How to Nail Your First-Due Strategic Responsibility: Part 4

Back in July (Firehouse, July 2012) we described box one of our first-due fire officer “Four-Box Strategic Progression.” Our structured and systematic four-box progression has been crafted so that you nail your first-due strategic responsibility every time. We identified that, according to National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Standard 1021, Fire Officer I, first-due fire officer strategic responsibility is to complete a size-up; develop and an initial action plan; and then implement the preliminary action plan.

Box one revisited

Box One contains five items that represent the first-due fire officer arrival report; the box one arrival report is brief and meaningful, but DOES NOT qualify as a size-up. Your focused and systematic size-up is represented by box two, which we will open in a moment.

Your box one, five-item arrival report consists of:

1. Occupancy and showing – Not building construction or dimensions, but simply the occupancy type (house, multi-family, high-rise, commercial, strip mall, store, hotel, etc.) and one of three showing situations (nothing, smoke, fire).

2. Designate side Alpha – Make sure your designation is perfectly clear to all responding units (“The address is side Alpha,” “Main Street is side Alpha,” etc.).

3. Park responding units – “All apparatus park.” Park is a non-specific location. The general meaning of park is each officer on each unit will park as close to the address (or to staging, if designated) as possible with two important caveats: leave the street open to traffic can get in and out; and personnel will remain with their rig unless other otherwise assigned. This simple assignment serves to herd the cats until you know what the problems and hazards are. It also eliminates annoying radio traffic such as, “On your arrival…” and, “We’re a block out, what’s our assignment?” Talking to people who are responding interferes with your focused size-up.

4. Initiate command – Command that has been initiated is informal and mobile. In other words, no command post and the officer will be doing a size-up. Later, in box four, a command post will be “established” (named and located).

5. Investigation mode – The initial operational mode should usually be the investigation mode is described in box two.

Resist the temptation to cram additional stuff into box one (or into any of the four boxes). For example, if you need a second alarm, police for traffic control or the gas company, make the request before opening box one, after closing box one or as part of opening box four. Shoving an additional item into a box tends to push something out of the box. The point is that we want you to nail box one.

Caveats can be built into the box-one arrival report. For example, the announcement “nothing showing” would assign all responding units to park and await your update. Should you announce “fire showing” or “smoke showing,” all units would park “except” – and “except” means whatever your fire department decides it means. Where I came from it means that the second-due engine, first-due truck and battalion chief would continue to the address and all other units would park. The spirit and intent is to

• Immediately capture and control all resources

• Facilitate the need for assembling firefighters at the address

• Prevent a mishmash of fire apparatus clogging the street

• Ensure vehicle access in and out (such as medic unit, tender shuttle, etc.)

Box two: Focused and aggressive strategy

Box two is filled with focused and aggressive strategic action; Box two strategic action is what you do, not what you say on the radio. During a typical dwelling fire, box-two strategic action can be completed in about the time it takes to view each side of a typical house: 30 to 50 seconds. It will be the most important 30 to 50 seconds of the entire fireground operation. (You do not receive size-up credit based on how fast you can complete a lap around a building; you get size-up credit for the information you acquire during the lap.)

1. Set the table

Set the table by getting your team going at task level (driver, firefighters). This does not mean entering the hazard area. (Remember, you haven’t done a size-up yet, so you don’t know what and where the problems and hazards are.) Depending on how many personnel arrive, this could mean that the driver chocks and pump, firefighters stretch and charge hoselines, position a gas blower at idle speed, identify a positive-pressure ventilation (PPV) exhaust opening or perhaps provide a transitional squirt into a window that is venting heat (we refer to this as achieving offensive benefit from a defensive position).

2. Talk to somebody

Often overlooked is seeking – and factoring – information provided by evacuated occupants, a security guard, maintenance personnel, plant manager, the neighbor across the street or perhaps the UPS driver who reported the fire.

An evacuated occupant can tell you fire cause and location and help you determine the status of life safety.

Believing that the driver is the person to talk to, people gravitate toward the apparatus driver. Let that happen while you focus on your size-up. (Just make sure the driver passes along the information.)

3. List “big six” problems

List your first-tier problems. The first on-scene fire officer is faced with an overwhelming assortment of size-up considerations, many of which can be assessed before the incident and during response. When you exit the right-front seat of your apparatus, it is show time. The focus of your size-up must narrow and sharpen.

Many scientists who study human brain capacity and decision-making agree that a stressful situation with more than four distinct variables overwhelms the brain; other scientists believe a human can consciously process between five and nine pieces of information at any given moment (without stress).

Research suggests that six pieces of information is the human brain sweet spot. Thus, size-up models such as WALLACEWASHOT (12 pieces of information) or COALWASWEALTH (13) contain too many pieces of information to process with the adrenal glands pumping at three-in-the-morning.

Co-author Stewart Rose selected six on-scene problems for you to identify and factor. Collectively these problems are called the “big six”:

1. Fire

2. Smoke

3. Verified occupants

4. Possible occupants

5. Exposures

6. Access

The power of the “big six” is amazing. While narrowing and focusing your problem identification, once the “big six” problems have been identified (and listed) your incident action plan emerges as a natural outcome. (You will see this demonstrated when box three is addressed in the next article.)

The “big six “are identified as follows:

1. Where is there fire? On which floors? Basement? Attic? Is the fire contents, structure or both? Is fire venting from and how many windows? Is there fire venting through the roof or is there fire on the roof? (Significant difference strategically.)

2. Where is there smoke? Which floors? Basement? Soffits? Attic? Using Dave Dodson’s criteria, what is the “volume, velocity and color”? Pressure is evidence of heat; heat confined within a compartment generates positive pressure. Positive pressure generated by heat is what lifts the basket during a hot-air balloon ride! If you understand the fundamentals of fire behavior, you know that uncontrolled positive pressure is happening without your approval. Which side of the fire-growth curve is being contemplated? (Refer to my article in the September 2008 Firehouse^®. Can’t find it? I’d be happy to send you a copy of the article.)

3. Are there verified occupants? This refers to occupants who are viable and are verified by the fire department. In other words, you see them or hear them (which means they are alive); you don’t have to look for them. An example of a verified occupant would be a frantic occupant at a window or on a balcony.

If yes, where and how many occupants? You determine whether the verified occupants are alive and that you have enough time and resources to rescue them. Verified occupants could be alive and viable but for some reason – time, distance, risk – you cannot reach them. (Unfortunately, during the evolution of a fire within an occupied building, not everybody lives happily ever after.)

Verified occupants could be people within exposed occupancies, such as adjacent apartments. If not threatened, you may choose to evacuate or “shelter in place.” A civilian report (or a dispatcher report) – no matter how emotional or compelling – is not verification.

4. Are there possible occupants? All living spaces within every building have possible occupants. Search must be done – at an appropriate time – before leaving the scene. A vent, confine, extinguish and search operation must be strategically coordinated. Search will be conducted for areas that present a positive survivability profile. There will be a hoseline between the search team and the fire.

We do not risk firefighter lives for victim recovery. (A negative survivability profile could mean that secondary search will be coordinated with a backhoe many hours after the fire has been extinguished.) A report such as, “My daughter’s up there, but I couldn’t reach her because of the smoke,” is compelling evidence for search and rescue. (You are pretty certain she is up there, but you don’t know where exactly, so you must look for her before executing the rescue. Looking for somebody in the hazard area is called search; thus, search and rescue.)

5. Are there threatened exposures? Along with adjacent occupancies, additional exposure considerations include areas above and below the fire floor or embers lifted by convection and deposited a few blocks downwind. An “exposure” is a potential fire and smoke problem (or potential escalation of a fire/smoke problem). An internal exposure could be furniture and electronics on the floor below where water is being flowed.

6. Are there access problems?

An access problem is a feature or situation that will interfere with or delay your otherwise normal operation. Access problem examples include bars on windows, security doors, long narrow driveways, locked gates, parked vehicles, hydrant out of service, distance (vertical or horizontal), down power line, etc.

4. Identify hazards

Identify second-tier problems? Second-tier problems are hazards that include construction features, electricity, natural gas, propane tank, wind and Dobermans. Although hazards warrant discussion, they are beyond the scope of this article.

5. Determine value, time and size

If there is one critical factor that the first-due fire officer must identify, it is value. Forget vague guidance such as factoring “risk versus gain” or “risk versus benefit.” We recommend that you discard the words “gain” and “benefit” and replace them with “value,” as in “risk versus value.” The word “value” squares the corners of the risk-management conversation.

Your primary command responsibility is best articulated by one of the Command Caveats: Your primary responsibility is to preserve and protect what you determine has the most value. (Think about it; that is what we do.) Firefighters always arrive with 100% value. Once you determine that firefighters represent the most value, do we need to say more?

Here’s another value consideration: When the command post declares “primary search all clear,” it is also a declaration that firefighters represent the most value. Unfortunately, fire officers often overlook the determination of value. Factoring value, time and size will provide crucial information for making decisions and determining the appropriate operational mode.

We could write an entire article on value-time-size (and likely will), but in a nutshell here is how the V-T-S model works:

•Value – People and property. Is there value? Where is there value?

• Time – How long there will continue to be value. Also factored is how long the structure will survive. A heavy-timber-floor structure will endure fire longer than an engineered-floor assembly supported by unprotected wood I-joists. That said, if an unprotected steel column supports both, the failure of the column would bring both down. (Refer to my structural hierarchy described in the April 2009 issue of Firehouse®.)

• Size – The size of your response package and the resources required. Resources include the number of personnel, gallons of water, the number/size of hoselines, etc.

The determination of V-T-S will determine your fireground operational mode. Key questions to consider are:

1. Is there value? Where is there value? Who has the most value?

2. Is there time to preserve and protect the value that exists right now? How long will there continue to be value?

3. Are enough resources on scene to preserve and protect the value that exists right now? Will responding resources arrive soon enough to preserve and protect the value that exists right now?

The strategic math is simple:

Three yesses = Offensive

One no = Defensive

Value-time-size is scalable; to accommodate the size of your response and the time it will take to assemble an effective force, you can expand the margins of value until you reach three yesses. If you still can’t reach three yesses, protect the neighborhood and develop a strategy for dealing with the media.

Problems and hazards would be listed on a fire officer tool such as the IMS Alliance First-Due ITAC Status Board show on Graphic Five.

The status board shorthand is explained below:

F2 = Fire on floor two

S2 = Smoke on floor two

SATT = Smoke in the attic

PO2 = Possible occupants on floor two

PO1 = Possible occupants on floor one

E1 = Exposure floor one

ED = Exposure side-D

Since there are no verified occupants (VO) or access (A) problems, they are not listed on the board; if there is not a problem it is not listed. You could also note the side information, but you won’t forget that. Once you’ve seen and captured that there is fire on floor two, you won’t forget from which side and from how many windows fire is showing. This process has to be quick and simple.

Also, don’t complicate the process. For example, if there are two or three occupancies with fire and smoke showing, pick one to be the primary occupancy. List the problems for that occupancy and note the other two occupancies as exposure problems. Example: EB (exposure Bravo) and ED (exposure Delta). Problems for each exposure would be listed at the command post or on division status boards. Later the action plan to solve those problems would be added. More on this when we open Box Three in a future issue.

This list of problems and hazards will serve as the most important strategic action during the entire fireground operation. It will determine the operational mode and be used to develop the incident action plan. The important point is that the fire officer looked for and captured problems and hazards. In case you missed the significance: the officer looked for specific problems. This few seconds of first-due fire officer strategic focus is critical.

If you have fire officers who refuse to do their fundamental first-due strategic responsibility, perhaps you should select new fire officers. Fundamental fire officer responsibility is ignored when the first on-scene fire officer jumps off the rig and defaults to a fast attack. (Might as well respond with no fire officer on board.)

Strategic legacy

This series of articles serve as an introduction to our “Four-Box” process, “big six size-up” and the V-T-S mode and position determination model. These articles scratch the surface of how to nail your first-due strategic responsibility, but nail it you must if you aspire to be a master craftsman fire officer!

Until aggressive strategy becomes the norm, random acts of tactical violence will continue to injure and kill firefighters (and damage property); focused and aggressive strategy will help prevent firefighters from being injured and killed (and property being unnecessarily damaged). Aggressive strategy will help ensure that aggressive tactics are intelligent, safe and appropriate.

Next Time: Box three