Some years ago I was tasked with preparing a training class for incident commanders. The class was to examine incidents where firefighters were killed, with the objective of learning lessons from those incidents.

One of the most glaring problems to come from my examination of those fires was the role played by incident commanders. Command confusion was a contributing factor in many of the incidents. Time and again, the on-scene incident commanders were unable to keep track of a rapidly changing situation as they assigned units and established a strategy for the incident. As their situational awareness of the fire and unit placement decreased, the chances of their decisions contributing to the eventual death of a firefighter increased.

An IC's ability to track and manage incident complexities is critical to firefighter safety. The most important safety tool that a department can implement is an aide to the incident commander, someone whose sole job is to monitor operations and support the IC during an incident. In today's environment of cost-cutting, however, a person dedicated as an aide is rarely feasible. Fortunately, technology provides an alternative to the need for dedicated staff.

Diverse features

A computer is a powerful tool, too powerful to be used for a single purpose on an incident scene. It should be used not only for dispatching the unit to the scene, as some departments do, but for supporting operations on that scene. With the right software, that computer can become the incident commander's aide that's so important to firefighter safety.

FieldSoft Inc. of Chandler, Ariz., has produced such an incident management tool. AIMSonScene is an electronic incident worksheet that documents the incident as it happens and uses visual and auditory prompts to assist the field commander with important aspects of the incident.

To start the program, an IC chooses an incident type from a preloaded pick list. With each type of incident, a department's SOPs, incident management organization of divisions and groups, benchmarks, operational objectives, and specific task assignments are preloaded and ready for use. Because a department's SOPs are preloaded on unusual or specialized incidents, such as hazmat or collapse, the program acts as a reference to guide the IC through an unfamiliar incident type.

The IC can click on a unit's icon to assign it to a specific functional or geographic area on the fireground. Clicking again assigns tasks to the unit or sets a count-up stopwatch to monitor how long a unit has been operating within a structure. This provides the commander with the information needed to assign relief crews in a timely manner. The IC also can move or swap units between divisions or groups with mouse clicks.

Each event is automatically written to a date- and time-stamped event log. Voice technology prompts the user to create personnel accountability reports at predetermined intervals set by a department. The software also will prompt the user by sight and sound to periodically check the incident strategy (offensive, marginal or defensive). As benchmarks are reached, the IC can touch the screen to capture the time the benchmark was completed.

A simple drawing tool allows a commander to sketch the building quickly and easily. Pre-fire plan drawings can be preloaded and used to track the incident. Units can be dragged and dropped on to the drawing to see their physical location as well as their division or group. User-configured timers will automatically save marked-up drawings to the event log for after-action reporting or incident critiquing.

A checklist feature allows users to create, store, retrieve and use an unlimited number of departmental checklists. Department policies and procedures, phone numbers, and other information can be stored by the program and accessed with the tactical browser. Notes on reports or conditions can be added with a field at the bottom of the page. The note is posted to the log with a time stamp.

Personal experience

I was first exposed to incident command software in 1999 during the Florida wildfires. After downloading a copy, my department was using it within hours for the units assisting other agencies in five different counties. While our needs didn't fit what AIMSonScene was designed to do, a few simple changes to the software's setup allowed us to track these units and incidents over the next three days.

Others have had similar experiences to my own. For example, a New Jersey fire department communications unit with a trial version of the software had the product up and running within minutes of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The unit then used the software for the next 11 hours. More recently, a U.S Air Force unit conducting fixed-wing medical evacuation flights following Hurricane Katrina installed a loaned copy of the software, configured it, and then used it to manage the medevac of hundreds of patients.

Portable computers are too powerful not to be leveraged to the fullest. The use of computer technology to support field operations is a vital step for the fire service. Though operations have become more complex, the tools an IC has at hand to manage that event haven't changed. Incident commanders still use simple paper and pencil. It's time we begin to leverage the cheap and readily available hardware and software tools to make the fireground a safer and more efficient operational environment.

Roger C. Huder is an emergency response consultant with over 30 years of experience in emergency management.