Photos by author except where noted
On a recent weekend, I had the TV on while I was making dinner. In the background, a football coach was doing a postgame interview where he was asked about his play call on a fourth-and-short situation. The reporter framed the decision as an aggressive approach. The speed and precision of the coach’s response caught my attention immediately:
“That wasn’t being aggressive, that was confidence in the analytics and my team.”
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- The Oklahoma City Story: Tracking Grabs with Firefighter Rescue Survey
- So Afraid We Make It Unsafe
From the National Football League to high school, the number of teams “going for it” on fourth and short is likely 10 times what it was five years ago. As the numbers show, most of the time they are successful. Historically, the decision to go for it on fourth and two on the 50-yard line was considered high risk. Coaches who made that call were labeled aggressive and seen as taking a chance. In the current state of the game, this perception is quickly shifting with each successive weekend, going from a surprise call to an expected decision.
Looking back on decades of conservative play calling, we have to wonder: Knowing what we know now, how many games would have had completely different outcomes?
The Analytics
Over the last 40 years, firefighter line-of-duty deaths while operating inside a structure fire have decreased by more than 80%. The most recent data reports that the death rate for firefighters operating inside or on a structure is “less than one per 100,000 fires.” I believe ratios should be reported more exactly than “less than one.” Through research and comparison (1) between United States Fire Administration and National Fire Protection Association data sources, it seems that “less than one” is approximately .76 per 100,000 fires. To appropriately display this would be 7.6 firefighters per one million fires. To summarize, we should take great pride in knowing all our efforts towards reducing firefighter risk are paying dividends. Year after year, we are safer than we ever have been before.
Over the last 40 years, the civilian fire death rate for one- or two-family homes has increased by 34%. The most recent data reports that rate at 9.5 civilian fire deaths per 1,000 fires with the trend rising. If the trend of civilian fire fatalities rising and total fires falling continues, it is possible that by the end of the decade we could see the civilian fire death rate reach 10 per 1,000, which converts to an entirely new and tragic scale, one dead per 100 fires. To summarize, we should be very concerned that, even with all our advances in firefighting personal protective equipment, tools, response, training and technology, year after year our citizens are at a greater risk of dying in a fire than they ever have been (2).
Single- and multi-family dwellings are our most frequent fire incidents. In reviewing the last decade of fire research from the Fire Safety Research institute (FSRI), we know the culmination of open floor plans, synthetic fuels, and the lethal gases involved in the byproducts of their combustion are causal factors in the increased number of fire victims in these occupancies (3). The Evidence-Based Structural Firefighting training program tell us that, although these fire events develop rapidly, effective and deliberate fire streams are bringing them under control very quickly.
The information from the Firefighter Rescue Survey has been a powerful tool for us to now understand the “gain” side of our risk-versus-gain calculation. For a data set of 3,005 rescues reported to the Firefighter Rescue Survey, 1,916 of the victims survived (63.7%). If the victim is removed in less than six minutes from the time of fire department arrival, the survival rate is 68% or better. More than a dozen times in my career, I heard well-intended firefighters tell me or other firefighters who were operating at a fatal fire “don’t blame yourself, they were dead before we got here.” It would be difficult for this statement to not be challenged today.
Looking back on decades of conservative play calling, we must wonder: Knowing what we know now, how many fires would have had completely different outcomes?
Going for It
Residential fires are the fourth-and-short situations for the fire service. If we can call the correct play and execute under tight circumstances, our likelihood of getting a fresh set of downs is high. That “fresh set of downs” has two analogies: one for the civilians and one for the firefighters. The faster the victims are located, removed from the structure by means of the nearest exit, and triaged, treated, and transported, the greater their chance of surviving. The faster we execute searches and determine the occupancy is all clear, the quicker we can reduce our operational risk tolerance and reassess the situation. Fortunately for us, the analytics are even telling us what that right play is.
The first and foremost tactical consideration from multiple FSRI studies has been that, when resources allow for suppression, and search should be executed simultaneously (4). This is not to imply to that you would delay search or fire attack until they both could be initiated at the exact same time; this means that the two operations would be the top two priorities on the residential fireground and coordinated yet independent. In some scenarios, it may also be best to ensure search and fire attack are not only simultaneous but also from separate locations to increase the potential square footage of the occupancy accessed and reduce initial operational overlap.
Per the Firefighter Rescue Survey data, the crews assigned fire attack are responsible for about 24% of the rescues reported. The crews assigned primary search accounted for 57% of the rescues, more than double that of fire attack. These numbers are critical to review for those “coaches” who are assigning a single company for both “fire attack and primary search.” To effectively do one is to compromise another. Fire attack can “search” on their way to the fire—essentially finding anyone directly in the path of their advance—but to expect fire attack to go out of their way to search any other areas before the fire is controlled would cost them time to extinguishment. The primary responsibility of a crew assigned to primary search is the rapid location and removal of unprotected civilian occupants. The result of this focused effort is displayed on the chart showing crews assigned primary search accounting for more rescues than all other assignments combined (5).
If your agency has a residential fire operational procedure (play call) that reads something to the effect of, “The first two units are to proceed directly into the scene to prioritize the initiation of search and fire attack,” you are on the right track. To assign the first two crews to fire attack and primary search would “by the numbers” capture 81% of the rescues, and with the early call also giving the potential victims the greatest chance at survival.
If your residential fire operational procedure reads something like, “First-arriving engine initiate fire attack, first-arriving truck position for and access the roof, second engine secure a water supply,” you need to consider the reflex time of a fourth-arriving unit getting the assignment of search and subtract that from the six minutes your victims have.
It is time for us to leverage analytics in our offensive play calling. When a trained, equipped, and willing firefighter locates and removes a victim from a structure fire and gets them to care, the numbers show they have a 63.7% chance of survival. If that is performed within six minutes of arriving on scene, the odds are 68% or better. I don’t see this as being aggressive anymore—it is just confidence in the numbers and our team.
Brian Brush is the training chief for the Midwest City (OK) Fire Department. With more than 25 years of fire experience, his background spans several states from rural volunteer to metro-sized departments. He has a master’s degree in fire and emergency management, is an executive fire officer, and has Chief Training Officer designation. Brush is on the advisory board of Fire Engineering/FDIC and FirefighterRescueSurvey.com. He is co-author of the new textbook Mastering Fireground Command–Calm the Chaos! (Fire Engineering).
