 |
September-October 2009 |
 |
|
|
|
Why, When, and When Not
As I have progressed in my fire service career, I have spent a fair amount of time wondering if the time that I spent gaining a college degree has helped me. My dad was a firm believer in the concept of a “higher education,” and his ability to go to college through the GI Bill brought him out of some hardscrabble beginnings and allowed him to raise a family in far different circumstances than he himself was raised in. It is no surprise that he felt that giving his kids a college education was the best thing that he could do for their future.
My college experience was different, and I never felt fulfilled by it. As I look back, I don’t find much that my college experience did for my future as a firefighter. I know that some people will disagree with my observation, and they have had a far more positive experience with their higher education journey. One of the problems that I found was the difference between professors. I discovered that a handful of teachers, all from other countries, challenged me far more than the American professors. The American professors all seemed to be most interested in their own research, and what they taught generally centered on that research. The foreign professors taught me a wide range of ideas, told me their position, and then challenged me to decide what my position was and to be able to defend it.
I remember a vivid example from an exam. The class had something to do with “Biogeography,” and this German- born professor had a question on the test that went something like this: “Name 25 ways that a species can migrate from one area to another when they are blocked by a significant barrier like an expanse of water?” I struggled, but I wrote down 25 ways, and when I turned in the exam, I remarked to the professor how difficult that question was. His response to me telling him that I found 25 ways was, “That’s interesting because I only know of 20 ways.” What was interesting about this event was that he gave credit for the students who found other answers than he expected, if the answers could be defended as correct.
I think back to this time as I look forward to training the next generation of firefighters. I have found that we are lacking a very important quality in many firefighters, and that is the title of today’s article. My question to you in the fire service community is, Are we doing a good job of teaching firefighters “the why's, the when's, and the when- not's”? I believe that we have steadily witnessed the dumbing- down of firefighters. I am surprised by the inability of firefighters to explain why a certain tactic is employed over another or when a piece of equipment is used over another or when not to use a tactic or piece of equipment. It seems that we have given these folks easy mnemonics, rule- of- thumb hydraulics, and “silver bullet” remedies to each and every situation. Checkbox firefighting seems to rule the day. One wonders sometimes if it is the incident commander running the fire or if it is his laminated resource/command board that runs the fire. I am not saying that resource/command boards, mnemonics, or rules of thumb are not helpful tools. But they are useful because they are reminders. They are a means to an end, not the end.
I would like to take a moment to impress upon you the importance of teaching the “why’s, when’s, and when- not’s.” What do I mean by the “why’s, when’s, and when- not’s”? Not long ago, I asked one of our firefighters what he thought of our department’s training program. He said that he thought that we did a good job of teaching tasks and skills, but we were lacking in teaching how tasks match to tactics and how tactics match to strategies. I thought about his response for awhile, and I think that I can put this into a more modern context. I myself do not watch the TV show “Dancing with the Stars,” but I know that it is a fairly popular show. Here’s what I mean: we (the fire service) do a good job of teaching the dance steps to the tango, and the waltz, and other ballroom dances; but we do a poor job of teaching the dancers the music that you dance a tango or a waltz or other ballroom dances to. Sometimes you might have to dance a tango to waltz music in the fire service. For the rest of this article, I would like to share with you some observations that I have had over the years, describing where we are missing the mark of teaching our current generation of firefighters the why's of firefighting and other emergency scene work.
Why are the “why's” important? Can’t we just point our firefighters in the right direction and tell them to go forth and prosper? Part of the answer goes back to the debate about the difference between policy and procedure, or between policy and guidelines. It is important to provide our firefighters with rules and limits, especially as they are first learning the job. They need a basic framework from which to start building the knowledge and skill base that is necessary in today’s fire service. But somewhere down the road, the firefighter will face a situation where the rule doesn’t work. They must make a decision where the mnemonic doesn’t give enough information or guidance. They need to understand the concept, not just the way that a skill or task is to be accomplished. Once the concept is grasped, the firefighter becomes flexible and they can learn to apply all the tools and all of the skills and tasks that they know to the situation that they face.
Have you ever heard of convergent versus divergent thinking? Tommy Brennan once said in a class that if I have five ways to use a halligan and you have six ways to use one, then I had better be ready to listen to you because I might learn something. Convergent thinking is like a multiple- choice test that has only one answer. It is the type of thinking that is generally used to determine intelligence levels via intelligence tests. Divergent thinking asks you to come up with multiple ways to solve a problem. Which type of thinking do you think is more useful in the fire service? Another way to view this is that convergent thinking takes you down the path of silver bullets; ideas or actions that work every single time in every single circumstance. There are some silver bullets in fire fighting, but I have observed that more often than not, the firefighter (especially the fire officer) needs to be flexible because what worked before may not work this time; and you may need to apply some of your skills in a less than usual manner.
Here is an example: I have a video from one of the yearly fire storms in the greater Los Angeles area. An engine pulls into a residential neighborhood with at least four houses fully or partially involved. I am sure that their job was to protect the uninvolved structures. Up here in Oregon, we do not generally have the violent winds or vegetation types that you have in So Cal, but I think that we are taught the same basic principles of structural triage and protection. I am sure that the officer of the engine in the video was taught that he would back into the driveway of the house(s) that he picked to protect and that there would be other engine companies to help in this neighborhood. I know that this company officer was also probably taught to be mobile and not lay out too much hose or hook-up to a static supply, like a fire hydrant. There was a bit of a problem for this fire engine in that they had no help coming. I don’t remember which fire storm this was, but this was not a mountain community suburb but a regular city- looking suburb; and I know that this officer was going to be on his own for awhile. What did this officer do? He put his deck gun into operation and hooked-up to a hydrant. The person who was doing the video made some comments about this action that were not favorable, but I think that this officer used a little bit of divergent thinking and adapted to the situation that he had. He was not so committed that he could not shut down the deck gun, uncouple some discharge ports, and leave in a hurry, while at the same time he had a 360- degree water stream that had great reach and an ability to protect multiple exposures by keeping the involved houses in check. I thought that this concept, although unorthodox, was brilliant. This was divergent decision-making in action and a great example of how someone used the “why’s, when’s, and when not’s” to an advantage. Hopefully this makes some sense, and even if it doesn’t, I would like to pass on some observations that point out where I think that we, as the fire service, can improve by helping our firefighters and fire officers in their thinking and their applications of skills and knowledge to challenging circumstances.
I will now include a brief list of some of the problems and issues that I have observed in trying to explain the whys to firefighters.
Testing
Most of the testing that I see going on in the fire service is multiple-choice. This is classic convergent thinking with only one answer, or as the instructions say, the best answer offered. I am currently very frustrated with the test- bank concept that my department uses for every rank in developmental testing. It was a good initial concept meant to help with the time management of the training staff, but I don’t think that it provides much better than an idea that the test taker has read a certain book or policy. I don’t find that this type of test- taking instills the ability to explain why a certain tactic should be used, why a piece of equipment is used over another, or how a certain policy or guideline can be applied to a series of situations. I find for myself that I would much rather take an essay or short answer test. I actually learn from taking the test, and I feel that I can explain my answer. I would advocate that the fire service perform written and oral tests that allow our firefighters to tell us what they know, not how they can eliminate poor answers from the best answer among a list of possible answers. Is a list the way that emergencies are presented to us when we arrive on scene? Then why do we test our people this way?
Less Than Realistic Training
I know that finding training time can be a challenge for many fire departments as well as finding adequate areas to train so that we can still respond to those pesky calls for service. I am lucky that my department has invested through the years in a very good training ground and program. But I find that it is easy to get caught in a rut with training and that you can become very repetitive to the point that it affects your actions on scene. We can get used to drilling only on those things that we will get evaluated on. When yearly evaluations roll around, we throw our SCBA on for time and throw some ladders. The ladders are raised against our concrete drill tower on perfectly level ground. Our packs are donned from the ground, and we go on air immediately so that we can beat the 60- second time limit.
In fact, competition comes into play; and firefighters are racing each other for bragging rights. How realistic are these actions? My city has a lot of trees and shrubs and raising a ladder always involves some creative footing and placement. Taking a fire hydrant is always an adventure because they are generally not easily visible from the apparatus and some neighbor has allowed their arborvitae to grow around what they perceive as an eye sore. My SCBA is being donned as I am gathering other equipment and trying to size-up the scene. All of this is done while trying to make important decisions about deployment and applying tactics to incident priorities. Is this how you train your firefighters? I am all for repetitive training as a base and reminder, but if you are not adding distracters and deflectors as a guide for helping your firefighters apply their skills and knowledge than you are not helping them to think and learn.
A related topic is the rampant offering at many departments (and most conferences) of what I like to call “sexy” training. This can be very important training, like RIT deployments and USAR skills, but we really do need to get back to the basics of search, ventilation, and handline deployment and management. Also, make your firefighters explain why they do what they do. If they can’t give you an answer, then explain it to them yourself and expect them to answer you correctly the next time. Learn one, do one, teach one.
Too Much Stuff
How many of you are really busy during your shifts, and not necessarily with running calls? I know that we are very busy with mandated training, public service related duties, hydrant maintenance, area and building familiarization, new equipment and policy, and how about having to learn and prepare for the H1N1 invasion. I know that one of the major roadblocks to helping our firefighters learn why we do the things that we do is because we are doing too much stuff. I have noticed that my fire department has been overloaded for almost the past decade. State EMS agencies continue to mandate more training as do the other governmental watch dogs like OHSA. Tack on ISO, accreditation, and the need to try and follow NFPA, and you can begin to notice the tide going out signaling the tsunami is on the way. What this causes is a cursory overview of all of the things that you need to know so that you can accomplish all of the things on time. A cursory overview leads to a lack of being able to cover a lot of very important subjects with the time that they need and deserve. This in turn leads to a lack of time to be able to explain the whys of what you do. There seems to only be enough time to get the firefighters started in the right direction and than face the next issue speeding at you like a bullet train. I don’t have a very good suggestion for this issue. The fire service has always tended to take on more things to be able to maintain the sense of how needed, as an agency and responder, we are. Perhaps more attempts at organizing and prioritizing are needed and yearly reviews of what is truly necessary. In the meantime, remind yourself every shift that explaining the why's to your firefighters is a vital priority. As I’ve mentioned in a previous article, use the kitchen table to its fullest advantage and continue to tell stories about recent calls or those calls that are part of the department’s history and tradition.
Lack of Lessons Learned From Real Calls
Out of all of the general headings that I am covering in this article, I would say that this is the one that I find to be the most vital. How many of you have a lessons learned program that takes your calls (or the calls in your neighboring departments) and puts them into after action reports to be distributed throughout your organization with lessons learned that need to be reviewed and absorbed to make your department better? I am amazed that this is not mandated training. My department has always held critiques for the “big” fires, but rarely have any real lessons been mandated. The fire service has done a better job at trying to get “close calls” reviewed, but why are we not taking the opportunities that are presented to us each and every shift (365 days and 12 months a year, 7 days a week, and 24 hours a day) to improve our organizations. Talk about the most bang for your buck when it relates to why we do what we do.
I am tired of hearing at conferences that we are no longer doing the type of fire duty that we used to do. I’m not sure that statistically this stands scrutiny when we compare apples with apples, but regardless, why are we not taking even the one good fire that you get and put together a good report of what went well and what didn’t so that the troops will get better the next time that the “Red Devil” comes calling? Close- call reports try to prevent injuries and deaths, but I know of very few departments that review what went right to try and encourage and institutionalize good behavior. Let's encourage each other to develop solid debriefs of our calls and begin the process of creating nameless and rankless critiques of all of our calls that reasonably carry solid lessons for improvement or encouragement for proper actions.
Inexperienced Folks Teaching Inexperienced Folks
I don’t mean to step on any toes with this topic, but I wonder if we are not allowing too many trainers to train who don’t know the answer to the why questions. I don’t think that we are quite at the place of the “blind leading the blind,” but I do witness a few folks who can definitely teach the steps of a certain tactic but can’t explain the various ways in which that tactic can be applied. I find too many instructors who are very inflexible, almost to the point of “thou shalt” when I don’t think that “thou shalt” applies. A case in point for me these days is the almost religious fervor of the 360- degree walk-around. I was always taught to try and approach a building from at least three sides and gain some situational awareness as you begin to deploy. A 360, if possible, can be a valuable and even life- saving tool, but does it always have to happen before interior attacks or any other engagement of the situation? I say, it depends. But a lot of folks are saying “thou shalt.” I am not calling these folks inexperienced or blind, at least not until I take a class from them and can form an honest judgment. I would say most of them are concerned about firefighter injuries and deaths, but I think that they are speaking too hastily.
We had an “almost” fire a few months back. You know the one where the occupant uses a garden hose and extinguishes the fire before you arrive. You tend to congratulate the occupant while trying to hide your disappointment. This fire was on the deck and the occupant put some charcoal embers near some burlap that was shading the windows. Get the picture? Upon our arrival, we checked for extension, patted the budding firefighter on the back, and went back to the station. The question in my mind was, “What would a first- in officer, who believed religiously in the 360, do upon arriving at this fire?” I would hope that he would put a line immediately on the expanding deck fire and then complete the 360 or assign it to someone else. What I am afraid of is that the way that we are tending to train our new officers in the use of the 360, they would bypass the fire to gather as much information about the situation as possible before engaging the fire. Is this wrong? Again, it depends. There could be a scenario where leaving the deck fire to potentially extend into the residence is the right call while you gather more information, but I think (in fact I will confidently state), that we need to take care of the immediate situational threat first and then redirect our resources if we find a more pressing priority. This is just an example of where I think some inexperienced folks are out-speaking experienced folks. Debate is good, but only if it is allowed to happen. This is why a lessons-learned program can be so vital. It would tell us what works and what doesn’t. If we use lessons learned, then we are depending on actual data, not digital combustion [1] or artificial scenarios.
Resistance to Change and Too Much Change
This category presents two sides to the same issue that inhibit the education of our firefighters and fire officers. The first is the resistance to change when a new method or piece of equipment is brought forward that can help firefighters to perform their job. This type of problem generally comes from older fire service members who can be set in their ways and have learned some very tried and true ways of performing tasks. Sometimes the tried and true methods have no “why's” to them other than “this is how we’ve always done this and it has worked so far.” Sometimes, the resistance to change comes from what Tommy Brennan called the “two to five’s” — members who have only 2- to- 5 years on the job. You can bet that that these folks cannot explain the “why's”; they can only argue their position from a place of stubborn ignorance. The tougher sell can be to the senior members who do a good job but have some honest questions about the change at hand. These can be tough situations that take strong leaders to help the organization change for the better. A sound leader will be able to explain (articulate for you non- leader types) the reasons why the new method will help in the job (not just some BS answer) and they will have the courage to enforce the change, even in the face of criticism, knowing that the change will bring about a better outcome for the organization. Firefighters who really care about better methods will embrace the change because it is helpful to them, for accomplishing the mission.
The too- much- change concept comes under the previous heading of “too much going on.” Again, the strong leader is needed to slow that pace of change down so that the new concepts can be explained to the members so that it becomes a part of our organizational memory. Otherwise, we are performing a ton of new stuff without knowing why we do it. A book called, “The Knowing Doing Gap” describes this experience where a company is doing a bunch of things but doesn’t know why. The converse, by the same authors, would explain that we know what to do, but we don’t get it done. Change is good, but not at the expense of understanding.
Checklist Firefighting
Last but certainly not least is a concept that I call checkbox firefighting. What is this? This is where you take something like a checklist, a mnemonic, or a rule of thumb and never grow beyond it. I have begun a fairly extensive study of decision-making and when we make intuitive decisions (recognition primed decision-making) we are using rules of thumb called heuristics. For instance, I am at the scene of a garage fire; and my experience tells me to perform some actions that have worked in the past. I don’t gather every piece of information that I can, weigh out the possibilities, choose the best course of action, and engage. By that time, I would have a garage, attic, and house fire. No, I pick a course of action that will work (one that has worked in the past); and I adjust the course of action as I gain more clues and cues about the situation. Checkbox firefighting takes on every fire in the same manner and in the same order because the list is very inflexible. A checklist is invaluable as you are learning your trade, but once you get in the groove, you will check your checklist only to ensure that you haven’t forgotten anything. The checklist is a point of reference not the destination. I have heard one of my chiefs say that checkbox firefighting is like painting by numbers. Sometime, however, if you want to become an expert at your trade you need to paint without numbers. Why, because sometimes you may need to put purple where white goes. I call that pulling a rabbit out of your hat and that is a subject for another article. Needless to say, flexibility and an understanding of the whys of emergency scene work will allow you to apply all of the tools in your toolbox as you need them.
Thanks for letting me talk for a few lines about what a vital need there is to explain our job to our fellow firefighters, and to have it explained to us. Be very wary of anyone who talks a good game, but can’t go beyond “because that’s the way it has also worked.” Also beware of the snake- oil salesman who has silver bullets for sale but can’t answer your honest questions. Good tradesman can always explain why they do what they do, when they do it, and when they don’t do it. And they are eager to share their knowledge and skills with the next generation.
[1] I actually like digital combustion simulation, but it should be used for training, not for agendas. [back to text]
© Copyright Firenuggets.com 2009 • Click here for Terms and Conditions of Use
<•••SIGN OUT