Some would call it “Superman complex” and some fire department personnel just call it reckless. Whatever you would like to call freelancing on the fire ground, it is downright dangerous. Freelancing occurs when a person strays from the group and acts independently or as a “lone wolf” from what the initial objective is.
The Scenario
It’s 2:30 a.m. and the alarm sounds for a structure fire with one person trapped inside the kitchen. Crews mount up and proceed to 123 House St. After arriving on scene, the incident commander establishes command and declares the first arriving engine company as “fire attack” and commands the second engine company to establish a Rapid Intervention Team (RIT) to back up the fire attack team and resupply the first engine with water from a hydrant upon arrival.
Fire attack conducts a safety check of each other’s gear and checks for a hot door, which would indicate if there is fire on the other side. While entering the facility, fire attack decides to break off and check different rooms in order to find the kitchen more quickly.
After making a wrong turn in the facility, one of the fire attack members becomes disoriented and declares a “mayday” over the radio, which alerts all personnel there is a problem inside the structure. The other member of fire attack locates his partner and drags him to safety outside the structure. He is then treated by medics.
Meanwhile, A second fire attack team knocks down the fire, but has to perform a body recovery (death of a victim) of the missing person instead of a rescue (rescue of a victim still alive.)
Lessons Learned
- Freelancing was apparent in that the fire attack team went to separate rooms looking for the kitchen and victim.
- The mayday call resulted in lost time to rescue the victim and nearly resulted in the death of a firefighter.
- Never leave your partner unless you can maintain some form of verbal or visual communication.
Preventing Freelancing
Training is paramount. There’s no way around it — training needs to be used to underscore the importance of maintaining constant communication during fire ground operations.
Another way to eliminate freelancing is to have some pre-determined assignments for arriving personnel established in department operating guides or procedures. These can outline operations dealing with anything from a simple automatic fire alarm to a one-two- or three-alarm structure fire. This will help all personnel on scene understand and know exactly what they should be doing once they get on scene. Lastly, it gives the incident commander a thorough view of where and what each crew is currently doing on scene.
In Summary
Simply put, when a crew is assigned to perform a certain task it is critical that the crew does exactly what it is supposed to be doing.
[link url=”http://firefighterclosecalls.com/” title=”Be safe.”]
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