FIRE OFFICER I
Incident Leadership
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 1
Section 1
Introduction
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 2
The duties of a fire officer in emergency
incidents are quite different from those of a
firefighter.
You’ll be directing other firefighters and units
on the scene, as well as implementing
assignments from superior officers.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 3
Learning Objectives
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Assuming new responsibilities.
Maintaining a level head.
Making SOP-based decisions.
Managing risk.
Communicating at incidents.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 4
Section 2
Assuming New
Responsibilities
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 5
As company officer, it
will be your job to
assign tasks or
responsibilities to
units involved in
response to emergency
incidents.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 6
Knowing your responsibilities at emergencies is
important so that team members and other
arriving units clearly understand their
assignments and to whom they should report.
Your new responsibilities include…
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 7
1: Providing an Arrival Report
• Conduct a scene size-up and provide an
arrival report to dispatch.
– Your arrival report should briefly answer:
•
•
•
•
What type of situation do you have?
What actions are being taken?
Who is in charge of the incident?
What resources are needed?
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 8
1: Providing an Arrival Report
• Follow departmental
procedures for
assuming command
if you are the firstarriving officer on
the scene.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 9
(cont.)
2: Establishing Scene Safety
• Always avoid committing firefighters to a
dangerous situation.
–
–
–
–
Slow down.
Look around.
Identify hazards.
Take measures to protect your team and the
public.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 10
3: Formulating an IAP
• Calmly assess the situation and formulate a
Incident Action Plan, a tactical plan of action
based on incident priorities.
– Incident priorities:
1. Life safety.
2. Stabilization of the incident.
3. Property conservation.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 11
3: Formulating an IAP
(cont.)
• Your size-up, along with knowledge of preincident surveys and SOPs, will help you to
determine the best IAP.
• Your IAP should address all phases of the
incident in an organized manner and within
set time frames.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 12
4: Implementing Your IAP
1. Assign the resources
available to you.
2. Ask for additional
resources, if needed.
3. Work with outside
agencies.
4. Use accountability
system to track all
resources under your
command.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 13
4: Implementing Your IAP
(cont.)
5. Size-up and incident action planning will be
an ongoing process throughout the incident
as new information is passed to you.
6. As scene conditions and resources change,
reassess, revise and communicate your
new IAP as assignments.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 14
At any incident, all personnel — regardless of
agency affiliation — must check in to receive an
assignment in accordance with procedures
established by the incident commander.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 15
5: Be Prepared to Turn Over Command
1. Give an arrival report to the next-arriving
senior officer. The arrival report should
include:
•
•
•
•
•
Current size-up of conditions.
Your IAP.
Units assigned to each task.
Resources available.
Additional resources requested.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 16
5: Be Prepared to Turn Over Command (cont.)
2. Pass command to the senior officer or
continue in command, if requested to
do so.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 17
6: Train with ICS
1. As company officer in
any emergency you
must know how to
direct a Task, Group,
Division or Sector under
the Incident Command
System (ICS), described
in NFPA 1561.
See www.NFPA.org for more info
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 18
6. Train with ICS (cont.)
2. The National Incident
Management System
integrates ICS into a
comprehensive
national framework for
management of
emergencies of all
sizes and scope,
including natural
disasters and terrorist
incidents.
See www.NIMSonline.com for more info
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 19
6. Train with ICS (cont.)
3. Train specifically with NIMS/ICS to ensure
you and your team can integrate effectively
in an expanded incident that requires mutual
aid from local, regional, state and/or federal
resources.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 20
Use ICS in daily response to ensure you and
your team will be better prepared to respond to
any emergency, no matter what the scale.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 21
Section 3
Maintaining a
Level Head
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 22
Fire officers must often take control in chaos.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 23
Your ability to remain calm in many difficult
circumstances is vital to instilling team
confidence in your decisions and to a safe and
orderly response.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 24
In this section, we’ll
outline five keys to
“keeping your head” in
managing incidents.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 25
Keys to Keeping Your Head
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Know your standard operating procedures.
Rely on your training.
Mind your tone of voice.
Know that you can’t win them all.
Don’t be afraid to withdraw and change the
IAP.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 26
Section 4
Making SOP-Based
Decisions
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 27
A fire officer should be able to size up any
incident, no matter how chaotic, and determine
which standard operating procedure to use as
the basis for making decisions.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 28
Reasons to Rely on SOPs
1. SOPs are designed to
achieve predictable,
standard outcomes to
any emergency.
2. They provide a
systematic approach to
ensure all important
factors are considered.
3. They provide the safest
and most effective use
of resources.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 29
Reasons to Rely on SOPs (cont.)
4. “Free-lancing” creates
confusion,
compromising
everyone’s safety.
5. SOP-based decisions
make post-incident
reports easier,
particularly if things go
badly.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 30
How to Apply SOPs to Decisions
1. Know your SOPs from cover to cover. If you are
unclear about how to execute any SOP, ask a
senior officer.
2. Identify the correct SOP. As you gather
information about the incident on scene, what
SOP best fits the nature of the emergency?
3. Gather more information about scene
conditions. If the standard outcome isn’t being
achieved, you may need to change to a different
SOP.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 31
How to Apply SOPs to Decisions (cont.)
4. If you experience
anything in incident
response or training
that leads you to believe
the SOPs need a change,
report it immediately to
your senior officer. Your
field observations are
important.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 32
Section 5
Managing Risk
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 33
Fire fighting is one of the
world’s most dangerous
jobs.
In the past, risk was
accepted as just part of
the job. Today, however,
the fire service recognizes
that some risks are not
worth taking.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 34
Managing risk enables
response to all kinds of
incidents with fewer
injuries and fatalities and
less property damage.
In this section, we’ll
outline five steps to risk
management.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 35
1: Create a Risk/Benefit Analysis
Create a risk/benefit analysis, based on
SOPs, before committing firefighters to
any operation.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 36
1: Create a Risk/Benefit Analysis
(cont.)
1. It means weigh the risk of any course of
action against the expected benefit, or
outcome, of that course of action.
2. SOPs will help you to correctly assess many
situations and identify which risks are
acceptable and which are not.
3. The goal: to make a decision that balances
risk and benefit.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 37
In Other Words …
• Risk a little to save
a little.
• Risk a lot to save a
lot.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 38
2: Prioritize Risks By Considering
(in order)
1. Life safety of first responders.
2. Life safety of savable victims.
3. Incident stabilization.
4. Property conservation.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 39
3: Determine the Best Strategy for IAP
• Rapid Rescue.
• Offensive attack.
• Defensive attack.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 40
Considerations:
•
Defensive strategies are best when the probability
of survival and rescue is low, you have insufficient
resources to extinguish the fire, and stability of the
building is questionable.
•
Firefighters should never be exposed to the highest
levels of risk to save property only.
•
Reduce the risk to firefighters to the absolute
minimum when you have little reasonable hope of
saving lives or valuable property.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 41
4: Communicate Your Plan
•
Communicate your plan
to units operating on
scene.
•
Seek input from Group,
Division or Sector
officers about incident
conditions. Convey the
plan for managing risk
to them as an
assignment.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 42
5: Monitor Your Results
•
Monitor results and
adjust strategy, as
necessary.
•
As you receive new
information on scene
conditions, update your
risk/benefit analysis.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 43
Keep in Mind:
• Effective risk management sometimes
requires making painful decisions.
• You may have to pull back personnel for
their safety.
• Realize that your decision is not the cause
of the emergency.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 44
• Fire fighting is inherently dangerous.
• All emergencies have some level of
unavoidable risk.
• By managing risks, you strive to find the
best strategy for each emergency with
minimal losses under your watch.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 45
Section 6
Communicating
at Incidents
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 46
Clear communications
from fire officers are
the backbone of safe
and ordered response
at emergency
incidents.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 47
Your on-scene communications will carry vital
information to your team, other units
operating at the scene, dispatch and other
officers about scene conditions, assignments,
command, and hazards.
Let’s look at some steps for communication
clearly at emergencies…
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 48
Basics for On-Scene Communications
1. Station communications can be relaxed,
but emergency communications require
discipline and strict adherence to
procedures.
2. Before transmitting, know what you’re
going to say. (SOPs provide guidance.)
3. In general, keep it short and specific.
4. Prioritize your messages.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 49
Basics for On-Scene Communications (cont.)
5. Be direct. Keep messages task- and
company-oriented.
6. Use a normal tone of voice.
7. Speak slowly and enunciate clearly.
8. Keep the microphone about two inches
from your mouth.
9. Use plain language instead of codes.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 50
Basics for On-Scene Communications
10. Avoid noisy
environments, if
you can.
11. Use the Order
Model.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 51
(cont.)
The Order Model
• A standard method for radio
communications for transmitting orders
from officers to units or companies involved
in emergency response.
• Designed to ensure the officer’s orders are
clear, heard by the correct receiver and
being implemented.
• The model has five steps.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 52
The Five-Step Order Model
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Identify yourself and the intended receiver by unit
identification.
Receive confirmation from your intended receiver.
Re-identify the receiver by unit ID and state the
message or assignment.
Wait for receiver to confirm his or her unit ID again
and to restate the message or order.
Confirm or correct the receiver’s restatement of
your message or order.
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 53
The End
Fire Officer I
5 – Incident Leadership
© 2006
Slide 54