At some point, as a structural firefight gets worse, the person in charge is going to be at a critical decision point. The elapsed time into the incident when that happens will vary based on a number of factors (covered extensively in my situational awareness class). When the time comes, what are the decision options.
A crew is working inside a fire and things are not going well. At some point the person in charge will decide on one of three options:
1. Let the existing crew operate a little longer in hopes that the progress will improve.
2. Fortify the firefight with additional resources in hopes the progress will improve.
3. Order a withdrawal of personnel from the building.
When you look at it that way, it seems easy. There are only three options. However, choosing the option that is right is the sticky part.
Assume you let the crew operate a little longer (hypothetically, 2 more minutes) and after that time there still isn't appreciable progress. You are now back to the same three decision options previously outlined.
Assume you decide to fortify the firefight with additional resources and then give them some additional time (say, 4 minutes) and after that time there still isn't appreciable progress. You are, once again, at the same three decision options.
Why is it so are to make the decision to withdrawal? Psychologists might suggest it has to do, in part, with our Type-A, competitive, ego-driven personalities. We don't like to lose and a withdrawal from the fire is akin to the admission of defeat. Even if the commander orders the withdrawal they are likely to hear "Just give us a few more minutes, chief, we're making good progress." Why? We don't like to lose.
All the while, the incident is drifting toward a disaster and the situational awareness of the commander has eroded away. Just two more minutes... then two more... then two more... then MAYDAY!
Set the ego aside and make the right decision in time to ensure the outcome is not a firefighter casualty.
Fire Chief (ret.) Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, EFO, CFO, MICP
Executive Director, Center for the Advancement of Situational Awareness & Decision Making
http://www.richgasaway.com/
Showing posts with label firefighters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label firefighters. Show all posts
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
Breaking out of the tunnel vision trap
One of the natural enemies to situational awareness is tunnel vision. For the purposes of discussion I will define tunnel vision is the concentration on one particular item at the exclusion of all others. Many firefighters reading this post have responded to an accident scene and found a car that struck a pole in the middle of an open field. This scenario is a good example of tunnel vision. As the driver lost control and left the roadway they began to focus on the pole. It didn’t take long for the pole to become their singular focus and in many cases a fatal mistake. The same thing can happen on the fireground. Firefighters and officers concentrate on a large body of fire. They put all their focus on this, sometimes called the ”Moth-to-Candle Syndrome” and block out concerns for the heat, smoke and building conditions that can signal a drastic situation.
Understanding the dangers of tunnel vision is fine, but firefighters and officers need to be prepared with the skills to prevent tunnel vision. I like to use a technique called the “720 Degree World”. This concept emphasizes the total picture prospective of firefighting. In employing this concept one would constantly scan not just a single point but in a 360 degree arc around their position and in another 360 degree arc above and below their position.
I can remember as a young firefighter, a veteran telling me that a lot of hazards to my health and well-being will be above me. With the increasing use of lightweight truss construction in floor assemblies we now see considerable hazards coming from below us too. The whole idea behind scanning the environment is to break the single site focus and identify hazards before they become a problem.
To show how effective this tool can be let me draw on my experiences from the tactical world. During rifle qualifications in my first vetting class I had an ex-Navy SEAL operator show me a trick. Part of the qualifications involved shooting a large number of rounds from 100 yards in the span of 90 seconds. That might not seem like a long time but when you are on your stomach, under the pressure of qualifying or going home, 90 seconds is forever. Just like crawling down a long hallway with a handline, intense pressure and concentration can cause you to exclude the things happening in the outside world. Over time your vision becomes so intensely focused you can actually begin to lose focus. My friend, the Navy SEAL, told me to occasionally just look away from my rifle sites and look at the green grass on the berms surrounding the range. When I looked back at my target, I realized this slight break allowed me to re-acquire an accurate sight picture and deliver accurate shots on target.
Adapting this lesson to emergency services, we can teach our firefighters and officers to occasionally look away from their task (as long as it does not pose a safety hazard like looking away while operating a power saw) to break the tunnel vision trap. While taking this quick break you can evaluate their surroundings to determine if there are any developing hazards. This technique can be very effective in reducing tunnel vision and improving situational awareness.
The bottom line for firefighter safety is that you must be able to operate in the 720- degree world and understand that hazards can come from any segment of that world. The more you allow yourself to focus too narrowly, the more likely you are to lose your situation awareness.
Retired Battalion Chief Dennis Reilly
Cherry Hill (NJ) Fire Department
Firefighter, Linville (NC) Fire Department
Chief Reilly recently completed a three year tour as a security specialist and team medic in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He can be reached at: chfdharley@gmail.com
__________________________________
Dr. Gasaway's observations:
Right on Dennis! Thank you for contributing to my situation awarneness blog. Stress is one of the contributing factors to narrowed attention. The greater your stress, the more likely your attention is to narrow in on the things that are causing that stress. One note about tunnel vision. The term tunnel vision is actually deceiving because its not only your vision that can be tunneled. All your senses can be tunneled, with vision and hearing being two of the most important at an emergency scene. It may be a little easier to look away than to listen away, but the advice Dennis offers is extremely valuable.
Fire Chief (ret.) Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, EFO, CFO, MICP
www.RichGasaway.com
Understanding the dangers of tunnel vision is fine, but firefighters and officers need to be prepared with the skills to prevent tunnel vision. I like to use a technique called the “720 Degree World”. This concept emphasizes the total picture prospective of firefighting. In employing this concept one would constantly scan not just a single point but in a 360 degree arc around their position and in another 360 degree arc above and below their position.
I can remember as a young firefighter, a veteran telling me that a lot of hazards to my health and well-being will be above me. With the increasing use of lightweight truss construction in floor assemblies we now see considerable hazards coming from below us too. The whole idea behind scanning the environment is to break the single site focus and identify hazards before they become a problem.
To show how effective this tool can be let me draw on my experiences from the tactical world. During rifle qualifications in my first vetting class I had an ex-Navy SEAL operator show me a trick. Part of the qualifications involved shooting a large number of rounds from 100 yards in the span of 90 seconds. That might not seem like a long time but when you are on your stomach, under the pressure of qualifying or going home, 90 seconds is forever. Just like crawling down a long hallway with a handline, intense pressure and concentration can cause you to exclude the things happening in the outside world. Over time your vision becomes so intensely focused you can actually begin to lose focus. My friend, the Navy SEAL, told me to occasionally just look away from my rifle sites and look at the green grass on the berms surrounding the range. When I looked back at my target, I realized this slight break allowed me to re-acquire an accurate sight picture and deliver accurate shots on target.
Adapting this lesson to emergency services, we can teach our firefighters and officers to occasionally look away from their task (as long as it does not pose a safety hazard like looking away while operating a power saw) to break the tunnel vision trap. While taking this quick break you can evaluate their surroundings to determine if there are any developing hazards. This technique can be very effective in reducing tunnel vision and improving situational awareness.
The bottom line for firefighter safety is that you must be able to operate in the 720- degree world and understand that hazards can come from any segment of that world. The more you allow yourself to focus too narrowly, the more likely you are to lose your situation awareness.
Retired Battalion Chief Dennis Reilly
Cherry Hill (NJ) Fire Department
Firefighter, Linville (NC) Fire Department
Chief Reilly recently completed a three year tour as a security specialist and team medic in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He can be reached at: chfdharley@gmail.com
__________________________________
Dr. Gasaway's observations:
Right on Dennis! Thank you for contributing to my situation awarneness blog. Stress is one of the contributing factors to narrowed attention. The greater your stress, the more likely your attention is to narrow in on the things that are causing that stress. One note about tunnel vision. The term tunnel vision is actually deceiving because its not only your vision that can be tunneled. All your senses can be tunneled, with vision and hearing being two of the most important at an emergency scene. It may be a little easier to look away than to listen away, but the advice Dennis offers is extremely valuable.
Fire Chief (ret.) Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, EFO, CFO, MICP
www.RichGasaway.com
Friday, December 31, 2010
Frame of Reference
Your situation awareness can be impacted by your Frame of Reference.
As part of your Recognition Primed Decision Making (RPDM) process, firefighters and officers must realize the impact their Frame of Reference can have on the quality of their decisions. A firefighter or officer is likey to judge, in part, the severity of an incident and the effectiveness of their action plan based on similar experiences they have recently had in similar properties (especially if the outcomes were good).
A post-incident review of a Mayday Incident may reveal the officers and firefighters operating at that scene had several positive experiences (incidents without consequence) in like structures. This could cause a firefighter or officer to view the actions at the current incident through a filter that was developed at previous (albeit similar) incidents that resolved favorably.
The problem with this is that your Frame of Reference may not include the worst case scenarios and thus it can be difficult to see a drastic situation developing until the incident reaches that break point which requires a mayday.
This SA blog contribution was made by:
Battalion Chief (ret.) Dennis Reilly
Cherry Hill (NJ) Fire Department
NOTE: Dennis Reilly currently serves as a firefighter in Linville, North Carolina and recently completed a three-year tour as a security specialist and team medic in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He can be reached at: chfdharley@gmail.com
______________________________
Dr. Gasaway's viewpoint:
I agree completely with Chief Reilly's observation. Firefighers and fire officers reply on their memory of past events to make reasonable predictions of future events. This is called mental modeling and it is part of the size-up and a significant contributor to situation awareness. Officers and firefighters may fall victim to developing a false level of confidence about the outcome of an incident because they may have many stored positive experiences of similar incidents (where things turned out well). Elevated self-confidence is one of the Fifty Ways to Kill a First Responder. Visit www.RichGasaway.com for more.
Fire Chief (ret.) Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, EFO, CFO, MICP
rich@richgasaway.com
As part of your Recognition Primed Decision Making (RPDM) process, firefighters and officers must realize the impact their Frame of Reference can have on the quality of their decisions. A firefighter or officer is likey to judge, in part, the severity of an incident and the effectiveness of their action plan based on similar experiences they have recently had in similar properties (especially if the outcomes were good).
A post-incident review of a Mayday Incident may reveal the officers and firefighters operating at that scene had several positive experiences (incidents without consequence) in like structures. This could cause a firefighter or officer to view the actions at the current incident through a filter that was developed at previous (albeit similar) incidents that resolved favorably.
The problem with this is that your Frame of Reference may not include the worst case scenarios and thus it can be difficult to see a drastic situation developing until the incident reaches that break point which requires a mayday.
This SA blog contribution was made by:
Battalion Chief (ret.) Dennis Reilly
Cherry Hill (NJ) Fire Department
NOTE: Dennis Reilly currently serves as a firefighter in Linville, North Carolina and recently completed a three-year tour as a security specialist and team medic in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He can be reached at: chfdharley@gmail.com
______________________________
Dr. Gasaway's viewpoint:
I agree completely with Chief Reilly's observation. Firefighers and fire officers reply on their memory of past events to make reasonable predictions of future events. This is called mental modeling and it is part of the size-up and a significant contributor to situation awareness. Officers and firefighters may fall victim to developing a false level of confidence about the outcome of an incident because they may have many stored positive experiences of similar incidents (where things turned out well). Elevated self-confidence is one of the Fifty Ways to Kill a First Responder. Visit www.RichGasaway.com for more.
Fire Chief (ret.) Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, EFO, CFO, MICP
rich@richgasaway.com
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Building expert knowledge
What can a new officer do to enhance their skills in decision making?
Chief Gasaway: In a word… Plenty! There are many ways to enhance your knowledge on a topic. Perhaps one of the best is experience, but that’s not the only way (but there are plenty out there who favor experience, as reflected in additional points awarded on promotional exams for years of service). This can prove to be a foolish (if not dangerous) way to promote. Why? Years on the job do not automatically correlate with the advancement of knowledge.
Maybe you’ve heard the saying that a person can have twenty years of experience or they can have one year of experience repeated twenty times. Perhaps no truer words have been spoken when talking about some people in our profession. Experience does not equal job knowledge. Some of the readers aren’t going to like hearing this (send your hate mail to rich@RichGasaway.com) but others will know it to be true and have seen it first hand.
In defense of experience, research has shown that for a person to develop expert-level knowledge and performance in their chosen profession requires TEN YEARS of experience… IF the person practices their skill/art an hour a day, five days a week. Unless you have a severe arson problem in your town, you’re probably not going to get that kind of practice.
So what do you do? Research has shown that the brain stores and recalls vividly imagined experiences the same as if the experience were real. In other words, when your brain is storing experiences, it cannot distinguish real experiences for vividly imagined experiences. It stores and uses both the same way. Research has shown the encoding of a memory is made more robust when attached to strong emotional responses. If you are imagining yourself at the scene of an incident you are reading about, relive it in your mind vividly and allow yourself to become emotionally attached to the incident.
This can be a tremendous asset for a young fire officer or aspiring officer. When you participate in training, simulations, read case studies, line of duty death reports or Fire Engineering articles, vividly imagine yourself as being involved in a real event and your brain will store the event for future recall. During the webcast I talk about the way your brain uses Recognition-Primed Decision Making. The vividly imagined experiences gained under non-emergency conditions can become part of the knowledge stores your brain will search through when you are under stress. In summary, it is possible to get ten years of experience in less time by preloading experiences.
Fire Chief (ret.) Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, EFO, CFO, MICP
www.RichGasaway.com
Chief Gasaway: In a word… Plenty! There are many ways to enhance your knowledge on a topic. Perhaps one of the best is experience, but that’s not the only way (but there are plenty out there who favor experience, as reflected in additional points awarded on promotional exams for years of service). This can prove to be a foolish (if not dangerous) way to promote. Why? Years on the job do not automatically correlate with the advancement of knowledge.
Maybe you’ve heard the saying that a person can have twenty years of experience or they can have one year of experience repeated twenty times. Perhaps no truer words have been spoken when talking about some people in our profession. Experience does not equal job knowledge. Some of the readers aren’t going to like hearing this (send your hate mail to rich@RichGasaway.com) but others will know it to be true and have seen it first hand.
In defense of experience, research has shown that for a person to develop expert-level knowledge and performance in their chosen profession requires TEN YEARS of experience… IF the person practices their skill/art an hour a day, five days a week. Unless you have a severe arson problem in your town, you’re probably not going to get that kind of practice.
So what do you do? Research has shown that the brain stores and recalls vividly imagined experiences the same as if the experience were real. In other words, when your brain is storing experiences, it cannot distinguish real experiences for vividly imagined experiences. It stores and uses both the same way. Research has shown the encoding of a memory is made more robust when attached to strong emotional responses. If you are imagining yourself at the scene of an incident you are reading about, relive it in your mind vividly and allow yourself to become emotionally attached to the incident.
This can be a tremendous asset for a young fire officer or aspiring officer. When you participate in training, simulations, read case studies, line of duty death reports or Fire Engineering articles, vividly imagine yourself as being involved in a real event and your brain will store the event for future recall. During the webcast I talk about the way your brain uses Recognition-Primed Decision Making. The vividly imagined experiences gained under non-emergency conditions can become part of the knowledge stores your brain will search through when you are under stress. In summary, it is possible to get ten years of experience in less time by preloading experiences.
Fire Chief (ret.) Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, EFO, CFO, MICP
www.RichGasaway.com
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Balancing risk with getting the job done
In the risk management area, how do you equilibrate risk assessment with getting the job done?
Chief Gasaway: This is a question I hear often. We are in a profession that has an inherent risk associated with what we do. This does not mean, however, that we need to be uncalculated in how we assess our risk. (There’s an old saying about love and romance that may apply here… “Only fools rush in”). The fire service does a good job, for the most part, of training firefighters how to arrive and attack a fire from the interior.
However, we don’t do nearly as good a job training firefighter on what a “no-go” situation looks like. Thus, firefighters arrive and perform based on their training, which is most often (if not always) “go” inside and put the fire out. Many firefighters I have spoken to acknowledge they’ve never had meaningful training (or even a meaningful discussion for that matter) on what “no go” looks like and when they should be defensive versus offensive in their attack. With a single script programmed in a firefighter’s mind (go), it becomes predictable that will be the script deployed under stress.
As firefighters, we are tasked with trying to save lives from the ravages of fire. Unfortunately, not all lives are savable. There are conditions civilian victims cannot survive in. There are also conditions firefighters cannot survive in. Knowing what these conditions look like and knowing what the precursor conditions leading up to non-survivable conditions looks like, will help firefighters make better “go” or “no-go” decisions.
Fire Chief (ret.) Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, EFO, CFO, MICP
www.RichGasaway.com
Chief Gasaway: This is a question I hear often. We are in a profession that has an inherent risk associated with what we do. This does not mean, however, that we need to be uncalculated in how we assess our risk. (There’s an old saying about love and romance that may apply here… “Only fools rush in”). The fire service does a good job, for the most part, of training firefighters how to arrive and attack a fire from the interior.
However, we don’t do nearly as good a job training firefighter on what a “no-go” situation looks like. Thus, firefighters arrive and perform based on their training, which is most often (if not always) “go” inside and put the fire out. Many firefighters I have spoken to acknowledge they’ve never had meaningful training (or even a meaningful discussion for that matter) on what “no go” looks like and when they should be defensive versus offensive in their attack. With a single script programmed in a firefighter’s mind (go), it becomes predictable that will be the script deployed under stress.
As firefighters, we are tasked with trying to save lives from the ravages of fire. Unfortunately, not all lives are savable. There are conditions civilian victims cannot survive in. There are also conditions firefighters cannot survive in. Knowing what these conditions look like and knowing what the precursor conditions leading up to non-survivable conditions looks like, will help firefighters make better “go” or “no-go” decisions.
Fire Chief (ret.) Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, EFO, CFO, MICP
www.RichGasaway.com
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Mayday Procedures & Close Calls
Our department doesn’t train on Mayday procedures at all. What can I do to make our chief and training division understand how crucial this is? We have had several close calls in our department and I am really concerned.
____________________
Chief Gasaway: You are really addressing two critical issues here. First is the need to have a procedure in place for a Mayday (and the training of personnel on how to deploy the procedure). Second, is the issue of the number of close calls your department has experienced. Close calls are the precursor, the warning signs if you will, to catastrophes. Every time you have a close call it should invoke a thorough review of what happened, how it happened and an analysis of how to prevent it from happening again (which may involve changes in policy or procedure and most certainly training of personnel on how to prevent the near-miss in the future. There are many things that need to be addressed for every near-miss (or casualty) event, not just the things that went wrong at the moment of the incident.
As far as how to get your department leaders to embrace safety, I think the best approach is through education and subtle persuasion. Send them the link to this webcast or suggest it be played for a department drill and then open up some discussion about things your department could be doing differently.
May everyone you command return home safely after every call.
Fire Chief (ret.) Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, EFO, CFO, MICP
www.RichGasaway.com
____________________
Chief Gasaway: You are really addressing two critical issues here. First is the need to have a procedure in place for a Mayday (and the training of personnel on how to deploy the procedure). Second, is the issue of the number of close calls your department has experienced. Close calls are the precursor, the warning signs if you will, to catastrophes. Every time you have a close call it should invoke a thorough review of what happened, how it happened and an analysis of how to prevent it from happening again (which may involve changes in policy or procedure and most certainly training of personnel on how to prevent the near-miss in the future. There are many things that need to be addressed for every near-miss (or casualty) event, not just the things that went wrong at the moment of the incident.
As far as how to get your department leaders to embrace safety, I think the best approach is through education and subtle persuasion. Send them the link to this webcast or suggest it be played for a department drill and then open up some discussion about things your department could be doing differently.
May everyone you command return home safely after every call.
Fire Chief (ret.) Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, EFO, CFO, MICP
www.RichGasaway.com
Welcome to SA Q&A
Welcome to my new blog - a forum to discuss your questions, concerns and ideas about situational awareness issues faced by firefighters, EMS providers, police officers, dispatchers, emergency managers, medical professionals, military personnel, pilots, and industry.
Fire Chief (ret.) Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, EFO, CFO, MICP
www.RichGasaway.com
Fire Chief (ret.) Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, EFO, CFO, MICP
www.RichGasaway.com
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