The moment of truth has arrived; it is time to make a decision. How will you engage? You have made a needs assessment so it should be easy to just make assignments and go to work. This all seems so simple but there is another step before you pull your gloves on and go to work, because not every need can be met right away. This “decision” phase next involves the concept of not only what needs to be done but what can be realistically done at the moment that you are making the decision of committing or engaging resources. Even departments that are blessed with an unlimited pool of manpower and equipment are limited in what can be accomplished in the early stages of an emergency. The concept here is that certain factors must be applied to the needs at hand to decide what “can” be completed during the various phases of the emergency. What are these factors that play such an important role? A basic but not comprehensive list includes:  the situation itself; available resources; departmental equipment and area or regional equipment available; personal experience; department policy, procedure, and doctrine; tactical priorities and the specific objectives and goals laid down by the incident commander.

The situation that you face can force your hand regarding what needs can be met. For instance, you have a well involved room or two with fire blowing out of the windows exposing the house next door which is starting to catch on fire. Your basic needs assessment says that the interior fire needs to be confined and extinguished to prevent interior extension to other areas of the house and the structure needs to be searched for victims. However, you have the need to also confine the fire to the structure of origin. If possible, you would like to make an interior attack with enough resources to provide support functions such as forcible entry, ventilation, and search while at the same time, another company or two will prevent the second structure from becoming another casualty by extinguishing the extending fire and searching for any victims or other fire in hidden areas of the second structure. Let’s say that there are enough resources on scene to accomplish all of the needs. How can this situation dictate that only certain of the expected needs can be accomplished? How about the initial house with the two rooms on fire; it is vacant and in a derelict condition with holes in the floor and squatters having created other hazards. The second house is occupied. You’re still going to confine and extinguish the rooms on fire, but the exposed house has become the main need and the 1st house is secondary with thoughts of an interior attack pushed to the background.  What if the 1st house is occupied and the second is vacant? 

Building construction, as a situational factor, can also drive what can be done. A well involved attic fire that has burned for more than five minutes creates a whole new set of what can be done. The needs for an attic fire are to expose the involved area and confine the fire to the least amount of damage as possible. With a lightweight construction situation that has burned for 5 minutes or more, the need of exposing (opening up) the attic can only be done from positions of protection which means not under and not above. We could go on forever with situational conditions that take your needs and force you to reconsider what is realistically possible in terms of your engagement.

Having the resources available to meet the needs of an emergency situation is probably the most common dilemma facing the initial arriving company officer or incident commander. Going back to our initial example of the two houses, one with multiple rooms burning and the other an exposure building, causes the decision maker to have to take their needs assessment (fire attack, ventilation, search, water supply, etc.) and apply how many personnel that they have available to accomplish the necessary tactics. If there is only a single engine company than most of the time, the first crew will deploy a line and protect the exposure, trying to confine the initial fire to the building of origin.  This deployment can change if the initial company has four or more personnel onboard. The possibility exists that two lines could be deployed and two needs could be attacked at once. The whole two-in-two-out argument also can play a role in this factor when there is no exemption (no one is inside- for sure) and the situation calls for an interior attack but there are not enough resources on scene to create the two out position. Resources, or the lack of them, will always cause the initial company officer to consider the level and type of engagement that can take place.

Departmental equipment available can take two sides that I can think of. The first thought involves what piece of equipment shows up first. Again back to our two house fire scenario, what will a truck company officer do if they are the first to arrive on scene? The needs assessment will not change. But what can the truck company do? They cannot lay hose unless they are a Quint. They could make rescues or searches, but the situation will dictate if this is possible. There is a real limit to what some pieces of equipment can do when they arrive first. This doesn’t mean that they will not engage in the decision and action cycle, but it will be different than what an engine company can accomplish. What if the scenario that we have been discussing happens in a rural, “non-hydranted” area? Again the needs of a basic structure fire will not change, but a limited water supply and the timeframe of obtaining a secure supply source will cause the needs to be reevaluated by what is possible. The second side of available equipment is when the first responding agency does not have the capability to engage the problem to a full degree. Consider a Haz Mat response. The needs assessment revolves around securing the site, preventing the extension of the product and the emergency, identifying the product, and trying to mitigate the problem. What do you do when the responding hazardous material team is coming from the next county? This changes what first responders can do. They still engage by setting up hazard zones, protecting exposures, and denying any entry to the hot zone, but they need to wait for more specialized equipment and personnel until they can meet all of the needs of the particular situation.

Personal experience is another factor that can dictate what can be done. Let’s imagine that I have a good working fire that needs a solid interior attack. If I have an inexperienced person and we are first on scene, I may want to consider if this is a reasonable situation to take this inexperienced person into. I can envision this happening more in a rural, volunteer setting, but I have had certain folks that I have had assigned on a given day that I would be wary to taking into certain situations. Sometimes you may know what needs to be done, but the experience level of your team requires a different approach.

Your departmental situation, its policy, procedures, and doctrines can also dictate backing off from the “needs” of the moment to the “cans” of the situation that you face. A retired FDNY deputy chief taught about a concept called sequential and concurrent firefighting. What this means is that some departments can have an awful lot of resources on scene within seconds of each other.  There are enough personnel to accomplish multiple tactics at once. This is called concurrent firefighting, everything can happen at once. Although I work for a medium sized fire department, there are certain response areas where multiple companies show up basically on top of each other. We can therefore deploy and work in a concurrent fashion. Sequential firefighting involves the opposite where the response arrives in a piecemeal fashion and tactics need to be prioritized because of a lack of resources on scene. The acronym, RECEO, was developed to help initial arriving company and chief officers prioritize necessary tactics or needs. Although all of the needs of RECEO must be done, in a light resource model, only some tactics can be done at a time.

Finally the tactical priorities or the ordered objectives and goals of the incident commander can cause the initial company officer to have to make some decisions regarding “cans” versus “needs”. We just discussed the RECEO acronym and it has produced the concept that “rescue” or life safety is always our number 1 priority at any emergency scene. Even though this is our number 1 priority need, does this mean that it will always be accomplished first or can it always be accomplished first? Many, many times, the need may be to search or rescue, but this can’t be accomplished until the fire is confined and the building ventilated. See, the need must be supplanted by the can. I may not be able to perform rescue due to heavy fire and smoke involvement. So I must do what I can, put water on the fire and create a tenable space in the building so that my search or rescue crews have a better chance at success. There can also be a huge change in what can be done when certain hazards shut off portions of the emergency scene. For instance, there was a recent scenario given to an officer candidate during a drill. A vehicle had hit a power pole bringing an energized line down on top of the vehicle. There was a victim inside who needed extrication. The power line had not only fallen down on the vehicle, it had also started a fire in the brush next to a house which was extending into the house. So there was a victim that needed rescue in the vehicle, there was a fire extending into a structure that needed to be confined, and the structure needed to be searched for victims and fire extension. We would always prioritize the life safety, but what could be done? The power line had effectively created a “no go” zone around the vehicle. What can the initial company do? The vehicle needed a handline for protection and an individual to keep the victim from trying to self extricate, but any other resources needed to be redeployed to the other needs. So the victim could not be dealt with immediately but other issues suddenly became “cans”.

So we end the decision phase with a decision, or a set of decisions. We have observed our scene, oriented to the problems, and decided what direction we need (or can) go. It is now time for action. The company officer needs to engage.

WHERE DO I (THE COMPANY OFFICER) FIT IN? (ACTION OR ENGAGEMENT)

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