Oscar Wilde, an Irish poet who died in 1900, has a very famous quote that is still quite relevant in today’s fire service: “Experience is a very hard and expensive teacher. It gives the test first, then you get to learn your lessons.” This is so true for any new company officer (CO) in this modern fire service.
The CO is the most important position in the fire service. COs are the backbone and primary leaders of all fire departments. Chiefs may set the policy and procedures, as well as write the rules and regulations, but nothing gets accomplished without the CO. We are talking about lieutenants and captains and, in some departments, the senior firefighters. These are the people who run the shifts, platoons, and companies. They are in most cases first-line supervisors. Captains could easily be considered mid-level managers, depending on the department structure.
Their primary job is to see to it that the work that needs to be done gets done in a safe and efficient manner, whether it is stretching an attack hoseline or washing the apparatus after a call. They keep the stations functioning smoothly and hopefully harmoniously. This article is not about station duty. It focuses on the most dangerous and stressful aspect of the job: preparing your firefighters and leading them into battle.
First and foremost, as the CO, you need to tell your people what your expectations are.
This is a partial list but a good starting point.
If your crew is not performing to your expectations, it is probably your fault for not explaining your expectations adequately. Communication is critical to successful operations. Talk to them. Spend time with them. Train them. Learn from them.
As the CO, your job is to lead your crew at emergencies and then prepare them to respond to the next emergency. If you are not training, you are neglecting one of your basic jobs. You do not need to be a certified instructor to train your crew. If you are unsure of a specific subject matter, learn it.
Prioritize your training. Don’t be teaching trench rescue until your crew is well versed in all the basics of firefighting: hose handling, suppression techniques, ladders, forcible entry, search, self-rescue, pumps and hydraulics, and tools and equipment. Whenever I had a new person assigned to my shift, whether that person was a new firefighter or a senior person, I would conduct ground ladder drills. Assign a crew, with the new person, to remove and raise the biggest ground ladder available. If it was a 3-fly 49-footer, that was great. If all you have is a 24-footer, so be it. It’s a good drill to test teamwork and check skill levels. It’s also one of the most important skills needed on a fireground. If you need to make a rescue, you and the crew better be very good at working with the ground ladder, even if the crew is you and one firefighter.
Keep your crew focused on firefighting. That’s where they are most likely to get hurt, or worse. And that’s where our leadership skills and abilities are tested to the maximum. It’s also what we tend to do the least. They do so much EMS work that they can easily forget about firefighting. Talk fire as often as possible. Coffee break training is a great way to stay focused. Use the media and social media as well as fire service periodicals to find out what is happening and then talk about that incident while having morning coffee.
Be a positive role model. Always lead by example and lead from the front. Take care of your people and set high expectations. They will surprise you and work to those expectations. Be consistent in your actions and be fair on how you treat them and if necessary, discipline them. Remember, a well-disciplined team is not a team that is punished. It is a team that is well trained and coached well. We need to be better coaches. After every incident, do an incident review; reinforce good work and correct poor work or bad behavior. Watch the coaches from the New England Patriots. They are continuously coaching the players–veterans and rookies alike, it doesn’t matter. Work to make them better. We must consistently do good work, not just occasionally. There is no place for mediocrity in the fire service.
Be adaptable. Understand your own limitations as well as those of your crew. If you make a mistake, admit it and move on. If they make a mistake, correct it; don’t let bad things fester. We do not get replays. We get one shot at it. If we mess up on the fireground, the consequences are usually very bad.
At the fireground, you must make decisions, and usually these are made with minimal and sometimes poor information. Theodore Roosevelt said, “In any moment of decision, the best thing to do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, the worst thing to do is nothing.” Determine the priority and decide what to do. What will have the greatest impact on the situation? Getting water on the fire is always a good decision. Even the smallest crew should be able to deploy an attack hoseline and get water flowing within two minutes of arrival.
General George Patton said, “Don’t try and make the circumstances fit your plans. Make the plan fit the circumstance.” If you see that something is not working, fix it, but don’t be wishy washy. You must be able to adapt to the changing fireground because the fire will not adapt to your plans. Try not to get tunnel vision because you can easily get blindsided. As a young CO, this is very difficult to overcome.
The fireground priorities are life safety, stabilize the incident, protect, and conserve property. Protecting and saving life is always the number one priority. However, in most circumstances, the best tactic to achieve life safety is attack the fire. If you have someone in imminent danger and you must start a rescue, you must get water on the fire as fast as possible; otherwise, the threat to your firefighters and the victim–and any unseen victims–will increase at an extremely rapid rate. FDNY Deputy Chief (Ret.) Vincent Dunn said, “The proper positioning of a hoseline by the first attack hose team at a house fire saves more lives than any other single action.”
COs should use the acronym S-LICERS to assist them in the early stages of the fire. Size-up the fire. Locate the fire. Identify and control the flow path. Cool the space. Extinguish the fire. Rescue and Salvage as needed. A size-up is critical so that you can determine the fire’s location, see if there are any victims in need of rescue, get information about the building you are going to be working in, and hopefully gain some knowledge about the type of construction. Before you give assignments, do a walk-around of the building. Try to see as much as possible. However, it is not always possible to do a complete 360. A very important component of size-up is the type of construction and occupancy. Is it residential vs. commercial? Occupancy can drive the fire load and therefore significantly impact fire behavior and growth. Size-up will help you locate the fire. Is it in the basement or an upper floor? You must be able to identify the type of construction, especially if the structure uses lightweight components. Looking at a building and trying to determine its age and construction takes years of practice. Hopefully, you have a system of preplans and a system of red flagging buildings. A simple rule: Any new construction is lightweight construction. You need to be able to look at a building and determine roughly when it was built and the predominant type of construction for that era. Study building construction and how buildings burn.
After the size-up the most important assignment is to get water on the fire as quick as possible. This could be from the front yard or from the interior. But you must start cooling the ceiling area near the seat of the fire as quickly as possible. This will slow the fire’s progress and lower the temperatures inside the structure as well as reduce the production of toxic smoke. I fully support interior fire attack. However, your staffing levels on scene dictate how aggressive you can be. It is okay to start the attack through a window from the outside.
The best place for the CO is with the crew, especially if they are going inside. If it is a defensive attack or starting as a transitional attack, the hose crew can function without you. Your job is to make sure they get the task done. Help them complete the task, if necessary. Watch the area around them for signs of deteriorating fire conditions. Tell the pump operator to watch for exterior changing conditions. Use your portable radio to give assignments to incoming units. If necessary, tell the pump operator to go with the crew. The pump should take care of itself once properly set. The tank water will last several minutes. (In every department that I worked for (five), this was standard practice. We had little choice. We had minimal staffing, and most initial attacks happened with two to six firefighters. I didn’t like it or agree with it, but it was reality.)
Have a plan of action; however, keep it simple and realistic. Work to keep the fire as small as possible. Locate the fire, confine the fire, then extinguish the fire. Focus on no more than three tasks at a time. As you get more experience, you will learn to expand this number. But as a new CO, focus on three tasks. Stretch an attack hose to the front door, vent the window in the fire room, start a backup hose line. Once those three are completed, then start the next three. Start a search off the attack line, throw a ladder to the second-floor front and VEIS the bedroom, stretch a third line to the exposure or floor above. Always remember that your task level assignments are limited by your resources on scene. The priorities never change, but on-scene staffing will dictate what gets done.
Call for help early. Don’t hesitate to strike alarms because you do not have enough help to do all the things that need to be done. You will not have a dedicated crew to rescue any firefighters in trouble for a long time, so be cautious about where you put your people. If things are going wrong, don’t be afraid to hold your people back or pull them from the building.
CO is a complicated job that can be very rewarding. Take care of your people and they will take care of you. Remember, you are the boss. Act like one. Don’t let ego and pride interfere with your leadership and decision making. If you are in doubt about the situation, hold them back.
Kenneth L. Erickson has 40 years of service between Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Most recently, he spent 18 years as chief of the Laconia (NH) Fire Department before retiring. He has an associate degree in fire science and a bachelor’s degree in fire administration from Providence College. He attended the National Fire Academy, the University of Maryland Staff and Command School, and the Massachusetts Fire Academy Chief Officer Management School.