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Tactical Renaissance and the Rules of Engagement

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Taking it to the Streets with Christopher Naum

For a Rockin’ Hot Time, Tune in this coming Wednesday night to FireFighter NetCast.com and Taking it to the Streets for; “Tactical Renaissance and the Rules of Engagement”.

Joining Christopher Naum will be Chief Gary Morris (ret) Phoenix (AZ) Fire Department, Deputy Chief John Sullivan, Worcester (MA) Fire Department, along with Dr. Burt Clark from the NFA. We will be discussing the emerging Tactical Renaissance of Combat Fire Suppression Operations and the new Rules of Engagement. Don’t miss out for what will certainly be an insightful look at what the fire ground is transitioning to in 2010 and beyond. Join the live broadcast on Wednesday night September 22nd at 9:00pm ET, or download the post production podcast from Firefighter NetCast.com.

In the weeks ahead we’ll be publishing a six month schedule of upcoming guests and topics along within integrating post production podcast resources, training aides and supplemental reference links to make both the live broadcast program and downloads value added.

Taking it to the Streets is hosted by Christopher Naum and is a Buildingsonfire.com Series and Fire Fighter NetCast.com Production.

  • Check out the IAFC Safety Health & Survival Section HERE and the newly published Rules of Engagement
  • For additional Taking it to the Streets programming, HERE
  • Firefighter NetCast.com HERE
  • Taking it to the Streets for; “Tactical Renaissance and the Rules of Engagement” Show Link, HERE

Taking it to the StreetsTM On Your Street, In Your City, Across the County, Around the WorldTM ©2010

The International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) is committed to reducing firefighter fatalities and injuries. As part of that effort the Safety, Health and Survival Section has developed “Rules of Engagement of Structural Firefighting” to provide guidance to individual firefighters, and incident commanders, regarding risk and safety issues when operating on the fireground. These rules are available in a poster which can be downloaded or ordered from http://fireservicebooks.com
Posted by on September 18, 2010 • Filed under: "firefighter safety", "health and safety", building construction, Building Construction for the Fire Service, buildingsonfire.com, Christopher Naum, Combat Fire Engagement, courage to be safe, Deployment, Fire Service Tradition, fire suppression, firefighting-operations, NFA, risk-based assessment, Risk-preferring, Safety Culture, size-up, strategies, structure fires, Taking it to the Streets • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The “Routiness” of Success, Or Not..

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BM11

It’s no longer just brute force and sheer physical determination that define structural fire suppression operations. Aggressive firefighting must be redefined and aligned to the built environment and associated with goal oriented tactical operations that are defined by risk assessed and analyzed tasks that are executed under battle plans that promote the best in safety practices and survivability within known hostile structural fire environments, while maintaining the values and traditions that defines the fire service.”- Christopher Naum

The lack of appreciation and the understanding of correlating principles involving fire behavior, fuel and rate of heat release and the growth stages of compartment fires within a structural occupancy are the defining paths from which the fire service must reexamine coordinated suppression operations in order to identify with; the predictability of occupancy performance during fire suppression operations, thus increasing suppression effectiveness and firefighter safety.

Our buildings have changed; the structural systems of support, the degree of Compartmentation, the characteristics of materials and the magnitude of fire loading. The structural anatomy, predictability of building performance under fire conditions, structural integrity and the extreme fire behavior; accelerated growth rate and intensively levels typically encountered in buildings of modern construction during initial and sustained fire suppression have given new meaning to the term combat fire engagement.

 

 It begs to suggest that many of today’s incident commanders, company officers and firefighters lack the clarity of understanding and comprehension that correlate to the inherent characteristics of today’s buildings, construction and occupancies and the need for refined suppression operations within the modern building construction setting.

 

We assume that the routiness or successes of our operations and incident responses equates with predictability and diminished risk to our firefighting personnel. Does your company, your officers, your commanders, your department treat all things as equals when addressing the variables of structural combat fire operations? Is the equation of Occupancy Risk balanced with Occupancy Type? Are inherent structural stability and compromise conditions adequately identified and considered in the evolving progression of an incident action plan? Or do SOP and SOG’s drive the manner in which fire ground strategies and tactics are orchestrated and implemented at the company task level?

 

How does this fit into your “culture, values and philosophy as a firefighter, officer or commander?”

Posted by on March 5, 2010 • Filed under: "firefighter safety", "Situational Awareness" assessment, behaviors, building construction, Christopher Naum, compentencies, courage to be safe, decision-making, fire behavior, fire suppression, firefighting, risk-based assessment, Risk-preferring, Safety Culture, size-up, strategies, tactics • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s more than just Size-Up; Situational Awareness and Dynamic Risk Assessment

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FLASHO1Dynamic Risk Assessment is commonly used to describe a process of risk assessment being carried out in a changing or evolving environment, where what is being assessed is developing as the process itself is being undertaken.
This is further problematical for the Incident Commander when confronted with competing or conflicting incident priorities, demands or distractions before a complete appreciation of all mission critical or essential information and data has been obtained. The dynamic management of risk is all about effective, informed and decisive decision making during all phases of an incident.
Situation Awareness, [SA], is the perception of environmental elements within a volume of time and space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their status in the near future. It is also a field of study concerned with perception of the environment critical to decision-makers in complex, dynamic situations and incidents.
Both the 2006 and 2007 Firefighter Near-Miss Reporting System Annual Reports identified a lack of situational awareness as the highest contributing factor to near misses reported. Situation Awareness (SA) involves being aware of what is happening around you at an incident to understand how information, events, and your own actions will impact operational goals and incident objectives, both now and in the near future. Lacking SA or having inadequate SA has been identified as one of the primary factors in accidents attributed to human error (Hartel, Smith, & Prince, 1991) (Nullmeyer, Stella, Montijo, & Harden, 2005). Situation Awareness becomes especially important in work related domains where the information flow can be quite high and poor decisions can lead to serious consequences.
To the Incident commander, Fire Officer or firefighter, knowing what’s going on around you, and understanding the consequences is mission critical to incident stabilization and mitigation and profoundly crucial in terms of personnel safety. The integration of Situational Awareness and Dynamic Risk Assessment is a mission critical element in strategic incident command management and company level tactical operations as we go forward into the next decade.
Traditional incident scene size-up is antiquated and no longer appropriate or applicable to modern fire service operations.Situational awareness is a combination of attitudes, previously learned knowledge and new information gained from the incident scene and environment that enables the strategic commanders, decision-makers and tactical companies to gather the information they need to make effective decisions that will keep their firefighters and resources out of harm’s way, reducing the likelihood of adverse or detrimental effects.
According to a 1998 published TriData study report, “Situational Awareness is one of the most difficult skills to master and is a weakness in the fire community. The report goes on to state that “The culture must change so that [personnel] are observing, thinking, and discussing the situation constantly.” It’s all about implementing effective human performance tools; perceptions versus reality, expectations versus realization, comprehension and forecasting, informed decision-making and calculated and formulated risk.
 
It’s a whole lot more than just “Size-Up”.  What do you think?
Posted by on January 14, 2010 • Filed under: "firefighter safety", "Situational Awareness" assessment, behaviors, building construction, command presence, compentencies, courage to be safe, decision-making, fire behavior, firefighting-operations, first-due, incidents, occupancies, pre-planning, risk, risk-based assessment, Risk-preferring, Safety Culture, structure fires • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Stop the Entertainment

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3183630397_6104ecd8cd_bWhen we focus our attention on Building Construction, Command Risk Management and Firefighter Safety and the essence of combat structural fires; Structural firefighting is what it’s all about, is it not? The fundamental nature and reason we have such veneration for firefighting and the fire service and all it entails, has a lot to do with going into burning buildings and fighting fire.

We enjoy it tremendously; we have fun at, because of who we are and what we do-as firefighters. It’s the job and it’s a calling. Firefighting; It’s not something you do, it’s something you are. But firefighting has its adverse consequences, with all too familiar costs, in the form of injuries, debilitating accidents and line of duty deaths.

As a firefighter; to say that we love firefighting would be an understatement, BUT one issue that we need to address is the fact that there are many individual firefighters, companies and organizations that employ fireground operational practices that promote the “enjoyment and entertainment” of working a good job within the occupancy compartment of a structural fire in the building environment.

Today’s incident scene and structural fires are unlike those in past decades and will continue to challenge us operationally when confronted with structural fire engagement and combat operations. Operationally, we need to be doing the right thing, for the right reason in the right place to increase our safety and incident survivability. We also can share the belief and understanding that we at times may have found ourselves staying too long in the wrong place, operating tactically in an adverse environment with known hazards that do not have value, for nothing other than the enjoyment of nozzle and operating time in the fire. We have a tendency when working a room and contents, compartment fire or a structural fire in the building environment placing operating companies and personnel in high hazard environments- sometimes at the expense of justifying our own entertainment value in working the job, the assignment or in maintaining the interior operational interface. Think about it.

We need to stop “entertaining” ourselves. Don’t mistake determined, effective and proactive firefighting with that of reckless, baseless and risk-preferring and self-indulging firefighting. There is a difference. The job is dangerous, it has risks, we are not invincible, and we can die; at any alarm, in any fire, at anytime for any number of reasons…..Let me leave you with some new thoughts and concepts related to operational safety and the definitions that I’ve come to develop that may support apparent or contributing causes to many of the fire service’s undesired events or incidents. Think about the definitions; think about how they apply to you, your personel, your company or your operations; past, present or future. More importantly, think about when and where you’ve found yourself doing any one of these….could the outcome have been different?

TACTICAL AMUSEMENT  “tak-ti-kəl ə- myüz-mənt”

1: of or relating to structural fireground tactics: as a (1) a means of amusing or entertaining during fire suppression, support tasks or operations that places personnel at risk

2: the condition of being amused while engaging in fire suppression, support tasks or operations that places personnel at risk

3: pleasurable diversion while engaging in fire suppression, support tasks or operations: entertainment; that places personnel at risk
 
TACTICAL DIVERSION  “tak-ti-kəl də- vər-zhən”

1: the reckless act or an instance of diverting from an assignment, task, operation or activity while engaging in fire suppression, support tasks or operation for the sake of amusing or entertainment; that places personnel at risk

2: the reckless act of self determined task operations that diverts or amuses from defined risk assessment and incident action plans; that places personnel at risk
 
TACTICAL CIRCUMVENTION  “tak-ti-kəl sər-kəm- ven(t)-shən”

1: to deliberately manage to get around especially by ingenuity or approach that diverts for the purpose of amusing; assignment, operations or tasks that countermand or disregard defined risk assessment and incident action plans; that places personnel at risk

Posted by on December 4, 2009 • Filed under: "firefighter safety", building construction, Christopher Naum, command presence, command-leadership, compentencies, courage to be safe, culture, decision-making, firefighter, firefighting-operations, fortitude, History Repeating Event, leadership, LODD, risk-based assessment, Risk-preferring, Safety Culture • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , ,