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March-April 2010 |
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Can You Pull a Rabbit
Out of a Hat?
How many
of you are old enough to remember the cartoon “Rocky & Bullwinkle”? Do
you know who Natasha and Boris Badenov were? For those who don’t
remember, the “Rocky & Bullwinkle” show was standard cartoon
fair for most of us baby boomers along with Bugs Bunny and Johnny Quest
(for you trivia minded, who was Johnny Quest’s sidekick? See
answer here). Rocky & Bullwinkle had a cast of characters
and regular features. One of the regular features was Bullwinkle
asking Rocky if he has ever seen him pull a rabbit out of his hat.
Bullwinkle would roll up his sleeve to show that he had nothing hidden,
and he would say “Presto”… and would always pull something out of
his hat other than a rabbit. Magicians have always created the
illusion of pulling something out of an object that shouldn’t hold the
object, in effect trying to get the audience to believe that they have
done the seemingly impossible. The rabbit bit is the traditional animal
for the magician, although most of them started using doves or pigeons
for some strange reason.
My use of this trick as an analogy is to get us thinking about pulling off a seemingly impossible feat at the scene of an emergency. Most of what we do is pretty routine. In fact, I am fond of telling people that about 90 percent of what we are asked to do is nothing special. Our usual calls for service involve situations that anyone can solve. We are good at some things because we do a lot of the same actions over and over again. We are also good at our job because we are not emotionally attached to the situation, which allows us to think in a clearer and more concise manner to solve the issue that is presented to us. In terms of structural fires, at least at my department, the room and contents fire is bread and butter. Whether it’s a kitchen fire into the cabinets, a living room fire started up against the baseboard heater, or a bedroom fire started with a child experimenting with matches, we roll in and have a successful outcome because there is, or at least there shouldn’t be, anything unusual about the situation. Most of us of a certain age or experience level have deployed an attack line, gone into the structure to the fire area, and extinguished the fire many times. It is in effect pretty routine. We could almost do it in our sleep, like many of our EMS calls, at least we think so.
Maybe some of our emergency responses have become a little too routine, because I am also fond of telling people that at most of our fires, those “routine ones,” the Three Stooges could show up and the outcome is pretty much the same. We deploy lines, we enter the structure, and we always put the fire out, many times in spite of our mistakes and missteps. I’m not trying to be rude or funny. It has been my observation over many years that we are not as good as we think. I wonder if we are just that skilled or if luck and circumstances prevent disasters from happening more often than they do. One thing is for sure: we need to continue to work on the basics, the firefighting skills and knowledge that need to be used all of the time. We should do this because if your fires go anything like the fires that I respond to, they never go like clockwork. There always seem to be areas that need improvement like: uncoordinated or non-existent ventilation; poor handline deployments; the lack of good nozzle and suppression techniques; not very rapid or complete interior searches; and incomplete and ineffective overhaul that can cause us to come back at a later hour to explain to the home owner why we didn’t completely extinguish the fire the first time.
Think back on your last
fire. Was your forcible entry delayed due to a lack of
practice? Did the vertical vent team get on and off the roof in a
reasonable timeframe and were their cuts effective? Did the interior
crews, or any crew, do more damage to the structure than the fire would
have done? Don’t feel bad answering yes to any of these
questions, we work in a dynamic environment and we all have a lot of
challenges due to limited staffing and limited time and money for
training. The real issue is: are you using whatever time, budget,
and opportunities that you do have available to become better at your
chosen trade?
This is where this idea of being able to “pull a rabbit out of a hat” comes in. If we are not going to put the effort forth to review our performances on our routine fires so that we are constantly improving our abilities than how do we think that we are going to perform when we have an unusual event where we have to rescue a viable victim or worse yet one of our own brother or sister firefighters? What outcome do we think that we will have when we are presented with a very tough fire where the difference between looking good to the public by seemingly doing the impossible and looking like the “Three Stooges” comes down to us having practiced the basic tasks that make firefighters and their firefighting effort successful? I’ll tell you what is going to happen: we are going to look like Bullwinkle pulling everything but a rabbit out of his hat.
Most of the time the public
won’t care, they are generally happy that someone shows up and tries
to do something. The problem is that the public is generally
ignorant about what we should be able to do. But how are you going to
feel when you are called to a “career event”, the time that you are
going to “pull a rabbit out of your hat” and save someone’s house,
or their cherished possessions, or their child and it doesn’t work out
and you might have to walk away from that event knowing that you were
not as prepared as you should have been? Sometimes, the rabbit is
not available and no matter what you do and how hard you try it wasn’t
the day to pull the seemingly impossible off. The question that I
am asking is how many of you are even ready to make it happen? What
is your department doing to help you make the difference when it really
counts? How is your department helping you to take those routine
events and utilize them for when it really is show time? I would like to
share some thoughts about how to be more personally prepared to “pull
a rabbit out of your hat.”
First, let me explain how I
view the term “seemingly” impossible. I want to assure you that
I do not advocate stupid behavior or trying to do the truly impossible.
One of the most recognized reasons that firefighters get hurt or killed
is because of a poor decision-making process. Each of us has to
know our limits and the limits of our crews and our departments. We have
to understand what our training level and experience is so that we
engage events properly and reasonably. But we need to practice and study
and train to understand those limits. Once we reach that point, we
can know what is impossible and what is not. The public, God bless them,
are still ignorant to our capabilities. So when they see a fire
department go into a raging inferno and come out on top, it “seems”
as if we pulled off the impossible. We will gladly accept their thanks
and the way that they look at us like we are indestructible, but we
were, in reality, acting reasonably on sound decisions based on the
situation, our own capabilities, and how we applied those capabilities
to create a positive outcome. So with that said let’s move forward to
a basic primer on being ready to “pull a rabbit from a hat.”
The first lesson to pulling a rabbit out of your hat can be summed up by a joke a good friend told me. A man came out of a New York subway station and saw a man playing a violin. He asked the man how to get to Carnegie Hall. The man playing the violin said, “Practice, practice, practice.” There is no substitute for practice. If you want to be prepared to be your best when it really matters, when the game is on the line, than you have to put in the practice time up front.
There is a psychologist from Florida State University named K. Anders Ericsson, who has written extensively on expertise and expert performance; and he has a specific name for the right type of practice. He calls it “deliberate practice.” Practicing the same thing over and over again so that it becomes second nature is good, but it is even better, in fact mandatory if you want to go on and become an expert at your chosen skill, to practice deliberately. What does this look like? Let’s take the skill of deploying a handline. It is good to go out on a drill field and deploy handline after handline. But it is even better, once the basic skill is retained, to start adding difficulty to the basic skill. So the next time that you deploy a line, deploy it to the 5th floor of a drill tower. Then deploy it over a ladder. Than deploy it in the rain. Than deploy it, charge it, and move it to the 5th floor. Do you get the picture? It is not enough to just put hoselines on the ground. You must deploy it in all manner of possibilities. This will lead to expertise. And it isn’t just deploying handlines that you have to get good at. Can you see the never-ending need for practice if you want to be an expert firefighter or fire officer? It is almost unobtainable, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be trying.
Remember, a little goes a
long way. So if you’re stuck in a station where your officer or your
crew wants to waste their time on other pursuits rather than becoming
someone who can have confidence about “pulling a rabbit out of a
hat," let them waste their time. Don’t become frustrated. Do
what you can do by reading trade journals, web site articles, getting
“hands on” the tools off your assigned apparatus, attend conferences
or local training, or use your time to “war game” possible scenarios
and how you might respond. All of this will make you better. And if you
begin to practice firefighting deliberately, you will be on the road
toward becoming an expert. The experts are the ones who can use their
experience base to pull a rabbit out of their hat.
The second lesson to pulling a rabbit out of your hat I have related in an earlier article (“It’s Too Late, Cooper Boy”), and shame on all of us who don’t have an adequate “lessons learned” program available. Many will say that we can’t become expert firefighters because “we don’t do fires” anymore. In their world, we simply don’t get the practice we need because there are not enough fires to go to and get good. Although it is true that the total number of fires reported in the United States has tended downward since records have been kept back into the '70s, the number of structure fires has roughly stabilized over the last few years. There are tremendous differences between fire duty in various areas of the country and even in various areas of the same fire department. Some departments get a lot of real fires to practice on while others do not. Yet, I wonder if we are using those opportunities, whether they are a lot or a few, to their fullest potential. This is where a lessons-learned program is invaluable. A lessons-learned program will take the fires that you do have, or other responses, and honestly review them for valuable lessons to pass on to the organization.
This is not the time to just pat each other on the back, but to find both the mistakes that occurred and the good behaviors and efforts that need to be passed on. If it is a mistake that occurs, examine why the mistake was made. Dig deep to find the root cause, especially if it is an organizational issue. Once that root cause is found, change whatever needs to be changed so that the potential of that mistake ever happening again is as near to zero as you can make it. If someone does a good job on a fire, or other call, take the time to figure out why that person or crew performed that action. Once you come up with that root cause, find out how you can encourage that behavior so that it can be reproduced again and again.
Once all of this information
is put into a format that can be easily digested, put it out to the
entire organization and ensure that it is reinforced. This way,
everybody (even B-shifters) can learn from others'
experiences. This is a force multiplier. Be honest, how many of you
have a program that even remotely creates this type of learning
environment? I’m sure that not many of us do this. But it is
vital to get your organization to move forward with instilling lessons
learned. If you can’t get your organization to be smarter, get
your crew to become smarter. If your crew wants to stay stupid, don’t
be trapped. Go out and talk to who ever had the last fire and get
those lessons yourself. Maybe it will be only you who has done the
upfront work of finding valuable lessons on the routine responses of
other crews that can then be used to pull a rabbit out of a hat when it
is necessary.
The final lesson that I would like to pass on might end up being a bit controversial, but it needs to be discussed. There is a movement in the American Fire Service that is potentially a killer to the concept of pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Upon some serious reflection, I am very concerned about what I will call the “overly safety-conscious culture” of some of our peers who are starting to advocate the reduction of interior attacks on most structure fires. Their position generally goes something like this: fires are more dangerous now than they have ever been. Fires will double in size and intensity every 30 seconds. They are releasing more heat than ever before due to the contents of the structures. There are more flashovers than ever before. Also, lightweight construction produces the expectation of catastrophic collapses once the structural members are exposed to fire. Given all of these danger signs and the fact that most of our calls to structure fires do not involve the rescue of viable victims, we should not be performing interior attacks as often as we do.
I can’t disagree with many
of their statements, although they are at times inflated and taken out
of context. For instance, does a fire really double every 30
seconds? The potential is there; in fact, the potential is there
for a fire to do more than double in 30 seconds. It could explode which
will send the “doubling rate” off the charts. But this is a “potential”
outcome, not an inevitable outcome, because there are a lot of factors
that must be in alignment (the right amount of oxygen and fuel available
in the right percentage mixture with the right ventilation profile) to
cause the fire to double instead of moving into a decay or smoldering
state. I also won’t disagree with the effort to help firefighters
be more safe and effective. But I think that there will be some
unintended consequences if the fire service begins to adopt too many
mandatory rules, regulations, and silver bullets relating to performing
an interior attack or not.
I got a brief look into this
concept while attending one of the Denver Professional Development
classes. The class was on engine company operations and the
instructor was showing a video that I have seen many times. There
is a good working fire in a “story and a half” residence in a major
eastern city. The fire is in the upstairs living area and it is
putting out a large volume of heavy, dense, and under pressure smoke out
the front window on the street side of the building. The department
put a ladder up and sent a firefighter into the window with a handline.
He was quickly convinced, by “Mr. Superheated Smoke,” this was a bad
idea; and he smartly retreated from this position. The department
proceeded to chase this fire from the exterior and eventually, I’m
sure that it was extinguished. I asked the instructor why the
department didn’t attack it from the interior stairs, and he said that
the stairs were gone due to some reason, not because they had been
burned out by this fire and not because it was a vacant building or a
building ready to collapse, but for some other reason that only can be
explained by big-city, low-income areas and the issues that they have. I
asked the instructor how he would have attacked this fire, and he said
that he would have created a “stairway” using a 24-foot ladder so
that they could make an attempt at an interior attack. This became an
interesting discussion. I asked, “Why would you risk crews on a
building without a stairwell,” and he replied “for training.” He
went on to explain that he knew that the building was structurally
sound. and why wouldn’t you take the time to use a fire, as long as
you can control the situation and have all the things in place to ensure
a safe operation, to train your crews for future situations. He was
in essence showing how crews can use a real call to train for the day
when a rabbit needs to be pulled out of a hat.
I am not advocating that you
take every fire and make it into a training burn, but there is an
important principle here. No matter how hard we advocate for safer
fireground operations by using exterior attacks, interior attacks will
never go away. To those who say that we shouldn’t be risking ourselves
on interior attacks where there is no civilian life hazard, I have
something for you to think over. I’m sure that you will agree
during the course of your career you will be faced with reports of a
trapped occupant and when you arrive, the “rescue profile” is good,
there is survivable space somewhere in the fire building. You are going
to make the right call and institute an interior attack. Here’s a
question: if you have spent most of your time performing initial
exterior attacks transitioning into an interior attack, how good are you
going to be at that interior attack that is setting the stage for a
civilian rescue? My bet is that you’re rolling the dice instead
of being prepared to accomplish the seemingly impossible act of pulling
a rabbit from a hat. Deliberate practice matters if you want to be an
expert. And I hope that all of you want to be an expert on that day
when you get the chance of a career to actually save a civilian life
from a burning structure. We need to practice interior attacks. We need
to make good decisions about when to practice interior attacks. Put
those two acts together and we can accomplish great things.
Super Bowl Sunday is a
fairly sacred day for most Americans, especially at Fire Station 2. They
are a very conscientious group, performing their necessary duties and
daily activities. But on Super Bowl Sunday, they will get
everything done early so they can watch the game. Why do they do
this? I would say that at least one of the reasons why is because they
like imaging themselves on the field playing for the world championship
of the National Football League. Most of us dream of being the best
at something, and as kids growing up, we dreamt of being a Super Bowl
Champ. So, let’s go back to Station 2. It’s the third quarter of the
game, and so far it’s been a great game. The tones go off and a
first-alarm assignment is dispatched to a possible apartment fire. Units
en route see a smoke column, and Engine 2 and Truck 2 know that they’ll
have a working fire. Upon arrival, the crews are presented with the
following scene:
Bystanders are yelling that
there is a victim in the window that is marked with the red arrow. Truck
2 is assigned to make the grab with Engine 2 providing
assistance. You just went from watching the Super Bowl to being in
it. This is a career fire. You won’t get many more chances like this
to save a life. Isn’t this why you signed up to be a
firefighter? Will you be able to pull this rabbit out of your hat?
TRIVIA
ANSWER: Johnny Quest’s sidekick was: HADJI [Back
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