I was recently contacted by email from a Situational Awareness Matters member asking if aggressiveness and safety can co-exist at an emergency scene. My answer was “of course they can.” The two actions, being safe and being aggressive are not mutually exclusive. To think they are is to believe responders must sacrifice safety when they […]
Aggressiveness and Situational Awareness Read More »
I recently received an email from a firefighter asking for my opinion as to whether or not the administrative chief officers in his department should respond to reported structure fires. My initial response was: “Well, Duh! Yes!” But then I got to thinking about it more. How and when administrative chief officers respond to fires
Administrative chiefs and emergency responses Read More »
The overall number of structure fires are down nationwide. For the sake of the citizens we protect, this is a good thing. But for the sake of firefighters who need to gain valuable experience through the proverbial baptism by fire, this isn’t such a good thing. I often get asked by company officers and trainers
5 Tips For Improving Situational Awareness Through Training Read More »
I recently read an article that was talking about the process for sizing up a situation before making a decision. For clarification purposes, this was an article in a business journal, not a public safety journal. This got me thinking about size-up mistakes made on the fire ground. The author noted that the best decisions
3 Size-up Mistakes Read More »
Developing and maintaining situational awareness at an emergency scene can be a very challenging task. Scenes are often stressful, complex, time-compressed, and complicated with rapidly-changing conditions. Responders have lots of information to process and many tasks to perform. And, sadly, situational awareness isn’t always the forefront on their minds. Under such conditions, meta awareness
The inspiration for this article comes from Situational Awareness Matters member and Fire Chief, Todd Johnson, and the members of the Woodbury Fire Department. I was invited to observe a skills-based training evaluation that was more than a year in the making and involved over 100 practice exercises. The crews were dispatched to a structure
Crawl, Walk, Run Theory of Skill Development Read More »
Oftentimes during situational awareness programs, participants will share stories of incidents they have responded to, or incidents they have read about, or videos of incidents they have watched where the incident ended in a significant near-miss or a casualty. This happened recently during a program where a firefighter with 20+ years of experience showed
The Rational Brain and Situational Awareness Read More »
This is going to be, admittedly, an uncomfortable read for some. But, nonetheless it is a conversation we need to have. I need to discuss the “F” word. No, not THAT “F” word. The “F” word that is more dreaded than the F-bomb – Fear. Many first responders enjoy discussing fear as much as they
Explanations for Situational Awareness Insanity – Part 5 Read More »
This article continues the series focusing on the seemingly-insane things that some first responders do while operating in high-stress, high-consequence environments. Oftentimes, the individuals trying to make sense of these behaviors are quick to judge those on the sharp of the decision by saying things like: “They weren’t paying attention?” or “How could they
Explanations for Situational Awareness Insanity – Part 4 Read More »
This series is focused on the seemingly insane things that first responders do while operating in high-stress, high-consequence environments. Oftentimes, those trying to make sense of these behaviors are quick to judge the participants, saying things like: “How could they be so stupid?” or “What were they thinking?” or perhaps the worst one of all
Explanations for Situational Awareness Insanity – Part 3 Read More »
