Flames bathe the chief's SUV in an orange glow and illuminate the middle of the block, as smoke and embers ride the thermal column into the star-lit sky. The chief first sees the flames lapping from the first-floor front windows of the 2H-story, wood-frame apartment house as he tries to maneuver his vehicle around the abandoned police cruisers in the street. He notices the flames coming from the Side D windows have ignited the exterior wall of another 2H-story, wood-frame apartment house 4 feet away. He pulls up on the sidewalk across the street to get his vehicle out of the way.

As the chief gets out and moves to open his rear hatch, he can feel the radiant heat. He hears shrill screams for help and, through the smoke, notices a woman in a second-story window holding an infant. One police officer kicks at the front door while the other pounds on the door of the exposure building trying to roust its occupants. A neighbor shouts profanities at the chief, demanding to know, “Where in the hell are the fire engines?” Power lines smoke in front of the apartment houses. Thick brownish smoke pushes in and out of the eaves of the fire building and more smoke starts to drift out from the eaves of the exposure building.

The chief hears a diesel engine echoing through the neighborhood and sees the reflection of emergency lights bouncing off of homes in the distance as the first-due engine approaches. He lifts his radio microphone to his mouth and tries to remain calm as he prepares to transmit his initial report and issue the first orders of the morning. What will they be?

Making decisions on the fireground can be challenging, even for the most experienced chief officers. Decisions can mean life or death, information most likely will be limited at first and slow to evolve, and time will create the pressure of urgency. And every decision the chief makes will be scrutinized after the fact, under much calmer conditions, by anyone and everyone who thinks they could have done it better.

There is a lot of research and documentation on decision-making in general, and specifically about decision-making on the fireground. Two of the most common and accepted methods of making decisions are the classical method and the naturalistic method.

The classical decision-making method is a step-by-step, logical sequence that the decision-maker goes through to reach the best decision. These steps include analyzing the situation, identifying the problem at hand, developing possible solutions to the problem, weighing the advantages and disadvantages and the risks and benefits of each option, choosing the option that best solves the problem, implementing the actions to carry-out the chosen option, and evaluating the results. Then the process starts over.

The naturalistic decision-making method is an intuitive reaction to a perceived situation. In this process, the decision maker recognizes sights, sounds, smells and other cues that trigger the memory of similar situations the decision maker has experienced or learned in the past. Actions are chosen quickly based on previous actions that successfully addressed those past situations. This method also is known as recognition-primed or cue-based decision-making.

The advantage of using the classical decision-making method is its thoroughness. In theory, it is designed to ensure that the decision maker thoroughly analyzes the situation to identify the true problem(s) that need to be addressed and forces him to explore the pros and cons of multiple options, resulting in the selection of the best course of action to be taken from the options available. It allows time to collect supporting facts and data and solicit the input of others. Fire chiefs are encouraged to use the classical decision-making method routinely when developing policies, long-range and strategic plans, and budgets, or when dealing with personnel issues.

The disadvantage to using this method on the fireground, obviously, is time. The chief facing the apartment fire doesn't have time to gather all the data and input needed to fully analyze the situation and create a list of options to be weighed and considered before selecting the best course of action. The chief must make good, sound decisions quickly so appropriate action can be taken promptly. That's why people usually call the fire department in the first place.

Time is the main advantage of using the recognition-primed method on the fireground. Using this method often isn't a conscious decision; instead it's a learned reaction to the pressures of being forced to make critical decisions in a very short amount of time.

The disadvantage to this method, however, is its reliance on the experience of the chief officer to work effectively. There are inexperienced chiefs. There are chiefs who are not going to as many fires as chiefs of the past. There are chiefs who go to the same fires over and over and suddenly find themselves confronted with a type of fire they haven't encountered. How can these chiefs make good fireground decisions in the short time they have to make them?

There are several factors that affect the decision-making process on the fireground. These include the:

1. Amount of time available to make a decision,

2. Severity of the situation,

3. Frequency of the situation,

4. Training and experience level of the chief officer, and

5. Standard operating procedures or guidelines of the department.

Time is arguably the most critical factor. Incident commanders don't have the luxury of hitting the pause button while they collect data and weigh their options. The fire will not wait for the chief's thought process to catch up. In fact, the chief's thought process must get ahead of the fire, thinking not only about what the situation is at that moment, but what the situation could become.

A chief can't hit the fast-forward button, either. Even well-trained firefighting crews need time to carry out assigned tasks, and those additional resources can't appear instantly.

Everyone is familiar with the concept of “dog years,” which claims each year in human time is equal to seven years in a dog's life. After I commanded my first fire, I quickly realized the concept of “chief minutes,” in which each minute that passes on the fireground feels like 10 minutes to the chief in command.

For example, a chief arrives at a working fire at a single-family residence. He orders the first-in engine to stretch an attack line and initiate an interior fire attack. He then radios the second-due engine to establish a water supply and pull a back-up line when it arrives. He visualizes the ladder crew arriving, laddering the roof to prepare for ventilation and conducting a primary search. He then turns around and becomes frustrated to find the first-in engine crew still is pulling the preconnect from the hosebed. In his mind, the chief is 10 minutes into the fire, but only 60 seconds have passed since the engineer of the first engine set his parking brake.

Some decisions can mean life and death. Others, while not that critical, are significant, such as writing off either a commercial structure that results in deep economic loss to the community or a small residential structure that represents a lifetime of hard work and memories to its occupant. The more severe the situation, the more pressure is placed on the chief to make decisions.

Frequency obviously affects how comfortable and confident a chief officer is when making decisions. The whole premise behind recognition-primed decision-making is that the chief has been there, done that. An experienced rural Wisconsin fire chief would struggle with commanding a fire in a 10-story tenement building, as much as a Chicago deputy chief would struggle to save a well-involved dairy barn.

Similarly, the training and experience level of the chief officer also has a great effect on his or her ability to make decisions under pressure. Recognition-based decision-making has been described through the years as a person's ability to place past experiences into a mental photo album, slide carousel or database, and quickly recall the image that most appropriately fits the current situation. Decisions are based on actions taken in the past.

The more training and experience a chief officer has, the larger photo album, slide carousel or database he or she has to draw from and the better the chances are that the chief has, at some time, encountered a similar situation. Inexperienced chiefs have limited databases to draw from, or their database consists more of tactical or task-level solutions than strategic decisions.

It is impossible to create written policies, procedures and guidelines to cover every possible situation firefighting crews may encounter. And such documents never could eliminate the need for fireground decisions. Good SOPs used during training and incident response certainly can ease the burden of decision-making for the chief officer, however. As one of Chief Alan Brunacini's Timeless Truths states, “The more routine decisions that can be made before the fire, the more time the chief has to make critical decisions on the fireground.”

Because of the pressure of time, the classical decision-making method is impractical for use on the fireground. The recognition-primed, or cue-based, method works well for seasoned chief officers, but chiefs with limited experience won't be able to rely on the method for strategic decisions. So how can these chief officers make appropriate strategic and tactical decisions?

To develop proficient decision-making skills for the fireground, chief officers must be trained to use a streamlined version of the classical decision-making process until they gain adequate experience to use the cue-based method naturally.

In his book Fire Fighting Tactics, Chief Lloyd Layman wrote, “On the fireground, it is not possible to tear a complicated situation into definite parts and thoroughly analyze each one, but it is possible to train the mind in the habit of surveying and analyzing a complicated situation in a systematic manner.”

This was the entire purpose of his Basic Division of Fire-Fighting Tactics, developed in 1953 and still taught today as RECEO VS. Layman believed that by consistently addressing the priorities of rescue, exposure, confine, extinguish, overhaul, ventilate and salvage, chief officers could train their minds to make decisions based on a systematic approach.

Similarly, Naval Lt. Commander Dale Rielage wrote, “One technique the military uses to shorten decision-making times is to establish in advance the minimum information required to make a decision in anticipated situations.… Formalizing the list of required information allows decision makers to focus their limited attention on gathering the information they truly need.…” [See “Cycles of Command, May 2001, available at www.firechief.com.]

Layman's approach gives chief officers that list. Instead of analyzing the entire problem at once and weighing all possible options, a chief officer can focus on certain aspects of the fireground and develop strategic priorities. From these priorities, he or she can make strategic and tactical decisions.

Until they can react instinctively to the cues they see before them, chief officers can ask themselves a series of questions based on these time-proven fireground priorities to help make strategic decisions.

• Is there a life hazard? If yes, then this becomes the strategic priority and primary search-and-rescue tactics can be implemented. If no, then the next item on the list is considered.
• Are there any exposures? If yes, orders are given to protect them. If no, then the chief considers the next item.
• Is the fire spreading? If yes, then initial hoselines should be placed in front of the spreading fire. If no, then the next item is considered.
• Can the fire be extinguished? If yes, then extinguishment tactics are initiated.
• Is ventilation required? If so, then appropriate ventilation tactics are ordered. And so on.

New chief officers should be schooled in this process and made to practice the skill through a series of simulated exercises, including photo-prompted, computer-generated, table-top model and/or full-scale actual exercises. Experienced chiefs could certainly hone their skills and stay fresh by participating in the same.

Chief officers also can practice and develop their decision-making skills any time through a simple windshield visualization exercise my father taught me years ago. While driving down the street, pick out a building coming up in the distance. Quickly imagine a fire scenario involving that structure, for example flames coming from the front windows or smoke pushing from the eaves. By the time you drive past the building at normal speed, you should have completed a mental size-up, given your brief initial radio report, determined your initial strategy, and decided what assignments to give your first-alarm companies.

Battalion chiefs can do this while traveling between station visits; chiefs can do this to get out of the office once in awhile to relieve stress; volunteer chiefs can do this while driving to and from work; anybody can do this while traveling with the family.

Chief officers also can increase their mental database by studying other fires. Read about them in trade journals or post-incident analysis reports. View photos and videos of the fires. Discuss the events with other chiefs. Ironically, many of the lessons learned from fires are more accurately lessons reinforced or re-emphasized. Often, the same mistakes are made repeatedly and the same successful actions consistently work. If possible, do ride-a-longs with chief officers in busier departments. Adapt and apply your observations to your own situation in your department.

Let's assume the chief pulling up to the apartment fire is a newer, less experienced chief officer. Feeling overwhelmed by the pressure to make initial decisions, he could begin by working his way through the list of questions. Is there a life hazard? Yes. Then his first decisions can center on rescuing the woman and infant, searching for other occupants, and placing hoselines to protect the crews performing both the rescue and the primary search. Is there an exposure problem? Yes. His next decisions would focus on getting water on Exposure D and getting inside the exposure to control the fire. He would continue this process until he works his way through the fireground priorities, calling for additional resources as needed.

An experienced chief pulling up on the same fire, reacting to the cues she sees, may order the first-in engine to pull a 2H-inch preconnect, quickly cool the power lines, then direct their high-volume stream into the front windows to immediately knockdown the bulk of the fire. Then the chief will reassess the situation and make her next decisions on the new cues she sees. For experienced and inexperienced chiefs alike, a well-organized thought process can slow the march of time.

---

Rick Ennis is the fire chief for the city of Cape Girardeau, Mo. He is a third-generation fire chief with more than 27 years of experience, including nearly 12 years as a fire chief. He earned an associate's degree in fire administration and a bachelor's degree in urban affairs and public administration, and is a graduate of the National Fire Academy's Executive Fire Officer program.