Chapter 19: Fireground Command Best Practices

Question 1

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Best Practice #1:
Prioritize your incoming information
critical information for residential fire

Answer 1

Critical data for residential dwelling fire decision-making

1. Smoke and fire conditions
2. The construction and decomposition of the structure
3. The speed the incident is moving
4. A realistic assessment of savable lives

Question 2

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The number of unrelated pieces of information that a person can keep track of is limited to seven ± two however what is that number when the subject is under stress?

Answer 2

Five (possibly ± 2)

Question 3

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Smoke and fire conditions

Answer 3

Fire tells you what’s burning at the current moment in time. The color, volume, velocity and density of smoke can tell you what’s burning, where it’s burning, how deep in the building the fire is, and how much pressure the smoke is putting on the building, and most importantly where the fire is headed. Those four attributes of smoke serve as the primer for level III situational awareness.

Question 4

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Construction and decomposition of the structure

Answer 4

To understand how the building behaves when it’s on fire must understand how the buildings built. Lightweight construction has changed what we know and have come to expect of building behavior on fire. Cheaper, thinner, lighter, glued together building materials have replaced conventional construction.

Question 5

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The speed the incident is moving

Answer 5

Every incident has speed. Usually assessed in terms of how past conditions are degrading. Part of responders mental modeling process is to assess the speed of the incident and determine whether resources can outmaneuver the pace of the incident.

Question 6

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Realistic assessment of savable lives

Answer 6

Not all victims are savable.

In fast-paced environments were rapidly changing conditions impact victim survivability there is a narrow window of time in which responder can actually influence the outcome in a positive way.

There are two windows of opportunity, civilian and firefighter.

Civilian survivability – Skin begins to melt at 160°, that’s not very hot. In most cases smoke is what kills victims the survivability in the harsh conditions inside a structure fire is very narrow. Fortunately most victims self extricate.

Victims are savable only as long as conditions inside the structure remain compatible with life. Even if firefighter performs heroic deeds and extricate an unconscious badly burned victim the probability of survival is nil.

Firefighters-have a longer and wider survivability profile. As conditions heat up in air runs out firefighters to the ability is finite as well

Structural survivability – just like civilians and firefighters buildings have finite abilities to withstand the effects of fire.

Question 7

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Best Practice #2:
Set the strategy and tactics based on the quantity and quality of your resources.

Answer 7

• Most incidents start out under resourced, and firefighters often push for offensive attack regardless.
• Bad habits form over time as high risk, high consequence behaviors become routine and scripted and no negative outcome occurs. Command should stop this behavior but a variety of reasons (reluctance to change plans, slow changes unnoticed, overconfidence, ego, stress cascade leading to fight or flight reactions and Hyper vigilance leading to an overwhelmed mind that is missing key details)
• commander who arrives before crews implement stem plan – always conduct fresh size up after crews arrived

When understaffed to adequately overwhelm the fire you must go defensive.

Question 8

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Best Practice #3:
Never miss radio communications from your most at risk personnel.

Answer 8

Listening requires substantial cognitive resources. Cmdr. who is multitasking listening to the radio and other task will suffer cognitive overload and miss information. We have no executive control over the information that gets missed versus information not missed.

Due to the stress of sensory overload your brain may search for simple solutions to problems. You may have problems understanding complex information and situations.

Solution one: assign someone to listen to the radio.
Solution two: FDs develop and use discipline radio protocols/SOPs, so only the most important information is transmitted over the air.

At the heart of managing communication is a need to ensure the commander’s ability to monitor communication that of most at risk personnel.

Question 9

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How much superfluous radio traffic does it take to overload a commander?

Answer 9

Load up a commander with just 5 to 7 questions that may be enough to set him on the fast track to overload.

Question 10

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Why is missed radio traffic from at risk personnel rarely considered a near miss?

Answer 10

It’s often overlooked or dismissed because there was no consequence when the radio traffic was missed

Question 11

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How can you tell if your department is having near miss due to missed radio transmissions?

Answer 11

Listen to a significant incident and see how many missed communications there are two command.

Question 12

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Why is it not necessary to have an injury to classify as a near miss?

Answer 12

Start to think near miss events on the basis of their untapped potential to result in catastrophe. It doesn’t take a catastrophe to qualify.

Question 13

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When most people say that they are multitasking listening to two conversations at the same time one of the actually doing?

Answer 13

They are quickly alternating back and forth between two conscious task and monitoring to conversations at the same time. However you are able to help listen to only one audio source at a time.

You are also vulnerable if your brain mixes up facts from one conversation to the other.

Question 14

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What is the problem with one person attempting to monitor radio traffic on multiple channels?

Answer 14

You can’t accurately monitor two radio channels at the same time. You can listen for keywords but you are liable to miss something.

Question 15

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Best Practice #4:
Be strategic when choosing the location for command.

Answer 15

If you can’t command from the cab choose a physical location close enough to the incident that you can maintain a visual fix of the activities, but far enough away to maintain a big picture view and be away from distractions and task that may entice a hands on commander.

Recommend every commander conduct a personal size up before assuming fixed command position.

Question 16

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What are the pros and cons of being closer versus faraway from the incident as commander?

Answer 16

The closer you are the more vulnerable you are to having your situational awareness affected.

Close you are the more clues and cues you’re exposed to however that puts you in an environment that restricts with stimulation and can quickly lead to information overload and overwhelm you. There is just too much information to process

Question 17

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What is the concept of gist vs detail?

Answer 17

You have gist about how your car operates. You understand that it needs to have fuel, fuel is ignited inside the engine, that makes a motor run, which makes the wheels turn.

Detail is all the steps you can quickly be overwhelmed with the information. Often this is simply more information than you need.

The person in charge needs to capture and process a small quantity of this most important information. Commanding from the vehicle facilitates thinking and processing and gist instead of detail. 5-7

Question 18

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How can operating from the cab prevent hands-on commander?

Answer 18

Newly promoted commanders are more comfortable and experienced performing hands-on task. When the commanders to physically close to the action may feel compelled to do tasks that are comfortable or habit based as a result of the stress he is under. Being in the cab can prevent this urge.

Question 19

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The moment the commander puts hands on a task what happens?

Answer 19

They have relinquished the ability to effectively capture the clues and cues and make effective decisions in the command level.

Even for just a minute anytime you become disengaged from the big picture there is a risk of the degrading situational awareness.

There may also be confusion and disorientation as the fast-moving incident keeps moving and the commander has fallen behind.

Question 20

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How does the location of the commander influence the number of distractions he will face?

Answer 20

Located too close to the action in the midst of loud noises and bright lights attention is going to be strong to that stimuli. You are prewired to react to loud, bright, moving objects in proximity to you. The closer you are the more affected by the stimuli you become. You also put yourself in a position where people have ready access to. See commanders note that it’s easier to stay focused user checks list and worksheets and have ready access to incident data.

Question 21

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Best Practice #5:
Call a personal timeout

Answer 21

The only way for you to know if you have strong situational awareness is to pause and take inventory of what you’re doing and compare your situational awareness to the following benchmarks.

Most effective way to accomplish a personal timeout is to consciously benchmark the step to forming situational awareness. Until part of your subconscious programming created checklist.
Level I SA: Capture clues/cues in your environment.
Level II SA: comprehend the meeting of the clues/cues used to interpret the current situation.
Level III SA: predict future events based upon your assessment of the current situation and likely progression.

Once you develop level III situational awareness and are able to predict events based on your assessment of the current situation, you should verify your models. Ensure what you prognosticate, comes to pass. If your model is confirmed fantastic, your model is correct. However if your model is not predicting what comes to pass then your situational awareness is flawed and you need start over with your situational awareness from square one.

The worst place to be is if you created a model and therefore don’t know how you are doing at all. You have no way of knowing if you’re making the progress anticipated if you don’t set a goal and deadline when you first arrive.

Question 22

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If you develop strong Level 3 situational awareness, how far ahead should you try to predict the events that might occur?

Answer 22

For fast-moving events you’re going to be able to prognosticate few minutes ahead, however from slower moving events may be able to predict events 10 minutes into the future. In some cases such as extended disasters or wildfires projection of the future could be days weeks or even months. The

Question 23

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If you correctly modeled with level III situational awareness where you would be currently, at the start of the incident then you have three decisions you can make. What are they?

Answer 23

Decision one: extend the deadline by giving crews additional time to accomplish the task (you may also make modifications to the plan)

Decision two: assign additional personnel to the task, and extend the deadline. (Again you may modify the plan)

Decision three: withdrawal the resources from the situation, and take up a defensive posture

Which to do? Depends on the scene

Question 24

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Best Practice #6:
Use a command team.

Answer 24

Sharing the mental workload in emergency scene cannot be overstated. Commanding an incident is a high risk, high stress, high consequence and involves overseeing/coordinating multiple groups of responders. This task requires the cognitive capacity of more than one person.

Lone Commanders are setting themselves up for failure.

The solution is to build a command team as soon as feasible
chauffeur captains and first officers

Question 25

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Why is it essential that the commander have a chauffeur?

Answer 25

Recalling that your brain can only perform one conscious task at a time, and the conscious brain has a limited capacity when it comes to how much information it can process at one time, 5 to 7. Then consider commander driving to an emergency scene (driving to an emergency scene cannot be done subconsciously), trying to take into account the commander making a mental picture of the incident in preparation of assignments, information being relayed from dispatch, which units are responding etc.

Commanders driving themselves to emergency scene on vulnerable to cognitive overload. Commander doesn’t have to drive and he can pay attention to the developing and maintaining strong situational awareness infers critical moments of the emergency.

Question 26

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How does commanders aid help once on scene?

Answer 26

After the size of the commander establishes a fixed location for the command post all the aide/advisor remains mobile, gather information about the incident.

The commander stays focused watching the incident conditions while beat a/advisor tracks information on the worksheets and checklist.

The aide/advisor also listens intently to the radio subcritical radio traffic is not missed.

All of this frees up cognitive capacity for the commander ensuring he doesn’t get overloaded.

Question 27

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Best Practice #7:
Control your distractions and interruptions

Answer 27

Distractions – draw you away
Interruptions – interrupt you

You work better without both of these. But how do you prevent? We’ve mentioned several of these command from the cab, moved back from the incident, don’t be a target.

Recognize if there is an issue, so you can correct.

Question 28

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Best Practice #8:
Develop and maintain a strong command presence.

Answer 28

Command presence is the ability of the person in charge to be in charge. Requires a person who is well-trained, competent, confident, disciplined and able to lead and make decisions. Someone who can stand up and do the right thing when it comes to personnel safety.

Having strong command presence means having the ability to keep emotions in check. Things will always go your way, crews may frustrate you, but you must understand that staying in control of your emotions is essential for maintaining situational awareness.

Able to direct operations of personnel – set strategy and communicated effectively the print personnel are on the same page. Control assignments and movement personnel.

Keeping track of the passage of time

Question 29

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The commander who can keep track of the passage of time is it better at…

Answer 29

Better at anticipating outcomes.

Question 30

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What’s one of the best ways to keep track of the passage of time?

Answer 30

Have the dispatcher announce elapsed time notification ETNs, So that all personnel can hear.

Question 31

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Authors preference for ETN’s

Answer 31

Every 10 minutes, and a par at every 20.

Question 32

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Best Practice #9:
Develop and train to scripted procedures but build resiliency into training programs.

Answer 32

Departments function best when they have well-developed standard operating procedures/guidelines. These documents ensure personnel are trained to a common set of expectations and will generally perform the same task in same way. This predictability aids in the development of level III situational awareness.

It’s best to have guidelines rather than procedures. This makes in latitude when inevitably there is a dynamic situation that doesn’t conform well scripted procedures.

Training that strictly reinforces SOP/SOGs will perform well to get firefighters into lockstep formation, but may under prepare them when faced with a novel event.

In addition training personnel should allow crews experience a failure, and should resist the temptation to correct behavior. Through the lessons of failure personnel buildup a repertoire of of experience of actions that didn’t work. These lessons can be as important as knowing what does work.

Trainers should strive to have personnel perform routines until they can perform them flawlessly, but they should also train firefighters to be resilient problem solvers. To do this allow personnel to fill in training without fear of retribution. Allowing failure in training can also improve responder safety. It allows firefighters to develop improvisational skills and can improve resiliency when faced with novel situations. All these lessons will be learned and stored in your brain’s catalog of experiences from what you will pull from to problem solve in the future. Both how to do something and how not to.

Question 33

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Best Practice #10:
Accelerate your command knowledge and expertise.

Answer 33

You can take a long time to accumulate enough emergency experience to prime your recognition. This is especially true for incident types you don’t see often. These incidents are also the incidents in which crews are most at risk (high risk – low-frequency).

You can preload it your experience to training. The more you train in preparation for events more likely your be able to tap into those experiences under stress, when your brain is searching for solutions.

In addition if you read case studies and line of duty deaths reports and watch videos of the incidents you can accelerate your learning IF you can trick your brain into thinking the experience is real and not imagined. To do this you need to attach emotions to the learning experience. Any emotion will do.

Humor in learning – laughing is an emotional response that triggers neurotransmitters that make you feel good and open the brain to be more receptive to strong experiences for long-term recall. Also stress brains don’t learn the same way as calm brains.

Question 34

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What’s another way to accelerate your experience and expertise?

Answer 34

1. Training – preload experiences from which to draw on when your brain is searching for a solution to problem.
2. Reading case studies such as line of duty death reports. If you can incorporate emotion into this learning it’s likely your brain will register it as an experience making it available in your tactic memory.
3. Repetition i.e. practice. Especially true when you memorize. There are two forms of memorization cognitive and muscular.
   Cognitive – relating words with imagery, mnemonics help with memory.
   Muscular – physically performing a task over and over again allows you to perform the task without conscious thought. The ability to perform the memorize physical task resides in the subconscious brain.

Question 35

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What happens when you have no memorized response cognitive or muscular because you’re facing a novel event?

Answer 35

It may be vulnerable to mistakes, it may take you longer to accomplish task, and your conscious brain will be involved meaning you must give your full attention to the task.

Simulators are something some firefighters have turned to the need to have high fidelity, realistic graphics relevant audio to aid in learning. The more realistic the simulation better the learning.

Question 36

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Get a mentor

Answer 36

To help accelerate the development of your expertise. Someone to work with you as you develop command skills. Critically important because new commanders are likely to make mistakes. A mentor might be able to prevent a near mesh or casualty event.

You commanders are likely to make mistakes without someone pointed out these mistakes may be repeated over and over again without consequence repeated enough they become the commander’s performance standard. Go long enough the commander becomes an experience commanders would flop command skills. And the ego to back them up.

Question 37

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Recipe for catastrophe:

Answer 37

Incompetent behavior…
Without a consequence (no casualty)…
Leads to overconfidence…
And contributes to complacency and arrogance…
Precursors to a catastrophe

A mentorship program can help alleviate this problem because it corrects the incompetent behavior before it has an opportunity to develop into a habit.

Organizations with deep-rooted and competencies are are likely to struggle here. Because they don’t recognize their own and competencies.