The Evolving Fireground Chapter 5 Command 86-98

Command officers have the responsibility of assigning tasks to members on the scene, but this can be challenging due to staffing limitations. They must learn to delegate based on priority and be mindful of the National Incident Management System. Managing resources is also important, and command officers should call for additional resources early on. Good communication is crucial to calm the chaos on the fire ground. Initial reports should include information on command, location, size-up, and needs. Progress reports should be brief and include conditions, actions, and needs. Maintaining accountability of personnel is essential, and personnel accountability reports should be conducted regularly. Command roles and responsibility. One of the hardest pieces to manage is appropriately assigning tasks to the members who are on the scene. This is challenging for many departments because of staffing limitations. Departments with no staffing limitations allow for writing assignments where tactics are based on the assigned writing position. This works great if each of those seats is always filled. However, many departments do not have all the seats filled or do not or don't know whether or not the seat will be filled when the apparatus responds. Command officers must learn early on to delegate assignments based on a priority decision-making model. You must decide what gets done, when, and by whom. At all times you need to be mindful of the National Incident Management System. The span of control indicates one supervisor can supervise three to seven subordinates and functions optimally with five. As a command officer, as your incident expands, you must expand the command staff. Effective command officers have a unique ability to establish command, dividing tasks while maintaining span of control, and most importantly the chain of command. Be prepared for escalating incidents as many scenes will grow faster than the incident commander realizes and can quickly cause the commander to lose effective span of control on the incident. Resources. As the incident commander, you must manage your resources. However, you must get the resources there first. As the IC, you must know what you should be available and be responding at all times. Many departments do not respond with or have enough staffing to wage an interior battle on the fire ground. The IC must call early and call often for additional resources. Proactive fire ground commanders call for mutual aid or additional resources immediately while responding, even before anyone arrives. This front-loading of resources is necessary in many jurisdictions. As the commander, you need to decrease the reflex time of your mutual aid companies. Reflex time is defined in Vincent Dunn's Command and Control of Fires and Emergencies as the time it takes from the receipt of the alarm until the first hose team discharges water on the fire. Standing in front of the building is a very lonely place without companies available to be assigned tasks immediately. You can always return to companies that are not needed. It's better to have them on scene and not need them than it is to need them and not have them there. Communications. As the fire ground has a tendency to be chaotic, good command officers must be able to calm the chaos. Utilizing appropriate radio communications, a commanding officer can relay his or her orders and directions and obtain reports from interior companies while demonstrating command presence to keep an incident from elevating. All too often, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, NIOSH, Line of Duty Death, LODD, reports point to ineffective communication contributing to the cause. We've all been on that fire ground where we couldn't get a word in on the radio or where every transmission was disrupted by another company's transmissions. Radio discipline is a must for every member on an incident. Most fire departments today should have a portable radio assigned to every riding position. While this provides increased safety for every member, just because you have a radio doesn't mean you should use it. Your portable radio is your lifeline. Your portable gives you the ability to contact command to report necessary information or to call for help if needed. It also gives the incident commander the ability to contact his or her firefighters to obtain status reports. As a commanding officer, you must control the fire ground on the radio communications. This is best accomplished through proper training and education before the incident. The first arriving company or officer on scene will begin a windshield size-up, but this time should transmit a report. These initial reports should include who you are, where you are, what you have, and what you need. This report must be brief, clear, and concise. The report must contain all the necessary information to clearly paint a picture of all incoming companies. The initial report should contain, at the minimum, the following. Who you are. This piece of the report is important because it clearly tells everyone responding who is in command. Where you are. At times, your department may have multiple calls occurring at the same time. It is imperative to communicate the location where you are providing information. For example, car one arrives and will be identified as 200 Main Street Command. What you have. Give a brief synopsis of your size-up. For example, we have a two and a half story, wood-framed private dwelling with fire showing out of two windows on the alpha side, second floor. What you need. This piece of the initial report will define the incident. A common phrase from FDNY Lieutenant Andy Frederick is, the fire goes as the first line goes. While we completely agree that this, with this, we also believe the fire goes as the first commanding officer provides direction. For example, truck one, ladder the roof and engine two, lay in from the corner of Main Street and West Main Street. Some departments do not need this level of initial assignments and tasks. This is a result of writing assignments that detail the responsibilities of all members. However, at times, the incident commander will need to alter the standard assignments. In addition to this, other key information can be included in your size-up. Following the initial report within the first few minutes or as soon as the 360 is complete, a more detailed report should occur. This report would include all pieces of the size-up, the initial report and current tactics underway. This is also a good time to assess and call for additional help if you have not already done so. One phrase that is commonly transmitted during a size-up radar report is, nothing showing. This phrase is very dangerous and should be removed from your vernacular. All too often during ventilation limited fires, the smoke production will decrease to the extent that it will not be visible from the street and especially during your windshield size-up. Reporting nothing showing means absolutely nothing in today's fires because contraction of gases may not allow the smoke and gases to be visible from the exterior. This can give us a false sense of security. As a commander, you are setting up incoming units for failure by transmitting nothing showing in your size-up. Example, car one arrived. We have a two and a half story wood frame with nothing showing. What does that tell us? Let's change it to how it should be sound. Car one arriving at 200 West Main Street, we have a two and a half story wood frame home. I need the first two engine company to stage at the corner of West Main and Main and prepare to lay in. I need the first two truck to take the front of the building and prepare to place the ladder into operation. Rescue company enter the first floor, aside and investigate, report a fire. Car one is command. Progress reports. Once the incident is underway and companies begin interior operations, the IC will need reports from the interior. As a commanding officer, you must communicate your expectations of what you want to know and what you don't want to air over the radio. The reports must be brief and pertinent. The conditions, actions, needs, can report will help you define your expectations to your crew. The can report is very similar to the initial radio report. Conditions, examples of conditions. Where you are, any obstacles you encounter, smoke and heat conditions, interior visibility, entrapped patients, container type, what's burning, number of patients. Actions, examples. Completing assigned objectives, knocking down fire, completing primary or secondary search, beginning stabilization, plugging and diking, performing salvage, performing triage. Needs, examples of needs. Urgent help, reinforcement, relief, support to current assignment, tools or equipment, cover other areas, more line, more water, more ambulances. This is Figure 5-7. They are examples of can reports. Following is an example of a good can report. Command, this is first floor search. We're experiencing a light smoke condition. We have completed a primary search of the Bravo and Charlie bedrooms heading to the Delta side. We have no immediate needs at this time. The incident commander generally prompts can reports. However, companies operating should initiate a can report when needed and not be limited to a change of conditions, victims found, mayday, or other situations. The other piece of information a command officer should expect from your crew with every transmission is the crew's location within the building. Examples, engine one to command, second floor Bravo Charlie corner. We have the fire knocked down and are checking for extension. Rescue one to command, first floor out the side. The primary search is negative. We are headed to the second floor. This simple addition to every radio transmission assists the accountability officer with tracking the location of firefighters. Command needs to maintain accountability of all personnel operating on scene. Through pre-established accountability policies and procedures, departments should have knowledge of who is on scene and where they are operating. Use of personnel accountability reports, PARs, is another mechanism that the incident commander must place, put in place. PARs should be conducted at regular intervals, anytime operational nodes change, or if a mayday occurs. Departments should have policies for PARs, mayday, and urgent radio transmissions and train on them on a regular basis. Training should be focused on the individual's responsibilities. This includes chief officers who need to train on answering and handling maydays. However, if there is the potential, they will end up with an immediate danger to life and health, IDLH, in an interior position. They must also train in calling the mayday. With all radio transmissions, there needs to be some thought process prior to activating the push-to-talk button. One acronym that can be used as a mental checklist before transmitting is DIMWIT. D-does. I-it. M-matter. W-what. I-I'm. T-transmitting. Does it matter what I'm transmitting? DIMWIT. Just because you have a radio does not mean you need to be on it. Radios have limitations. There are many challenges on the fire round that affect clear, concise, and complete transmissions. It is up to every firefighter operating to use radio discipline. Communication is a two-way dialogue. Language and information must reach the intended individual in a manner that he, she can understand. Running time clock. Time does not stand still, and you will quickly lose track of time and how long you have been operating. However, you must know how long your companies are working in an IDLH environment because it is critical for your company's safety. As the incident commander, you need time benchmarks to indicate items or questions you need to answer. Progress or lack of progress. If you are not making progress, you need to quickly determine if a change of operational nodes needs to take place. However, you need to give your company's time to get this work done. Without a time benchmark, you may not allow your companies to work long enough, or worse, you allow them to work too long in an environment that they shouldn't be in. Resources. Do you need additional resources? Consider calling additional companies, rehab companies, Cascade Air Supply, etc. Building stability. How much of the building is being exposed and on fire, therefore weakening its stability? Water weight. How much water weight has been added to a weakened structure? NFPA 1500, Standard on Fire Department Occupational Safety, Health, and Wellness Program, looks to assist incident commanders. NFPA 1500 indicates the dispatch center shall notify the incident commander at every 10-minute increment with the time that resources have been on the incident until the fire is knocked down or the incident becomes static. Here lies another reason to work with your dispatch staff through training and standard operating guidelines. Many incident commanders use the bottle rule to provide them with an indicator of how long their companies have been operating. The bottle rule, as taught, is that the average firefighter will work for approximately 20 minutes before needing a new air bottle. Therefore, when your firefighters begin exiting the building to get new bottles, they have been operating for approximately 20 minutes. The bottle rule can also be an unreliable indicator. Each and every firefighter will consume their air supply at different rates. So, how can you gauge your operating times based on air consumption if you don't know each firefighter's specific average operating air consumption? Also, you may have companies delaying going on air so that they get more operational time in. The incident commander needs to know exactly how long crews have been operating through proper education and training. The dispatch center is in the ideal location to monitor and provide this information. On-scene rehabilitation. On-scene rehabilitation is more than having a glass of water or cup of coffee while getting personal protective equipment and apparatus back in service. On-scene rehabilitation is the responsibility of the incident commander and must be identified as a key component of all fire operations. As an incident commander, another standard you should be familiar with is NFPA 1584, NFPA 1584, standard on the rehabilitation process for members during emergency operations and training exercises. The result of years of work, NFPA 1584 is designed to complement the other published standards relating to firefighter safety, fitness, and health. This document also reflects the efforts of many fire service leaders in understanding the physical stress of fire and rescue work and leadership of the U.S. Fire Administration, USFA, which recognized the benefit of on-scene recovery of fire personnel. Some key objectives of NFPA 1584 are as follows, relief from climate conditions, rest and recovery, active and or cooling or warming as needed for incident types of climate conditions, rehydration, calorie and electrolyte replacement as appropriate for longer duration incidents, medical monitoring, member accountability, release from rehab to return to duty, utilities control. Controlling the utilities is traditionally a task assigned to the truck company. However, the ultimate responsibility of all tasks lies within the incident commander. For the safety of everyone operating on the fire ground, assign a company to control the utilities and make sure the utility companies are notified and respond to completely secure if necessary. Utilizing an appropriate lockout tagout system is an effective method of ensuring the safety of all who enter to work within the incident. When controlling the electrical circuits, shut down only the main breaker and not individual circuits. This will help the investigator with the cause and origin investigation overhaul. After the fire is extinguished, searches are completed and ventilation has occurred, overhaul must begin. This task is one of the least desired tasks on the fire ground, but one of the most important after the other tasks are complete. Overhaul not only prevents additional damage from hidden fire, but also prevents the risks and liabilities caused by a rekindle. Before overhaul starts with the IC, must consider one, consider use of appropriate personal protective equipment. Self-contained breathing apparatus with mask in place must be utilized until the environment is deemed safe through air monitoring. As the IC, you may also want to consider using fresh haul haul, fresh companies to complete the overhaul. Allowing tired firefighters to perform overhaul tasks may lead to injuries or missing a small area of hidden fire. Be sure to also consider the structure's stability. You should analyze the amount of structural damage along with the water weight from your attack. Lastly, work with fire investigators as early as possible. They may want to begin by photographing the area before any further disruption. Customer service, the incident commander cannot lose sight of the homeowner and occupants. This is the worst day of their lives. As the IC, you do not have time to consult them in the first few moments. However, they have valuable information you need to obtain by consulting them immediately. The occupants can tell you whether or not everyone is out. They can inform you or where the fire is and what it was burning, access issues and much more. Remember this building is their home and they have the most knowledge of it. While standing in the street with you, what information could be beneficial to your company's operating? The occupants also deserve updates when you take a few minutes to talk. Once the fire is extinguished, it is safe to do so. You will want to talk to walk the occupants through the scene. This gives you the ability to explain what you had to do to extinguish the fire and why. This is also a good time to assist the occupants with gathering insurance paperwork, medications, a few personal items and some clothes if possible. However, nothing should be removed from the home without consulting with the fire investigators. As the incident commander, you should also take the time to assist the occupants with the next steps in recovery. Assisting them with finding a place to sleep and establishing a relationship with the American Red Cross or other local organizations that can provide vital services is important. Informing them about cleanup contractors, insurance agents and insurance adjusters is also beneficial. Use caution, however, as you should never recommend a specific company. It is acceptable to provide information to the homeowner, but you make sure you provide information from multiple companies and allow them to choose without influence. Some departments will assign a homeowner liaison to work directly with the family from the time of arrival until the liaison determines they can leave the scene. This individual will work to help the family on what could possibly be the worst day of their lives to cope with what has occurred. The liaison position has provided very beneficial, has proved very beneficial for both the occupants and the department. Just because the fire has been extinguished and overhaul is complete does not mean our job is complete. FEMA has a document titled after the fire that you should have available to hand out to the occupants. If the incident will be undergoing an investigation, you make sure you introduce the homeowners and the investigator. Finally, provide contact information for the fire marshal's office and who they need to contact to obtain the fire report. Remember that this day is possibly the worst day of their lives. Anything you and your crews can do to assist them will be greatly appreciated. Sometimes it's the little things that you do that have the greatest positive impact. Public Information Officer. The public information officer in the past was often involved only on major incidents and during natural disasters. Now the PIO is commonly available for every incident. At this point of the incident, if your PIO is not on scene, he or she should be contacted and provided with accurate, up-to-date information. The PIO today is one of the most important yet underutilized positions in the department. Instead of relying on printed newspapers for information about the previous day's events, citizens today expect instantaneous information online and by social media, even while an incident is under progress. When you have a fire, you have residents looking for information while you're still stretching the initial line. Your PIO should be communicating with the public on a regular, almost daily basis. It doesn't have to be just for critical instances or natural disasters. They need to get the message out about public safety, fire prevention, and normal day-to-day information about the fire department. This activity builds the relationship with the public so that when major incidents does hit, your residents are familiar with where to go to get food, solid, accurate, to get good, solid, accurate information. But they also know what to do with that information by trusting the source of the relationships that you have built. Turning over the building to the fire marshal's office. Every fire should have a thorough and complete investigation performed by a representative from the fire marshal's office. Often this investigation will begin during the suppression activities. However, the true investigation begins after the suppression crews complete all of their tasks and leave the scene. The incident commander should approach every fire with the investigation in mind and take steps to assist the investigators when possible. There are a few simple tasks that should be considered that can make or break an investigation. While en route to the fire, make mental notes of any strange or suspicious vehicles fleeing the scene. Once on scene, note any strange or inappropriate behavior by homeowners or occupants. Document in the fire, report the tactics that took place. But while these tactics are ongoing, there should be an attempt to preserve the scene and any potential evidence. Prior to beginning overhaul, if possible, get the investigator inside to photograph the residence. However, it must be safe to do so. The environment must be metered and all levels must be within safe limits or SCBA is required. It is imperative to overhaul only what is necessary. As this is key to assisting the investigation, if the atmosphere is unsafe to allow the investigator inside, make every attempt to photograph the area as well as possible for before moving furniture or opening up the walls, ceilings, and or other areas looking for concealed fire. No investigator will ever tell you not to overhaul completely. However, only overhaul what is truly necessary. The fire department is in control of the scene and must be in control. Working with the local fire police department to provide scene security and limiting who enters the scene is very important. Begin a log as soon as possible to help track who is on scene and where they operate it. Before leaving the scene and turning the incident over to the investigator, make sure extinguishment is complete. Ensure that there is no hidden fire in any concealed spaces. Another good practice is to meter the environment again to ensure it is still safe. If any unsafe levels must be mitigated, turn over that to the investigator all contact information of the family, friends, and homeowner or anyone who may have witnessed the incident. Anything that you have noted or thought was out of the ordinary must also be relayed. It is also a good practice to take a few minutes and give the investigator synopsis of the incident. Your size-up and tactics will be key information the investigator will need. For example, where was the fire when you arrived? Was forcible entry needed or was everything open when you arrived? When you had the utility secured, were there any electrical breakers tripped? Did you shut off the utilities? Your department should have a close working relationship with its investigators and training should be provided to all department members. The key to a thorough investigation is having an IC who is in tune to the needs of the investigators and crews that are educated how to do their jobs properly without spoiling evidence. Critical incident stress. Another facet of the commander's job is caring for the psychological welfare of the troops. Some feel this is the chief's responsibility, but that couldn't be the further from the truth. Critical incident stress affects each and every one of us differently and at different times. As the incident commander, you must know your firefighters and be able to identify calls that may affect them negatively. You must be in tune to their performance and personalities to know when something is not right. Any call has the potential to negatively affect a firefighter, but your department should be a policy or guideline that is established with your employee assistant program manager and takes in consideration call or incident types that will automatically generate a response from a critical incident stress team specially trained in dealing with emergency service members. At the conclusion of every fire, completing a tailboard review of the incident before companies are placed back in service is a great way to briefly review the incident. This is also a perfect time for the commander and company officers to gauge their department members emotional well-being before they leave the scene. All personnel must understand critical incident stress and its short and long-term impact. Officers must understand and know when to call for additional resources to assist personnel who have experienced a critical incident or are dealing with accumulated stress from calls and life in general. This understanding begins in the classroom with the development of peer support teams. These proactive teams need to work with the membership on a regular basis so when there is a critical call, everyone needs everyone understands their role. Safety. The fireground is an extremely dynamic environment where the safety of all on-scene firefighters and firefighters on-scene for the safety of all on the scene is continually challenged. Fireground safety must be a primary concern for every incident commander. However, the culture of safety is taught and fostered during training, not on the fireground. Safety starts during training and is reinforced on each and every response. Departments must have clear policies and procedures that are consistently and appropriately enforced. Departments that put a focus on predicting and preventing injuries are positive examples we should learn from. The National Fire Protection Agency, NSPA, National Institute Standards of Technology, NIST, Underwriters Laboratories Fire Safety Research Institute, ULFSRI, the Occupational Health Safety Administration, OSHA, and other state and local organizations that aim to protect employees from injury are where departments should begin focusing their attention to adopt safety rules and regulations that meet the current state, local, and federal guidelines. During an incident, the IC should not be worried about or have to address safety issues such as chin straps, gloves, SCBA masks, and the like. On the fireground, the IC should all should have to focus only on the fire behavior, attack modes, building stability, and life safety issues of both civilian and fire department personnel. If the IC must remind someone to wear their personal protective equipment properly on the fireground when your training division and company officers are failing. Every residential fire should have an incident safety officer, ISO, assigned whose primary focus is the overall incident safety. At times, some firefighters have indicated that once an ISO is assigned, they feel safety is not their concern. That couldn't be further from the truth. Every individual on the fireground has a role in safety and should always be thinking like an ISO. Some incidents may require multiple safety officers to be assigned. All operations and personnel must be observed during a residential fire. The incident must be constantly analyzed and issues of concern must be addressed. A single safety officer may not be able to complete these tasks. As the IC, you may want to consider assigning additional ISOs to make sure all divisions have someone watching over the operations. As experienced officers, we understand we cannot cocoon our personnel in bubble wrap. Firefighting is inherently dangerous work and operating on the fireground has many challenges. This does not mean we can or should allow our personnel to operate recklessly. Firefighters must be aggressive to accomplish their tasks. A great culture to foster is smart, aggressive firefighters who are working under a strong command structure that focuses on safely accomplishing tasks. Keeping your firefighters protected with bubble wrap isn't realistic. The IC and ISO must work closely together to reach a successful outcome. Both the ISO and IC must continually evaluate the risk versus benefit model and know their personnel and their capabilities. Armed with this information, together they will lead the team to successful fireground operations. Conclusion. The incident commander is a position on the fireground that must not be overlooked. The IC position carries the burden of enormous responsibility which must be embraced by any current or potential incident commanders. No IC should bear the entire weight of the incident or of making all the right decisions standing alone in the street. Just as you can call mutual aid for rapid intervention, ventilation, or fire attack, you can call mutual aid for additional chief officers to fill command positions. This not only facilitates a smooth, safe fireground, but it provides the best group services to the citizens during their time of need.