BY JIM MASON
I WANT TO APPLAUD THE MEMBERS of the fire service who participated in the Tampa, Florida, summit meeting in March 2004 and the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives that were produced at the meeting.
For me, the most striking thing about the meeting was the call for a cultural change in the fire service. Just identifying it as a need is great, but being willing to say it out loud is a huge step forward. I give the people involved in this all the credit in the world.
How can this be done? What is it going to take? Where do we start?
I believe we need to look at the way we teach in the fire service. It always goes back to training, doesn’t it? We have to continue to teach how we do things like stretching hose, searching, forcible entry, and ventilation while continually trying to find better ways to accomplish these tasks. Along with this, I believe we can help bring about this cultural change by teaching why we do these things. We must explain the reasoning behind performing these tasks.
The beginning of a fire service career is a good place to look at training. I think the fire service does a good job of training civilians to become new firefighters. When these firefighters come out of the fire academy, they are generally familiar with “how” things are done on the fireground. The breakdown comes when the students need to learn “why” we stretch the hose where we do or “why” we ventilate in one manner or another.
This “why” is specific to the response district and it is where our instruction may be lacking. How does where and when we are going to vent/stretch hose/ search affect the rest of the operation? In the past, this coordination used to come with experience on the fireground; however, the days of learning in this manner may have passed. I believe we now need to teach specific reasons pertaining to “why” along with how tasks should be performed.
For example, what are the conditions and specific size-up clues about the situation that tell us the hoseline should go in this door rather than the other?
UNDERSTANDING THE “WHY” IN SIZE-UP
The tasks on arrival on the scene can be difficult. Everything we do on the fireground falls into one of three categories: We size up, decide what is wrong, and fix it to the best of our ability.
We need to teach specifics about arriving at fire situations and how to read them effectively. Companies arriving at the scene need to understand the situation before they can decide and act. It’s not easy, but it seems like the “why” that often is missing in our instruction involves the size-up. Even in large departments, where you would expect that in some neighborhoods there still is significant fire duty, the firefighters are starved for work. With a general lack of experience in the fire service, can we maintain the skills so difficult to gain if the fires aren’t there to teach us?
I recently was talking with a friend about fire experience. He noted that the best coordinated fireground operations occur when the crews get the third fire for the shift. It doesn’t happen all that often, but when it does, there is no yelling or screaming, and there are few missteps. The engine does its thing, the searches get done, the windows get vented opposite the hose advance, and the roof gets opened as uneventfully as when we are sweeping the apparatus floor. If you were watching as a fly on the wall, you would almost expect the truck company to hold the door open for the engine to walk out of the fire room and take a bow before the pike poles start pulling ceiling. It resembles firefighting being performed by proper English gentlemen. The point is this: The first two fires of the shift reinforced the answers to the “whys” of what needed to be performed during the third fire.
MAKING THE FIREGROUND SAFER
What will the instruction of “why” do to change our firefighting culture?
We will be making the fireground safer when firefighters understand the reasons behind an officer’s decisions. Isn’t this what we wanted from our officers when we were younger firefighters? I know I looked for consistent leadership. I wanted an officer who had a good idea of what and what not to do on the fireground along with a sense that his expectations of me as a firefighter were the same all the time.
The best drill for this may be simple coffee table talk. By reviewing past and potential fire problems and then offering solutions, a real leader can give options for a successful fireground operation while explaining the “whys” of the decision-making process.
For example, if a 3 a. m. fire in a 1 1/2 story, platform frame-constructed, single family residence is located just inside the front door in the living room, the officer can suggest that a 1 3/4- inch hoseline stretch will be successful going straight in the front door. Why? Water will be delivered to the seat of the fire. The flow of the 1 3/4-inch line can put out a fire in a compartmentalized residence. The fire will not be pushed into uninvolved areas because the flow will quickly overcome the Btus generated. In a residence, the bedrooms (a primary search target area) usually are upstairs. The hoseline placement will protect the stairway to the second floor. The stairs are the easiest and safest way to get victims down to the ground. If the engine loses water and the fire starts to get away, the search company members on the floor above can be notified that they have to get out because their main path of egress is now cut off.
Discussing the “why” bring up points that have not been taught to new firefighter recruits who just left the academy. It reinforces the lessons of the past to more senior firefighters. These examples of solutions to the fire problem also help the blueshirts understand what is expected of them when the situation actually presents itself: The specific individual positions on the engine of nozzleman, backup man, water supply, and pump operator will better fall into place once the idea of what the officer is expected to do is learned. This also provides leadership to the company members by way of showcasing the officer’s tools in the toolbox.
What if the fire problem is a situation that dictates a rear-door hose stretch? What situational factors would make a different hose stretch necessary? How will the operation be different if the hose goes in the back door? What can an inexperienced firefighter’s size-up expect to reveal when this different situation presents itself? What makes changing tactics justified and reasonable?
TEACHING THE “WHY” REINFORCES WHY WE ARE FIREFIGHTERS
Do firefighters respond to this type of training? I believe they do. Teaching the “why” also keeps firefighters focused on what they came here to do in the first place: fight fires.
There are a lot of things that we are expected to do at the firehouse, many of which do not seem as satisfying, especially to newer members who are normally highly motivated when coming out of the academy, as when there is a successful firefight. Our teaching of “why” should highlight what it is that members came here to do when they joined the fire service.
Even though a large majority of the responses that we go to are medical in nature, we all get the greatest sense of pride when we focus on the fire side of the job.
Performed effectively, this type of training also may keep members motivated and help them avoid becoming complacent. Complacency truly is a killer, as we have seen in past NIOSH reports. Deep down, no matter how “salty” our 24-month firefighter has become, he is looking for leadership and knowledge from the officer and senior firefighters.
If we start this focus of teaching “why” from the very start, this cultural change may be possible. This process also will help our new firefighters become future leaders. The “why” of the fireground provides learning from experience that newer members have not had. There is an old saying, “Fires don’t change, but firefighters do,” so we continue to get hurt and die from the same situations as years ago. Let’s use our drills to stop this cycle.
A few years ago at FDIC, Chief (Ret.) Alan Brunacini said, “When something bad happens, we default to the task level of training to recover.” I agree. However, in addition to teaching how to search, stretch, and monitor our air consumption, let’s teach “why” we do the things we do. If we do, we may get the cultural change that the Tampa meeting called for.
JIM MASON is a lieutenant with the Chicago Fire Department.
