Terminology often seems trivial. How we define the terms we use and how we see the relationship between various terms affects our perception of the activity we are trying to explain.

There are times when comedy is very poignant. Comedian George Carlin often did routines about how we use and misuse the English language and its terminology. One such routine pointed out that during World War I, soldiers suffering emotional or psychological problems from being exposed to the sights and sounds of the war were said to have been shell-shocked — two simple words, two syllables. In World War II, soldiers suffering emotional or psychological problems from being exposed to the sights and sounds of the war were said to be suffering battle fatigue — two words, four syllables. By the end of the Vietnam War, soldiers suffering emotional or psychological problems from being exposed to the sights and sounds of the war were said to have post-traumatic stress syndrome — four words, seven syllables. Carlin argued that perception of the problem changed each time, as soldiers went from being shocked, to fatigued, to stressed. As a result, our actions and reactions to these soldiers and their problems also may have changed.

A similar point can be made regarding the terminology associated with firefighting strategies and tactics and incident command. On the fireground, understanding and engaging in the most appropriate activity is the ultimate goal. That is why it is important to understand the concepts behind the terminology in use.

There is no point in arguing for one nationally accepted list of terms and definitions. We all know that has been tried before. But to put a twist on a modern-day cliché, if we understand the talk, we'll be better able to walk the walk.

With the mounting administrative responsibilities, the increased emphasis on incident management systems, and the decreased number of actual fires, chief officers today seem to be less knowledgeable, skilled and confident when it comes to their core responsibilities: basic fireground strategy and tactics.

As a result, many chief officers either over use or under use some form of the Incident Command System. A thorough understanding of fireground strategy and tactics is needed to apply an ICS properly. For example, the chief officer's size-up will dictate her strategy, which will dictate her tactics. This in turn will dictate the type and amount or resources needed to bring the incident under control, which will dictate the size and scope of the ICS needed to command and control those resources. How successful incident commanders are on the fireground has as much to do with their understanding of firefighting strategy and tactics as it does with their understanding of the system put in place to manage the incident.

Throughout the years, the term used for the person in charge of a fire scene has changed. The officer in charge became the fireground commander, who later became the incident commander. In the past, this person was almost always the highest-ranking chief on the scene. The philosophy most widely accepted today says this is not necessarily so. It doesn't really matter who is in command of the fires, as long as someone is. Each department must develop a workable method to determine who this is going to be based on the circumstances that department faces.

The critical point to remember is that the most accurate definition of who is in charge or in command of a fire is the person who ultimately is saddled with the responsibility of what happens at that fire. And, if that person ultimately is responsible for the final outcome of the fire, then that person must have the right to call the shots and issue the orders that ultimately will affect that outcome.

The term National Incident Management System seemingly is replacing the term Incident Command System. What perception does the words management or manager conjure up versus the perception that the words command or commander conjure up? Management is defined as conducting or supervising something. Command is defined as directing something in an authoritative manner or exercising a dominant influence over something. Command presence is the confident attitude a chief officer has and projects to others; it is when he is in complete control of himself and the situation. Most chief officers strive to have a command presence when working an incident. It is hard to imagine a chief officer who wants to be known for his “management presence” on an incident scene.

An emergency operations center activated to coordinate the efforts of multiple agencies working in a unified command system needs to be well managed. A fireground simply needs to be commanded. So, from this point on when discussing fireground strategy and tactics, the chief officer in charge of the fireground will be called the incident commander, and the system put in place to command and control the incident will be the Incident Command System.

Over the years, the term size-up has been described as the mental evaluation made by the officer in charge of a fire or other emergency that enables him to determine a course of action; as an evaluation of a complicated fire problem, necessary before intelligent assignments of resources may be made; and, an evaluation of problems and conditions that affect the outcome of the fire Simply put, size-up is weighing the situation at hand against the resources available. It is assessing what the problem is and what is needed to deal with it.

The term incident analysis is simply a modern-day expression for the same concept. The three most important points to remember about conducting a size-up or an incident analysis are:

• The incident priorities a chief officer sets and her entire plan of action is going to be based on her initial size-up. Therefore, conducting an accurate initial size-up is critical.
• A chief officer's size-up must not be based only on the current conditions, but also on predicted conditions five, 10 or more minutes out.
• Since the fireground is a dynamic place, a chief officer must constantly be sizing up what is going on and be willing and able to adjust the plan of action accordingly.

It doesn't matter if the responders are from the largest career department or the smallest volunteer company, the situation at a working fire often will outweigh the resources immediately available. Therefore, the incident commander will have to develop initial priorities. The question becomes which items are most critical to address first when there are limited resources.

As early as the 1940s, Lloyd Layman introduced a set of firefighting priorities to aid in training chief officers to recognize these priorities. Layman's list is still very useful today. In it, size-up is listed vertically on the left to represent that size-up is an ongoing process throughout the duration of the incident. The five core priorities — rescue, exposures, confinement, extinguishment and overhaul — are listed in the typical sequence of priority. Ventilation, salvage and water supply are listed vertically on the right to indicate the need for any of them may arise and, therefore, can be addressed at any point during the incident.

In the 1980s, Alan Brunacini introduced a list of three fireground tactical priorities to simplify the matter. This list indicates that any step needed to address life safety takes precedence over steps to control the fire. And steps to control the fire take precedence over steps to conserve property.

Whichever list a chief officer prefers to use, he must develop some type of consistent method to help him recognize conditions and establish priorities quickly. Once the incident commander establishes his priorities, he can decide on his overall strategy and related tactics.

Strategy and tactics are two terms that often are used together, and sometimes used interchangeably. However, they have two separate meanings, and it is important to understand the differences. First of all, always refer to strategy and tactics, not tactics and strategy. This might seem petty, but it reflects an understanding of the entire concept. A strategy must be developed or decided on before tactics are chosen. In fact, the incident commander might simply decide on the strategy and leave it up to sector or division commanders to choose the tactics.

Strategy refers to the overall plan, goal or the desired outcome, which is why it is often a singular term. Tactics then refers to how the plan is to be carried out, or the desired goal achieved, often involving multiple objectives. The actual steps the firefighters take to carry out the tactics are called tasks. This is why we refer to incident commanders as functioning on the strategic level, while other chief officers and company officers function on the tactical level, and company officers and firefighters function on the task level.

In simplest terms, strategy is the what and why. Tactics are the how and who. Here are two examples to illustrate this relationship. The first involves a single-story strip shopping center. Heavy fire is venting from the front display windows of one store in the center of the complex and smoke is showing from the eaves of the structure. There is no life hazard (see the photo on page 60).

One chief officer faced with this situation might see the priority as protecting the exposures and confining the fire. To accomplish this overall goal, she would order the first-arriving companies to stretch handlines into the stores on either side of the fire store (or maybe even two stores away on either side, to ensure getting ahead of the fire), and have them pull the ceilings and apply water to cut of the horizontal spread of fire. These would be the tactics employed to achieve the goal. The firefighters then would carry out the actual tasks of stretching the hose lines, pulling the ceilings and squirting the water.

Another chief officer faced with the same situation might see the priority as extinguishing the fire as quickly as possible to reduce or eliminate the main problem. His strategy, or overall goal, would be to achieve a rapid knockdown. Therefore, those tactics would include having the initial companies deploy a large-volume master stream into the display windows. Again, the firefighters would carry out the actual tasks of setting up the master stream and flowing the water.

The second example involves a 3-story apartment building early in the morning. Fire involves a first-floor apartment and is extending out the apartment door and into the interior stairway. Several people are trapped on upper floors and seen at windows calling for help (see photo at left). Any chief officer would see the priority in this situation as rescue or life safety. Therefore, the strategy would be to save as many people as possible, as quickly as possible.

To achieve this goal, one chief officer might choose to order the first-arriving companies to throw ground ladders to those in the most danger to conduct their prompt removal. Another chief officer faced with the same situation, might choose to order the first-in company to stretch an attack line into the structure to control the fire in the interior stairway so that other initial companies could get up the stairs to conduct the rescues. In this example, the strategy is the same, but the tactics chosen to achieve the strategy are different.

In today's terminology, once a strategy is decided on, the tactics are addressed by establishing an incident action plan. The IAP refers to the list of tasks needed to be carried out to achieve the chosen strategy and who is going to carry them out.

One of the differences among poor, good and excellent incident commanders is an understanding of why they select particular strategies and tactics. Poor incident commanders aren't sure what to do from the start or always select the same strategy and tactics regardless of conditions. Good incident commanders, depending on the conditions, recognize and select their strategy based on a preferred, predetermined set of fireground priorities (such as Layman's Fundamentals of Fire Fighting or Brunacini's Tactical Priorities), or the department's standard operating guidelines. Excellent incident commanders recognize and select their strategies based on a true understanding of the fireground conditions they are facing.

Consider the previous example of the strip mall fire. A poor chief officer, not knowing what else to do, might select the strategy of an aggressive interior attack by ordering the use of a 1I-inch preconnect advanced through the rear of the store. He does this because making an aggressive interior attack from the unburned side with a 1I-inch preconnect is what works on 95% of the fires he commands.

Recognizing this is not a typical 95th percentile fire, a good chief officer might move two stores down because she has learned the proper sequence of priorities is to protect exposures first, confine the fire, then extinguish the fire. Or, she might go for a quick knockdown simply because a departmental guideline calls for the use of master streams on working commercial fires.

An excellent chief would choose either to move two stores down to cut-off the horizontal spread of the fire or go for a quick knockdown, based on recognizing and understanding the size of the store and its fire load versus how much water the first-in companies can deliver to the fire in the first two minutes; seeing any signs that the fire has gotten into the common attic space or not; or, perhaps which crew is on the first-in engine.

Poor fireground outcomes are usually the result of one or more of the following:

• Failure of the incident commander to conduct a proper size-up of current and potential conditions,
• Failure of the incident commander to choose a strategy that fits the situation at hand,
• Failure of the incident commander or other officers to employ the proper tactics to achieve the strategy,
• Failure of firefighting companies to carry out their assigned tasks properly, and
• Failure of the incident commander to maintain command and control over the entire incident.

Notice that the responsibility for at least four of these five possibilities rests with the incident commander. Now, chief officers from all sizes and types of departments can tell stories of being driven to the brink of strangling someone when their brilliant strategic idea and sound tactical plans were foiled because the first-in engine looked like the Keystones Kops trying to deploy the first hose line, or because the ladder crew acted like its 35-foot extension ladder just appeared from Mars an hour ago, or because no one remembered what an ax was when the power saw wouldn't start.

But, even in these cases, good chief officers will look at themselves. They will ask, who is responsible for ensuring that these people are adequately trained and drilled? Ultimately it is fire chief and chief officers. They are the ones who set basic, fundamental, task-level training of fire companies as a high priority and do not succumb to the myriad of excuses for not training. The sad reality is that sometimes a smart chief will alter his strategy or tactics simply because of who is arriving on that first-in engine. The smart chief officer, like Carlin, will understand changing industry terminology and how to use it to improve fireground command.

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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.