Incident Command

We have been reviewing the five major common factors involved in line of duty deaths.

In the two previous weeks we have looked at the communication piece and the standard operating procedure piece.

This week we will look at Lack of use or failure to participate in Incident Command.

For review I have listed the five factors below:

Five major common factors among line of duty deaths are:

Lack of use or participation in Incident Command

Lack of proper risk assessment.

Inadequate communication.

Lack or failure of SOPS

Lack of accountability.

We in the fire service have made many major improvements in our ability to use incident command. As public safety agencies go, I believe we are way ahead of many of our fellow safety professionals, but with that said I believe we have a long, long way to do.

Incident command and the ICS are exactly as defined, they are a system. They are not the only answer, but a component of a bigger process. I believe that we need to instill the "system" or process in each and everyone of our training evolution's until we get it.

I just had the opportunity to listen and monitor a major metropolitan department with an excellent reputation talk on the radio about the assistant operations officer. They were asking what his location was.

The incident commander was calling individual units and companies on each floor by company number and assigning routine tasks.

The safety officer was involved in tactical decisions and firefighting operations on an upper floor.

The fire went well, two minor injuries and was stopped.

The fire was in command most of the time and most people were doing what they thought they ought to and operating independently. That is what usually happens. We say and mouth the words but we are not in command at all. I have seen and heard fires like this and I will readily admit I have been in "command" of fires that went this way.

We know all about the technical five major functions of command, and the principle of breaking the fire or emergency scene into manageable pieces either by task or location.

Here is the piece we are not teaching thoroughly enough.

Making sure everyone on the fireground knows what mode we are in and forcing and enforcing and controlling behavior that reaches that goal. If we are totally defensive then all companies should operate that way and all division or group officers should be enforcing behavior that relates to that.

While one of the greatest assets of the fire service is the ability to have independent quick responsive thinking it may also be our most dangerous. In many cases I believe the incident commander may not be aware of what is happening because companies don't report in, because they would be stopped or challenged if they communicated what they were about to do.

I think the NIOSH reports will bear this out in many cases and while it is unpleasant it is true..

The fireground incident commander of today is too focused on firefighting tactics at the tactical level rather than strategic and becomes consumed with directing hoselines and ladders that the real job of managing resources on the fireground is lost.

We need to get back to that and I believe we need to run the fire and emergency scene with an extremely tight iron hand with limited exceptions. When people are given an assignment let them go and monitor their progress but do not let them commit to a plan that is unknown to the IC.

That is when we will truly be able to say we are in command.

Train on the technical points of ICS but also explain how this should be done in reality as well and how the concept is about retaining and maintaining control over extremely dynamic resources.

Think about the terminology we use.....

"C1 is on the scene, assuming Main Street Command"

You know what happens when you assume........