attack to complete the tactical priorities. These successful cases require quieter monitoring and do not need much command direction/redirection.
The IC can go to 15 no-sweat working fires that require only some initial assignments to a very straightforward IAP and then monitor and support the progress of the attack, but then, on a dark and windy night, the IC has a situation where the troops are deep into the hazard zone and fire conditions are about to assassinate them. These are obviously dangerous times and absolutely necessitate a strong IC presence and quick, clinical, pessimistic command redirection to move the troops away from those escalating conditions. This is the night that is showtime for the IC, where he earns his money.
TRANSFER, SUPPORT, TERMINATE COMMAND
This “maintenance” function supports the effective continuation of command to the very end of the incident. This becomes a major part of the safety system because it ensures that command and control will be in place as long as a hazard zone is present. Command transfer based on rank has been a traditional way we have strengthened command.
Improved training through the years has upgraded the command capability of company officers and younger response chiefs. This has created the development of command teams that have taken our management capability to an improved level. What we have learned based on that experience is that command needs support rather than transfer; our service has developed to a point where rank has now respectfully shifted to role.
Command transfer from a fast attacking company officer (IC #1) who is in the hazard zone with the crew to an arriving response chief who becomes IC #2 makes sense and greatly increases effectiveness and safety—past that point where it makes increasingly more sense to add a support officer and a senior advisor to the current IC (who knows the most about the status of the event) and form a command team. I have quietly watched these teams staffed with young (very young!) and amazingly capable officers effectively manage rapidly escalating fifth-alarm fires; transferring command would have only reduced their effectiveness.
Continuing command ensures that command is in place and is providing firefighter support as long as a hazard zone is present. Many firefighters have been injured and killed at events where the command system stopped commanding before all the tactical problems had been solved. Doing salvage and overhaul amid the products of combustion with no respiratory protection has created “quiet” injuries to generations of us. We have had fire-weakened structures collapse on us because the fire was out and we thought it was at the end of the ninth inning; actually, it was the beginning of the eighth. We must always remember the idiom, “It is not over until the fat lady sings.”
We have now been through the eight standard command functions. The functions (ICS) are the last items on the safety system. Next month, we will discuss the hazard side of our teeter-totter.
MEET CHIEF ALAN BRUNACINI AT FDIC:
“Bruno and Norman ‘Unplugged,’” Wednesday, March 23, 5:30 -7:15 p.m.
“Fast-Track Command,” Friday, March 25, 10:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Retired Chief ALAN BRUNACINIis a fire service author and speaker. He and his sons own the fire service Web site bshifter.com.
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