By Dennis Reilly
Commanding incidents is a difficult, complex task. Most human beings are not naturally inclined to make life-and-death decisions, in high-stress situations, in compressed time frames, often with missing or incomplete data. To make decisions in this environment, one must understand the risks associated with the tasks and not let the risks overwhelm or paralyze them. To be an effective incident commander (IC), one must not be averse to risk and instead be a risk manager. For the sake of this article, I will address risk management from the perspective of an operational chief, but the points I make can to anyone who may find themselves in charge of an incident.
- Gaining a Tactical Advantage: Setting the Tone During the First Hour
- Fireground Tempo: ‘Slow Is Smooth and Smooth Is Fast’
- Safety, Accuracy, SPEED: The Forging of a Fireground Culture
- Fireground Size-Up and Decision Making: The RADE Loop
Most of what is required to manage the fireground must be done prior to the alarm. Retired Fire Department of New York Chief of Department Tommy Richardson has been quoted as saying, “It all happens before the 10-84” (the department’s code for arriving on scene). The IC who wants to manage risk must invest the time and effort before the alarm to make sure their members are competent, have realistic and workable guidelines, and are resourced to allow them to complete dangerous tasks in a high-risk work environment.
One of the absolute best ways to manage risk is to bring competent firefighters to the emergency. If you fill the role of IC, you must ensure this happens. Company officers, the training division, and the senior firefighters in the firehouses all play a part in this vital task, but the person making the calls at an incident must bear overall accountability for everything that happens. If an engine company cannot make the push, if a truck company can’t get ladders in position, if an ambulance fails to provide the appropriate care to a victim, the IC will need to answer some very difficult questions. You should know exactly what the people in your command are capable of and where they may come up short. If there are gaps between what your people can do and what they are expected to be able to do, then it is your responsibility to figure out how to bridge that gap. You might not be the one who executes the training improvement plan, but you better make sure that a plan has been written and someone is delivering it.
Competency applies to the IC just as much as anyone else responding to an incident. Complex incidents can happen in any jurisdiction. Mass-casualty incidents, hazmat responses, technical rescues, and just about any other type of incident can happen anywhere. As an IC you must have some type of plan to deal with the outliers, those calls that are outside your normal operating range. A quick Internet search can lead you to numerous specialty incident checklists. Commercially produced tactical worksheets can guide an IC through at least preliminary decision-making at one of these incidents. Do you have a resource list of who you can call should you encounter something outside your wheelhouse? Competency does not necessarily mean you are a subject matter expert in everything—it means that you are wise enough not to make bad decisions that will compound the harm the incident has already caused.
Commanding an incident requires one to make decisions. Making decisions is the act of doing such; the characteristic of decisiveness is the ability to make decisions in the environment where those decisions must be made. It is important not to confuse these two. Not everyone has the characteristic of decisiveness. If you go to enough fast-food restaurants, you are bound to see people struggling to make choices about what they will eat from a limited menu. They will eventually decide, but it will not be a quick one. Add to this the time-sensitive nature involved in emergency scene decision-making, and those who are not naturally inclined to make decisions in a timely manner will be lost in the fog of war. As you move into an IC role, you must be honest with yourself about how capable you are of making decisions. Those who feel that their abilities might be somewhat lacking need to work on this. Finding a mentor might be a good way to improve on this critical aspect of being an effective IC. Designating an aide is another tool that might be useful, along with having your communications center giving 10-minute time checks until the incident is under control. Whatever tool you choose to help in this regard, figure out a way you can avoid the problems associated with not being able to make timely decisions.
Many of the risks on the fireground are those we can see coming. A good way to manage these risks is to address them before an emergency happens. Having realistic guidelines in place is a good starting point for comprehensive risk management. Guidelines give firefighters some discretion based on the situation, as opposed to procedures that must be followed step by step with no discretion afforded to the decision maker. Setting realistic guidelines will speed up fireground decision-making and will allow the decision maker to concentrate on gaining situational awareness and developing action plans. The most run-of-the-mill incident will require a laundry list of decisions that must be made, and many of these decisions are common to a particular type of incident. A kitchen fire in a one-story, single-family dwelling (SFD) is a kitchen fire in an SFD. If you approach this fire as a unique event, you could find yourself consumed with numerous decisions that could have already been addressed. Items such as arrival order guidelines, standard company functions, and riding positions are examples of these type of guidelines. To manage risk, you must stay focused on the current situation and forecast the future. Making decisions that could have already been made will detract from your abilities to function as an IC.
- Fireground Command Decisions
- Critical Decision Making: The Single Most Important Predictor of Success
- Thinking Like an Incident Commander
- Tools for Managing the Incident
Tempo is a military concept that says to win a fight, you must develop and implement your action plans faster than the enemy can react. Tempo on the fireground requires firefighters to get ahead of the fire and overwhelm it with superior force. The IC must understand this concept and use it as they make decisions. I go back to the previous statement about how the fireground is determined before units arrive. Do those in a command position discuss this concept with their personnel, or do they take for granted that everyone riding the apparatus has a deep understanding of the importance of tempo on the fireground? Do those in command attempt to think a few steps ahead of the incident? As the great Wayne Gretzky once said, “I don’t skate to where the puck is, I skate to where I think the puck will be.” As an IC, do you resource your members with sufficient resources to get a particular task done in a timely manner? If you want a 2½-inch handline operating on the third floor of a structure to cut off the advance of a fast-moving fire, it is doubtful that a three-member engine company can do this by themselves. If you are going to be successful on the fireground and manage the risk that your members are exposed to, you must generate tempo at a pace faster than your opponent, the fire.
Safety has been defined as a condition that exists without risk. The fireground will always present risks; there is no way around that. In these high-risk, high-stress events, one can either choose to avoid the risk or manage the risk. The concepts I have discussed in this article are designed to give an IC the tools they need to best manage the risks they will encounter, give their members the best chance to be successful in the pursuit of their mission, and ultimately provide the best possible outcome for the people who call the fire department on the worst day of their lives.
Dennis Reilly is a 48-year fire service veteran and retired fire chief. He served as chief in Pittsburg, Kansas, and Sunrise Beach, Missouri; as assistant chief in North Carolina and California; and retired as a battalion chief in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. During his time in New Jersey, he became one of the original members of the New Jersey Urban Search & Rescue Task Force 1, where responded as part of the response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. He is a U.S. Army veteran, having served in Iraq during the Operation Desert Storm. He holds a master’s degree in public administration from Penn State University and is a CFO. He is the owner of The First Line Fire Service Training Company LLC.
