Communications

Last week we reviewed these five major common factors involved in line of duty deaths.

This week we will look at the communication piece and just a touch of how that can tie

into the incident command system.

For review I have listed them 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.

Communication is a whole lot more than radios and whether or not they work.

Think about the communications that occurs in your department and then think about

the following statement: Will what I am about to say into the radio cause anyone to

do anything? We give reports, we do an awful lot of chatter, but are we saying

anything? Let's look at a couple of reports and then let's try to make them better.

Engine 2 is on the scene, 2 story wood frame, smoke showing.

OK, that is pretty good and a lot better than what we used to do, but what did it do for me?

Engine 2 is on the scene, 2 story wood, smoke showing, I am advancing an 1 3/4 line into

the C side door.

I now have the same information but I know the crew is around the back and advancing

the line. I now have some idea about the size of the attack and where my people are and I have

used about 1 more second of air time! How much air time gets wasted now?

Five minutes later that crew of engine 2 reports back...

Portable engine 2, (or engine 200) we have a lot of smoke by no heat, still checking.

Not bad, I know the crew is OK, and they have not found the source of the fire yet.

How about this?

Basement division to command, lots of smoke but no heat still checking.

I now know that the crew that went into the back door has found the basement stairs

and has changed levels. This entire incident could be a furnace incident.

Just by thinking if what you say is going to make someone do something, we can do

wonders to improve how we communicate on the emergency scene.

Having a company use the terminology of where they are located in the building

aids in our ability to both track where they are and where I may need to send a

FAST team to get them if in trouble. The problem is that we know that firefighters

move throughout the building and they rarely report when they change locations. We

continue to traditionally use portable numbers or identifiers rather than location

designations. This has an effect on firefighter, safety, accountability and all of the five

major factors above.

Spend some time modifying what you say and the way you say it...you might just

save somebody's life by doing it!