By Jarred R. Alden
Dispatch: “Engine 14, Engine 2, Ladder 8, Battalion 2, Battalion 4, respond to 1234 Goodyear Boulevard for a reported house fire; radio channel is Fireground 4.”
All companies respond over the radio and are en route. On the way to the fire, dispatch gives updated information that this fire has multiple calls and flames are seen from the C and D sides of the structure. Battalion 2 responds back to dispatch while en route to upgrade the fire and add another engine and a medical unit to the call. The shift commander (Chief 4) is added to the fire with the upgrade. Engine 8 and Medic 2 are added to the fire call. Engine 14 arrives on scene first and gives a scene size-up.
RELATED FIREFIGHTER TRAINING
- Fireground Tactical Decision Making
- Fireground Size-Up and Decision Making: The RADE Loop
- Strategic Decision Making: Transitioning from Offensive to Defensive
Engine 14: “Dispatch, Engine 14 is on scene at 1234 Goodyear Boulevard. We have a 2½-story, wood-frame residential structure; people are standing out front. There is heavy fire and smoke coming from the Delta side of the structure on the second floor. There is a green-top hydrant two houses to the south on the same side as the fire; second engine in, catch us a hydrant. Engine 14 will be mobile command and is making an interior attack with a 1¾-inch handline; radio channel Fireground 4.”
Battalion 2 arrives on scene and takes command of the fire. Engine 2 arrives shortly after the battalion and catches the hydrant for Engine 14. The Engine 14 officer performs a 360°, secondary size-up while the nozzle operator is pulling the line. The officer notices now that there is heavy fire coming from the C side of the house from the second story. He reports these new findings to the incident commander (Battalion 2) on radio channel Fireground 4. This size-up is crucial, since the initial size-up was only ¾ of the full size-up.
The engineer drove past the fire structure to leave room for the incoming ladder truck and so that the engine officer could observe the B, A, and C sides of the house—in that order—since Engine 14 responded to the fire from the north. The water supply is secured to Engine 14 while the engineer begins to pump water and charge the initial line as the nozzle operator and the officer mask up at the front door and make entry, sounding the floor first. Engine 2 personnel pull a secondary 1¾-inch handline from Engine 14 and follow the first line in as backup.
Ladder 8 arrives, performs a search, and shuts off utilities as the outside ladder crew provides lighting, great ladder placement for optional means of egress, and ventilation. Engine 8 is designated the rapid intervention team (RIT) in case an emergency arises. The fire is knocked down by Engine 14 and all benchmarks are met and complete. Chief 4 asks for a personnel accountability report (PAR) check to make sure that all interior crews are safe and accounted for. The structure is then fully ventilated. After an atmosphere check for safety, the crews reenter the structure to perform salvage and overhaul.
This is the progression of a typical house fire in Akron, Ohio. It may seem relatively simple to an experienced firefighter; however, the complexities involved before and during the fire are profound and deserve a deeper level of analysis.
(1) This fire was in a two-story, wood-frame residential structure where numerous fires were set. The second floor was heavily involved to the point where the floor was burnt through. The fire on the outside of the structure may point to one of the fires being set outside, or there may have been drop-down, causing the fire to catch the outside wall on fire. What is your size-up? Would you enter this structure as the initial attack team, or would you go transitional or defensive? What data did you gather? Was safety a factor in your orientation? [Photos courtesy of Captain Dennis Shumaker, Battalion 2C, Akron (OH) Fire Department.]
(2) What is your initial size-up of this fire? This house was being used as a multifamily dwelling, with each bedroom as its own apartment. What data could you collect to verify that hypothesis? Were there numerous electrical meters on the house? If so, that would be a clue to the possibility of multiple people living in the home. Where is the fire floor? How would you attack this fire? Where would you enter the house? Would you pull from the 1¾-inch 600-foot bed or the 1¾-inch 200-foot preconnect?
What occurred in this scenario? In the end, we merely “put the wet stuff on the red stuff,” right? This was the result, but there is much more here than meets the eye. The initial size-up begins when the call is dispatched to the fire companies. Fire crews begin to devise a mental plan based on the information they have at that time. We jump into the fire engine, ladder, or battalion car and get a quick read of the notes provided by dispatch. Sometimes we receive more information and sometimes we do not. As we respond, we may receive updated notes based on the development of the fire as per the callers. This updated information also provides information that we use to begin to pull from our mental schematics.
Our mental schematics are our problem-solving rolodex. These mental schematics are built over the years and consist of education, skill sets, training, and experiences gained on and off the job. Whenever we are faced with a problem or, really, any situation in life, we pull from our mental schematics and apply past knowledge, training, skills, and experiences to the situation. When we do not possess these aforementioned facets of problem solving, then we are forced to employ trial and error and build new mental schematics from which to pull.
Observe
How do we know which problem-solving application to use? This decision is based on many factors such as context or situation, abilities, training, experiences, skill sets, and education. In other words, we use what works or what has worked in the past.
Much of the time, we do not receive all the information we need to make a fully accurate decision. We may receive 50, 60, 70, or 80 percent of the information we need to make a sound, safe decision. In sports terms, every time first responders are dispatched to a call, they are playing an “away” game on someone else’s field. We walk into situations all the time not knowing every detail. For that reason, scene safety, situational awareness, and training are important.
This brings me to my first point: observation. Observation is not simply passively viewing an event or situation. When we observe, we need to be active observers. What are we really seeing? Are we using the majority of our other senses such as smell, hearing, and touch? Are we getting tunnel vision and losing our fine motor skills from the stress of the current situation? How do we combat this? The answer is preparation through education, training, and experience.
When we observe, we are essentially gathering data. We have already recognized the need for our response and identified the main problem. We must gather pertinent data through our senses and begin to filter out and discard what we don’t need. We gather more data so that we can begin to devise a solid plan of attack. Our attack, be it at a fire, rescue, or full arrest, must be timely, relevant, and optimal for the problem at hand.
Our data collection (observation) must be as accurate as possible. Again, we may not have all the information to make a decision, so we use heuristics to assist us. A heuristic is a “tactical shortcut” used to make an educated decision. This is also referred to as the “Theory of Close Enough.” In other words, we have just enough information to make a decision. Firefighters, medics, police, and military use this tactical shortcut method a lot, and it usually works. However, we must be cognizant of the fact that we must leave our biases out of the decision-making process. Confirmation biases can lead to bad outcomes; attempt to disprove your hypothesis, not prove it. Why? When we attempt to confirm our hypothesis, we overlook glaring evidence while only searching for any piece of evidence that will attempt to make our hypothesis true. Gathering data in this manner damages the validity and reliability of our data.
Orient
Colonel John Boyd coined the OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) loop and stated that the most important aspect of this problem-solving tool is to orient oneself with the data collected in the observation stage. Orienting the data is where we organize the data and search for cues and patterns that show connections. These connections to other data and situations are the foundation of the OODA loop. We are orienting our minds to the data as we analyze every aspect. What is the data telling us? How do we know that the patterns and connections are true? This question is answered in the act stage of the OODA loop.
The orient stage is also where we look for threats and analyze them during our size-up. The observation and orientation stages may overlap at times, as do the other stages. How much fire do we see? What is the color of the smoke? How much volume of smoke is encountered? Once the incipient stages of the fire are underway until the time we arrive on scene and begin our attack, there is a small window of opportunity to make the correct decisions and actions. The longer we wait to act, the smaller the window of opportunity to effect a rescue or neutralize the threat that is the fire.
Decide
After we orient ourselves and analyze the data, we are now ready to make a decision. We decide on an appropriate attack or treatment if we are faced with a fire or serious medical call. The person making the decision predicts the best course of action given an understanding of the emergency at hand. Again, many factors affect how we handle certain emergencies. Our knowledge, education, skill sets, training, and experiences all provide the problem-solving “mental slides” we use to mitigate emergencies.
The decision stage of the OODA loop can be the most difficult stage when people do not agree on one best solution for various reasons. This stage is what hinders businesses and leads to the normalization of deviance. Group think is also a dangerous phenomenon because the correct decision may be drowned out by the collective thought and actions of the group.
The decision stage must be approached with the knowledge that a consequence is attached; the decision and the consequence are both mutually exclusive. The person making the decision must ask himself, “If I choose A, then will B occur?” However, “If I choose C, then will D happen?” Be ready to explain why you made a specific choice. Have evidence ready to back your decision when confronted.
Act
When we decide on a course of action, we must then execute that choice by putting it into play. However, we do not simply execute an action; we are also testing this action or hypothesis. This testing is quantitative in nature. Was our choice valid and reliable after trial runs? This is why training is so important. We can execute various decisions by applying them to various scenarios during training to see what works best. If a decision does not work for that training scenario, then we need to try another problem-solving method until we find something that works. During actual emergencies is not the time to employ trial and error to test various hypotheses.
Do not confuse this with a backup plan. We must always have contingency plans in place just in case our initial plan fails. The best aspect of the OODA loop is the fact that if the plan fails, then we can go right back to the observation stage. We can gather more data that we may have missed the first time or totally dismissed because of a perceived lack of relevance or importance.
If we gather more data or not, we still need to orient the data again because we may not have pieced the data together correctly the first time. Moreover, we may have missed a cue or pattern that took us down a wrong path of analysis and interpretation. We may have to perform a new analysis and look for different patterns in the data now since new evidence has come to light. These aforementioned possibilities may lead us to make different decisions.
Now we can choose a new course of action. We act again and execute our new decision. We test it and wait for the results. Did we fix the problem now? Did we make the situation worse? Is the situation the same as before?
Heuristics
The OODA loop is used in place of the scientific method because there is not enough time to methodically work your way through a long process of analysis. As stated earlier, when lives are in danger, we have to employ the Theory of Close Enough. Do you have enough information to make a solid decision? Can you make a reasonable conclusion based on the current information you have on hand? Any time you say to yourself the following, then you are using heuristics: (1) It looks like …. (2) It seems like …. (3) It appears to be …. Moreover, ask yourself the following: What is the most probable course of action? What is the most dangerous course of action?
Let me pose the following question: What lays eggs, can swim, has a bill, and has webbed feet? The majority of the population would say, “It’s a duck.” Would they be wrong? Not necessarily, based on the context of the situation, prior knowledge, and experiences. However, what if I asked you the same question but then asked you to think of any other animal than a duck that fits the same description? What would be the answer for the majority of the U.S. population? The answer would more than likely be, “I don’t know.” The answer is a platypus. A platypus can be very dangerous because it has a barb on its hind legs that carries a neurotoxin. This neurotoxin is so strong that it can kill children and cause severe illness in adults.
The reason for this analogy is to show that there are “most probable courses of action” and “most dangerous courses of action” that we employ when making a decision rooted in heuristics. Heuristics are good when making decisions; however, they can also have deadly consequences if any details are missed or discarded. That is why it is paramount to gather data correctly and analyze the data properly.
The most possible course of action and the most dangerous course of action are considered “good heuristics” and “bad heuristics,” respectively. A good heuristic has a risk involved while making a decision based on the information at hand. The information you gathered was just enough to make the right choice. All risks have consequences, good and bad. When you have enough information and you make a choice that leads to a good outcome, that is a good heuristic. When you make a bad choice, you are also taking a risk; however, the consequence is negative and could cost someone their life. Again, that is why gathering as much data as possible and correctly analyzing the situation accurately are imperative.
Consider photos 3 and 4 and perform a mental size-up using the OODA loop. What do you see from the A side of the structure as you pull past the house? In photo 3, you see heavy, gray smoke pouring out of the front door and the chimney. You may also notice gray smoke coming from the C side of the structure as viewed from the street. What does this tell you? There is, more than likely, fire on the C side of the structure. There is a lighter, white smoke coming from a basement window on the A side, lower left. There is no smoke approximately a quarter of the way up from the floor in the front door opening. This means that there is a flow path entering low into the front door and heavy gray smoke exiting the front door above the cool air entrainment.
(3, 4) This residential structure has a walkout basement on the C side. The children living in this home were playing with matches in the playroom, which was located in the basement area. The call was dispatched as people trapped, but the children were able to escape out of the walkout door on the C side of the structure. Knowing this information before arrival, would you make your attack in through the front door or would you pull a line around to the C side to make entry? Would you pull from the 1¾-inch 600-foot bed knowing that the distance from the engine to the fire is at least 150 to 200 feet? How important is the officer’s 360° size-up in this scenario?
In photo 4, the origin is located on the C side of the structure as evidenced by the large V-shaped fire pattern seen on the exterior wall where the fire was exiting a window as it searched for fresh air. The officer’s 360° size-up was crucial in finding the seat of the fire. If the size-up was not conducted in this manner, the fire may have spread because the firefighters would have wasted time stretching a hoseline through the wrong entrance. The officers on scene chose to pull lines from the more abundant 600-foot bed to stretch around the house to the C side. They were able to extinguish the fire faster, avoiding fire extension, because they went directly to the fire, avoiding twists and turns inside the house. If they would have made their stretch and entry through the front door, then they may not have found the fire in a timely manner.
Time is important because fires burn faster and hotter than in the past from the chemicals and compounds used in furniture found in homes today. Controlling the flow path at doors and windows is also important so that we do not inadvertently feed the fire with fresh oxygen.
In photo 4, the fire was in the basement on the C side. The fire crews had put water on the fire as evidenced by the white smoke emitting from the basement window on the A side, lower left. The fire was then fully extinguished as the doors were opened for ventilation. Not pictured in both photos were the fans placed at the door openings right after extinguishment.
(5) This two-story, multifamily apartment dwelling was not compartmentalized and had balloon construction. The fire started in the kitchen after the renter left for work and forgot to turn the burner off. The fire extended into the walls, which caused the neighbor to evacuate from the danger of the fire spread and displacement from the damage to her apartment. This is the C side of the structure. Would an attack through the front door work since the structure was located close to the street in which the apartment complex sat? The closest hydrant was on the A side of the building and there was no direct access to the C side where the fire was located. The only attack option was to make entry through the front door. Knowing your district, hydrant location, structure access, and structure location is part of the OODA loop and falls into the observation and orientation stages.
The fire officers and firefighters made their observations and gathered data by conducting a solid scene size-up, which included a 360. After the fire was located, the crews were able to orient themselves and quickly devise a plan of attack. They analyzed their options for attack and decided to go directly to the seat of the fire even though they had to pull more hose. The officers acted by giving orders to pull from the 600-foot bed and to make entry at the C side of the house. The firefighters acted and were able to extinguish the fire in a timely manner following the plan put in place. Once they acted, communication became an important facet to the fire attack because information was being transmitted to Command that the plan was successful. If the plan was not working properly, then the officers inside and outside would have had to reassess the incident by making further observations. They would have had to orient themselves to the new information, thus making a different decision. They would have acted on the new plan and followed up with another ongoing assessment of the new plan.
We make many decisions every day. Some of these decisions are minor and routine. We make the choice to get out of bed, cook breakfast, get dressed, and head out the door in a timely fashion to make it to work or an appointment on time. We make decisions to visit the doctor, buy groceries, drive responsibly, act kind to others, and the list goes on and on.
At times, we make more crucial decisions that carry a lot more weight such as which drug to push in a full arrest, which line to pull in a commercial fire, and what tool to use to make forcible entry. The higher level of risk involved, the more serious the consequence. We must make difficult decisions in the firefighting and EMS profession. That is part of the job. By being prepared through education, knowledge building, skill development, training, and experience, we can make more accurate, solid decisions in our profession.
Author’s note: Thanks to Captain Dennis Shumaker for his assistance with this article.
REFERENCES
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Hammond, Grant T. (2001). The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security. Smithsonian Books, Washington.
Shafer, G., Kahnerman, D., Slovic, P. and Tversky, A. (1984). “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases.” Journal of the American Statistical Association, [online] 79(385), p. 223. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2288362.
Westover, Lynn L., and Seese, James R. (2019). Human Terrain Mapping and Behavior Pattern Recognition: Law Enforcement Officer 16-Hr. Basic Course Master Lesson File, 1st Edition. SLC2 (Six Layer Concepts & Consulting, LLC): HTMBPR Curriculum Development: Lulu Publishing.
Jarred R. Alden is a lieutenant, paramedic, and operations officer for the Akron (OH) Fire Department (AFD). He has 18 years of experience as a firefighter and 16 years as a paramedic. He also has 12 years as a tactical medic with the AFD/Akron Police Department. He has functioned as an arson investigator and investigated postblast scenes where explosive devices were used. Alden has a master of arts degree in applied behavioral sciences from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and a baccalaureate degree in sociology/criminology from Urbana University in Urbana, Ohio. He served as an instructor in sociology at the University of Akron for six years.
