Mastering Fireground Command PDF

The IC Foreword Command of firefighters in potentially dangerous, even deadly conditions is one of the most vital tasks a firefighter can aspire to. It is not for the faint of heart or the novice. *Mastering* *Fireground Command---Calm the Chaos* is a vital guide for anyone who aspires to that r...

The IC Foreword Command of firefighters in potentially dangerous, even deadly conditions is one of the most vital tasks a firefighter can aspire to. It is not for the faint of heart or the novice. *Mastering* *Fireground Command---Calm the Chaos* is a vital guide for anyone who aspires to that role. This text is *not just* an Incident Command System training manual, teaching division and group definitions or titles for the various roles that will be applied, although through the var­ ious chapters there is plenty of opportunity to familiarize oneself with each of these items. The authors, two highly seasoned chief officers, have chosen the practical approach to incident command, describing not just the various positions, but what each are trying to accomplish at a wide variety of real-world incidents, ranging from simple private dwelling fires to much more complex issues like strip mall and high-rise fires and even vegetation (wildland) fires that can grow to astounding proportions. A manageable span of control has been proven to be vital to firefighter safety. Dividing the fireground into manageable pieces has been going on for decades, but these two chiefs high­ light the ways that each of the various players can enhance their effectiveness in each of their roles and improve communications, command, and control in the process. Chief Kastros and Chief Brush illustrate the lessons learned at real world incidents in their own lives and share what went well, as well as how applying the lessons they share in this text would have improved the outcome. This book will be a valuable resource for fire officers in any size fire department and will help them to approach incidents that are starting to spiral out of control around them and hopefully be able to *Calm the Chaos.* I wish I had read it 30 years ago. ---John Norman Preface Welcome to *Mastering Fireground Command---Calm the Chaosl* The genesis for this curriculum was a terrible apartment fire in 2006 where two young children and their father died. I was the incident commander (IC) and a one-year battalion chief (BC). Early one weekday morning, we were dispatched to an apartment fire with a baby trapped. Prior to arrival, we were updated that another child was trapped, and the father went in to rescue his kids and was trapped as well. All three died and all of us who responded were impacted for years to come. I wept that day. I had lost children and babies in fires before. Each was tragic. This time, I was a new father, and this was the first time I lost a child as a dad. And to top it off, I was the IC. While I didn't have the horrible experience of removing the babies or their dad, like our fire­ fighters did, I was the IC. The buck stopped with me. I was made painfully aware of my blind spots that day. And, while we tried to console ourselves with comments like, "there was noth­ ing we could have done," or "they were gone before we arrived on scene," nothing comforted us. I vowed that day to do it better---everything better: incident command and how to use the Incident Command System (ICS) more effectively; strategic and tactical decision-making; train­ ing, officer development, hands-on training, multi-company drills, and incident reviews; stan­ dard operating guidelines (SOGs); and whatever else necessary to prevent that kind of kick in the gut from ever happening to any of us ever again. One of my mentors was Chief Alan Brunacini, and he had always been there for me to lend an ear and offer words of wisdom. This was no different. He also had a tragic loss when Brett Tarver died at the Southwest Supermarket Fire in Phoenix, AZ. He built a command training center (CTC) that I had visited back when I was a captain in the training division. We built a CTC at Metro Fire. We revised our SOGs. And we trained and trained and trained. I started recording my fires with a dash camera, way before GoPro cameras. We reviewed every fire and had an unquenchable thirst to do it better---everything better. Then, 4 years later, on August 28, 2010, we had an extremely rare second chance. We had a second chance at redemption. Incident \#0102713 was dispatched. Again, we were dispatched to a working apartment fire. Again, we were updated that a child was trapped. And again, it was a two-story garden apartment complex with fire on the second floor. This time, we had 4 years of intense training, incident reviews, and dash camera videos behind us. We had done simulations, hands-on drills, vent-enter-search (VES) drills (before it was VEIS), and table-top scenarios, and I had trained all my captains to be incident command­ ers, division/groups supervisors, tacticians, decision-makers, and combat leaders. And they trained me. They helped me understand how to better support them from the command post, better train them, and get my act together. When the apartment fire was dispatched, we were already on the road, turned out and responding to another fire that was clearly extinguished. It was a sign fire at a Goodwill store. We had to pass the apartment fire to get to the extinguished fire. We diverted and responded to the apartment fire with the child trapped. Since the Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system showed our alarm responding to the Goodwill store, it dispatched the next closest alarm to the apartment fire. The net result between our diverted alarm and the second alarm from CAD was 9 engines, 6 trucks, 4 BCs, and 3 fire medics responding to the apartment fire. I had a 21:1 span-of-control with multiple apartments burning, the attic, and a child trapped. I needed to organize and calm the chaos RIGHT NOW! We had practiced and implemented the curriculum in which you are about to embark for 4 years, continuously revising as we learned. The 21:1 span-of-control was reduced to 4:1: fire attack group, rescue group, roof division and medical group. Other than medical, supervised by a paramedic, each group/division was supervised by a company officer. Within 4 *Vi* minutes of arrival, the boy was on the gurney. He was not breathing, and his carbon monoxide (CO) level was 23%---a lethal dose. The supervising company officers were empowered to make tactical decisions, account for crews, and act as the safety officers embedded into the incident. Through training and time, we developed immense trust with each other. They didn't need to ask me for additional hose­ lines or ask if they could do VES, they just did it. Why? Because training and time equals trust. I trusted them to do the right thing at the right time. Scan the QR code below to watch the dashcam video of the El Camino Fire. After overhaul, I went to the emergency department to check on the boy. He was in an induced coma, on a ventilator. The doctor said something to me that I will never forget: "He had no respiratory burns. I think your crews may have saved his life." I wept again. This time, they were tears of joy, redemption, and deliverance. I knew in my heart that he was going to make it. He was transported to the Shriner's Children Hospital in downtown Sacramento where they kept him in an induced coma on a ventilator for another week. We prayed with his family for his recovery. One week later, they took him off the meds, off the vent, and he sat up. He had no deficits, just second degree burns to his leg and arm. He walked out of the hospital (fig. P-1). The firefighters on Engine and Truck 106 were heroes that day. They made it happen. Since then, I have had the honor of telling their story. This was a collective team effort. **Incident** **command on today's fires and other events is a team sport.** Fires grow way too fast and the window to make a successful rescue closes even faster. The margin of error is zero. Therefore, we must re-think incident command and evolve beyond the challenges of modern fire behavior, building construction, low mass synthetics, staffing levels, attrition rates, and lack of experience. We must re-think how we think. So, please be ready to challenge yourself and your own assumptions. I was fortunate to be a line BC for 13 years in a busy, diverse, and dynamic metropolitan area. Every day was a learning day, and every day was a training day. My hope is that you will learn from my experiences, both good and bad. I don't want you to get the same occupational road rash that I did.  Fig. P-1. This is why we exist---to save lives! By divine intervention, I reconnected with Brian Brush after reading his article about Fire­ fighter Rescue Survey. I was blown away. The statistics, methods and mission were just what I was looking for. I often asked classes, "If we have the golden hour for trauma, what is the 'golden' timeframe to save fire victims?" Brian and his research answered the question. I called him immediately. Turns out, we had met years before. Long story short, we are kindred spirits and have been training together in the mission to save more civilians ever since. His contributions, hard work, research, experience, and dedication are second to none. I am thankful for him and his friendship. He suggested that we write a book based upon our collec­ tive work. Our team at TrainFirefighters.com had already launched our 32-hour online Master­ ing *Fireground Command---Calm the Chaos* workshop and had taught the hands-on train-the-trainer workshops for years. And Brian's master's thesis and the Firefighter Rescue Survey data and surveys seemed like a natural fit to meet a common goal. So, the book was born. This curriculum has been taught throughout America since 2011. We have developed a 32-hour online course entitled *Mastering Fireground Command---Calm the Chaos.* The self-paced course is a study guide for this text, and full of incident dashcam footage from over a decade as a line battalion chief. You can see countless examples of the principles from this text applied on real fires from the command post. There are also 115 simulations for you to practice what you learn in this book. Through our team at TrainFirefighters.com and the hands-on train-the-trainer workshop, fire departments throughout the United States and beyond are training their own firefighters and we could not be more humbled and thankful. We have been blessed to teach this curricu­ lum to thousands of firefighters and they have since saved lives! There is nothing more grati­ fying, more rewarding, or more important than that. If you have any questions, please contact our team at , or scan the QR code to link to our website and learn more about this training. Keep the faith and keep training! Thank you. ---Anthony Kastros It is an honor to be a part of this fireground command textbook and to get the opportunity to work with Chief Kastros and so many other very experienced and talented legends in the dis­ cipline of command, as I personally am not one of them. I did not come to be involved in this book to share my experience in the seat of command; instead, I came to be involved in this book as a result of identifying a need and being challenged to be a part of the solution. I began my fire service career in 1996, and through the years I have had a front row seat to witness the influence and impact on our profession of both 9/11 and the technology/informa- tion age that arrived with the 21st century. The professional standards and expectations for the fire service, internal and external command and leadership models, and access to evidence-based information for training and decision making have changed drastically over the course of just one generation. At the same time, because of technology changes accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more firefighters are accessing programs, training, and education through online delivery methods that improve access. For the student this allows for the resources to respond faster to updates in information, current events, and fire service trends. In 2017, after over 20 years in the field, I took a position in the training division and I now serve as a training chief. While I had been observing many changes take place around me from a seat on a rig, it wasn't until then that I saw how they all came together. I was in a place that was responsible for the preparation of our members from recruit to chief officer, supporting and guiding the direction of the organization and finding and maintaining resources to do it. Very quickly I realized that many of these things were working against each other and this was not unique to just our department. Over the course of the next few years in training and through the completion of the Executive Fire Officer Program at the National Fire Academy and the Master of Science degree in Fire and Emergency Management Administration at Oklahoma State University, I dedicated much of my time to academics and researching our past, present, and potential future. In that work, it became very clear that the gap between the leadership and command models of our peers in the military and emergency management and that of the fire service was growing, as were the differences in educational content and delivery models the various generations inside the fire service were receiving. Through traveling the country conducting hands-on training programs and at the depart­ ment coordinating recruit fire academies, I found our newest firefighters were drawn to and hungry for more programs rooted in concepts such as Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, or those that blended the science and detailed data from United Laboratories Fire Safety Research Institute (ULFSRI) studies with hands-on application in high-quality drills. In conferences across the nation, this need was being met by third-party trainers for task-level firefighters and growing. Unfortunately, the lack of similar training and education for chief and company level officers only continued to grow the gap in comfort and understand­ ing between these groups, and in many departments this was causing friction. When I attended my first *Calm the Chaos* workshop from Chief Kastros, I saw the founda­ tions of what the fire service needed. Looking further into his success with Mastering the Fire Service Assessment Center with regard to professional development, taking the hands-on por­ tion of *Calm the Chaos* and seeing the decentralized command models in real time practice, and working with him on the deployment of his online curriculum for greater access, I knew this was the method and what was currently missing. "If you are going to take the time to bring me a problem, you had better also take the time to present a solution." In the fall of 2021, we met with the late Chief Bobby Halton to present our plan. While the training, classes, articles, and online programs were successful, they were each limited in their own way. For the fire service to move from interest to institutionalizing, it would take a new textbook, written specifically to professional qualifications, standards, and higher education expectations, that could serve as an in-hand reference for personnel and policy development, promotional material, and an educational course resource. The fire ser­ vice has had incredible long-standing resources like this for decades and they were doing their best to meet needs through edition updates, but now was the time to start fresh, codify the present state of the fire service as a blend of experience and evidence, and begin to support our future in a new way. We humbly asked Bobby for his trust in supporting us to take on this challenge as a team, along with so many of our peers who have contributed to this project, and he obliged. What is contained in this book is our first bold step towards our goal of bridging not only the tactical gaps on the fire ground, but also the professional gaps in our service. It is our hope that it leads to further progress. Thank you for joining us. Both Anthony Kastros and Brian Brush would first like to thank God for our wives and chil­ dren who have always remained steadfast to our united mission to train the fire service and save civilian lives. You are the greatest blessings in our lives. We also thank God for being firefighters, having been brought together, and for the gift of teaching. Another dear friend in this project is Chief Bobby Halton, for whom we both owe tre­ mendous debts of gratitude for his giving each of us a voice and believing in this project from the beginning. Thank you to Editor-In-Chief David Rhodes for continual support of this book and Diane Rothschild for keeping us in line. Thank you also to Chris Barton, Tony Quinn, Holly Fournier, Mark Haugh, and the rest of the Fire Engineering/Clarion family for your tremendous support. Thank you, John Norman, for the incredible honor of writing the foreword. A very special thank you to our contributing authors from across America who shared your experiences and wisdom as incident commanders: Luis Aldana, Gregg Avery, Anthony Avillo, Robby Bergerson, Jamie Bowron, Mark Brunton, Greg Cassell, Joe Castro, Ken Cook, Dan Cotrell, Scott Dean, Dave Dodson, Ryan Fields-Spack, Mark Ghilarducci, Bill Gustin, Jeff Helvin, Kiley Keeley, Frank Leeb, Shawn Lemon, Brett Loomis, Stephen Marsar, Joel Mendoza, Doug Mitch­ ell, Jack Murphy, Nick Papa, David Rhodes, Frank Ricci, Eric Saylors, Dan Shaw, Danny Sheri­ dan, Chris Stavros, Rusty Van Vuren, and Mike Walker. A very special thank you to the Los Angeles City Fire Department for access to amazing photographs. Thank you specifically to Henry Berkson, David Blair, Greg Doyle, Steve Gentry, James Hedlund-Kaiser, Zak Holman, Joe Lyneis, Rick McClure, Michael Meadows, David Ortiz, Jacob Salzman, Jacob Valin, Cody Weireter, and the Los Angeles City Public Services Bureau. Also, thank you to the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District and specifically, Battalion Chief Parker Wilbourn. A tremendous debt of gratitude to Sam Wallace at Sawlllustrations.com for the incredible artwork! Anthony Kastros I would like to thank my brothers Mitch and Demetrius Kastros for their continued leadership, mentoring, and paving the way in the fire service. This would not be possible without you. Thank you to Brett Loomis, John Wagner, Kevin Wegener, Alda "Mama Bear" Hearne, and the rest of the TrainFirefighters.com team. You are saving lives. Thank you, Cynthia, for saving *my* life, being the love of my life, supporting all the teaching, writing, and doing all the proofreading. And thank you to my precious daughters Sophia and Aubrey for being loving \"This book is the sum of over 1000 years of experience. In addition to the two authors, we asked 33 of our colleagues from around America to add their wisdom and insight. These "Wisdom from the Masters" and ''Case Studies in Command" add tremendous value to this textbook, for experience must be passed on, internalized, filtered, honestly evaluated, and re-applied to be useful. Unlike any previous work, this book takes the best from all around the United States of America, from the Los Angeles City Fire Department (LAFD) to the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) and dozens of agencies in between, of all sizes and demographics. We sought out the most experienced officers who have commanded some of the most infamous incidents in the last decade. These first-hand accounts overflow with lessons learned to ensure you are successful on your next fire, multi-casualty incident (MCI), or any number of unforeseen events that continually redefine the new normal of incident command and the landscape of emer­ gency operations. In addition, science now plays a much more significant role in fireground operations. Thanks to the Underwriters Laboratories Fire Safety Research Institute (UL FSRI), Firefighter Rescue Survey, and thousands of hours of research and incident reviews, we can bring quantitative *and* qualitative data to tactical decision-making. This unprecedented addition of data-based decision-making now informs the modern incident commander, well before they ever assume command of their first incident. We have also analyzed military doctrine and the principles of mission command and decen­ tralization. We have spoken to Navy Seals and 4-star generals. The military has evolved over centuries in the arena of command and control to meet new threats and the ever-changing landscape of the modern battlefield. There is much to be learned and applied that seamlessly transcends the parallel worlds of the fire service and military. The combination of experience and science, east and west coast philosophy, dozens of case studies, military doctrine, and thousands of hours of training with fire departments from all over America is what lies in the pages of this textbook. And the actual, practical, proven, rapid application of the Incident Command System (ICS) will be introduced in ways never seen in any previous textbook. You will learn how to quickly and effectively apply ICS to house fires, apartment fires, hotels, motels, commercial buildings, taxpayers, big boxes, strip malls, row houses, high rises, maydays, vegetation fires, wildland urban interface, multi-casualty inci­ dents, hazardous materials incidents, and even unified command.  Fig. 1-0. The chief is at front and center with his bugle, the first portable radio, circa 1884. *Source.* Photo courtesy of Redwood City (CA) Fire Department Introduction Modern Incident Command *The modern fire service demands a highly mature* *combination of independence and obedience.* ground and any emergency scene has become more complex and moves exponentially faster. Our ability to catch it and remain ahead of the incident is vital to the lives of our troops and those we are sworn to save. These changes in duty and in society are not unique or temporary and adaptation is mandatory. Chief Alan Brunacini and his book T-zre *Command* were the first bridges for the fire service from traditional incident command and control models to developing incident management systems. His quote speaks directly to the gap that he sought to address and the way that he identified how our service, and the dynamic nature of our environments, "demands a highly mature combination" of independence to act, but obedience to order.^2^ We have all benefited from his wisdom and teachings, and the fire service owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to Chief Brunacini. His mentoring and friendship will be forever cherished. This book would not be possible without him (fig. 1-1). Over the decades that have followed Chief Brunacini's text, our mission has become more complex and the pace at which our incidents and firegrounds grow has changed. In addition, our military and the emergency management field have further identified systemic operational and organizational conflicts to our mission in the modern setting of personnel, technology, and environment that results from a strict adherence to the traditional command and control model. The United States has also since experienced the attacks of September 11th, 2001, and Hur­ ricane Katrina in August of 2005. Both events shifted paradigms in incident management the­ ories and practices. The late Dr. Russel Dynes, founder of the Disaster Research Center and widely recognized as an expert in modern emergency management, explains this shift: "Emer­ gencies are characterized by decentralized and pluralistic decision making, therefore the autonomy of decision making should be encouraged, not the centralization of authority."^3^ This is not just for the large, once-in-a-career, national-level incidents. This is for house fires, apart­ ment fires, commercial structure fires, vegetation fires, hazardous materials incidents, and multi-casualty incidents. A chain can be used metaphorically to describe connections, links, and continuity. A chain can also be used physically to secure, prevent, or restrict movement. It is critical that organizations that subscribe to the chain of command actively evaluate their intent, inter­ pretation, and balance of these two, both administratively and operationally. Don't let the chains restrict. Command and Control Fig. 1-2. Original military model of command and control **Subordinates**  *responsibility to* developing subordinate leaders and adapt to the new pace of war led to his downfall. In short, he failed to change his command and control model from a centralized to a decentralized ethos, which was organically evolving as a byproduct of the development of his subordinates. Meanwhile, the fire service of the late 1800s maintained a centralized system of command and control of the chaos where the fire chief would command through his bugle from in front of the fire. This was primarily due to the lack of true organization in the fire service at the time period. Countless pictures from that era show the fire chief with a bugle in posed photos like Figure 1-0 at the start of this chapter, or at the front of the fire in paintings from that era (fig-1-3). These bugles were far more than presentation pieces; they were the first communication devices and concentrated authority to a single source. Unfortunately, the fire service held on to this methodology long after changes in technology. Even as portable radios became com­ monplace and in turn connected everyone on the fireground, some still have the incident com­ mander (IC) controlling all, standing in front with their modern 800 MHz bugle. Early Officer Development As the influence of Napoleon faded in Europe, the Prussian Army moved to the forefront of military leadership. When Frederick the Great died, the Prussians realized that power had become too centralized and they were too reliant on the genius of a single person. They, too, would suffer the fate of the French if this was not addressed. During the early 1800s, the Prus­ sians were credited with formalizing the first decision-making training and development pro­ grams for staff officers. As the professional development and decision making models began to gain traction, the Prussian Great General Staff became the bar by which all other nations began to measure their military command and strategy against. It wasn't until 1901 that the United States Army was in a position to institute a similar program. The U.S Army General Service and Staff College was established in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The training curriculum from that school became U.S. Army doctrine in 1910 when "Estimating Tactical Situations and Publishing Field Orders" was published.^6^ Early officer decision and command development training was still concentrated at the highest levels of command. This was steady progress but not a complete paradigm shift. From the civil war into the early 1900s, the U.S. military transitioned from a state of distrust in its subordinates to a low-trust environment as there were some improvements in organization, professionalization, and cohesion. Unfortunately, this stalled as the great demand for mobili­ zation and the cost of attrition associated with World War I limited opportunity. For over a decade, there was virtually no return on investment in any training and development beyond preparing for the battlefield and learning from the field of battle. In the 1930s and early 40s prior to World War II, officer development began to emphasize communication further down the chain of command. In 1932 the U.S. Army published the first Military Decision-Making Process (MDMP). The direction of the model had five steps for field commanders to consider.^7^ 1. Mission 2. Opposing forces a. Enemy forces b. Own forces c. Relative combat strength 3. Enemy situation a. Plans open to the enemy b. Analysis of enemy plans c. Enemy's probable intentions 4. Own situation a\. Plans open to you b\. Analysis of plans 5. Decision Transition to the Fire Service Reviewing the history of the MDMP is part of fire service history. World War II advanced the fire service further in a shorter period than at any other point in its history. Some of these cat­ alysts included Army officer training that made significant improvements in tactical officer development. The Navy took the role as leaders in fire control techniques and training. Fire apparatus and equipment produced and dispatched around the world to bases and air strips advanced technologies at a pace that was never demanded by domestic municipal fire depart­ ments. When the war was over, service members returned to their cities and communities and took on domestic roles in the disciplines they had exposure to and developed experience in during the war. At the same time, the United States began a period of great expansion into the suburban era and the growth of new cities and towns presented more opportunities for posi­ tions in organized fire departments than ever before. All the while, the fire service continued to trail the professional development processes of the military by decades. There were some advancements, however. The most identifiable demonstration of this was Chief Lloyd Layman. Chief Layman authored two books that were published by NFPA, *Attack­* *ing and Extinguishing Interior Fires* (1952)^8^ and *Fire Fighting Tactics* (1953),^9^ both of which pro­ vide guidance to U.S. fire departments on how to apply military models and experience to their organizations and operations. Through his work he introduced the fire service to the Facts, Probabilities, Own Situation, Decision, Plan of Operation (FPODP) decision-making process, which is still a foundational approach over 70 years later, as well as Rescue, Exposures, Con­ finement, Extinguishment, Overhaul, Ventilation, Salvage (RECEO-VS) (fig. 1-4). 1. Facts a\. What you know for sure 2. Probabilities a\. Educated guess to the extent of the threat 3. Own situation a\. Current or responding resource level 4. Decision a\. Strategy 5. Plan of operation a\. Tactics Fig. 1-4. FPODP and RECEO-VS were both introduced to the American Fire Service by Lloyd Layman in 1953. Prior to World War II, organized career fire services were primarily found in larger cities. The rank structure and organization of these departments was considered paramilitary because of the similarities in terminology, but that was where most of the parallels stopped. Following World War II, fire departments, organization saw significant expansion, even in volunteer departments. As men returned from war and time in the armed forces to their home commu­ nities and jobs in public service, the influence of the military poured in. When the FPODP model is compared to the MDMP, that influence is black and white. While tactical and strate­ gic decision making models transitioned, at the highest levels of departments, where command culture is determined, a centralized command and control or low trust model remained. Early Emergency Management While there are records of federal disaster relief efforts in the United States that date back to the early 1800s, the start of the field of emergency management was the Federal Civil Defense Administration and later the Federal Civil Defense Authority. Civil Defense was the agency for domestic disaster preparedness. During the 1950s and \'60s Civil Defense expanded rapidly, as did our nation, and just as was demonstrated in the fire service, the postwar mil­ itary influence was significant. During the 1960s the United States was also engaged in the Cold War, and for this reason the concentration of Civil Defense efforts was geared towards preparing the civilian population for a potential attack. Unfortunately, with the perception that the domestic civilian population would panic in the event of an attack and cause chaos, the approach to administration was a very strict and traditional command and control model. In the mid- to late-1960s the U.S. experienced a series of significant natural disasters, and it became clear that there was a disconnect in the plans and needs for domestic preparedness. When President Nixon took office in 1969, he tasked the Office of Emergency Planning with evaluating Civil Defense, and it found that the nation's preparedness for natural disasters was minimal to non-existent. For the first time in history, federal funding dedicated to national preparation for defense against military attacks was made available to state and local govern­ ments for natural disaster preparedness. This period in the history of the emergency manage­ ment field is identified as the point where the direction was first shifted from control to coordination. Regionalization of Command Models During the fall of 1970, a period of unseasonably hot weather combined with dry winds resulted in a wildland fire outbreak in Southern California that claimed 16 lives and more than 700 structures (fig. 1-5). The timing of this disaster with the aforementioned direction of the president to the federal government to support disaster preparedness led to the creation of a task force to evaluate the wildfire problem.^10^ Recommendations were taken to congress and in 1971 the House of Repre­ sentatives appropriated \$900,000 to strengthen fire command and control systems research."^11^ Engagement in the process was incredible and it involved organizations from the local, state, and federal level. Both the public and private sector contributed, from fire departments, county sheriffs, and forest rangers to aviation and communication industries. For years these groups worked across the western United States with the purpose of creating and testing a system that could effectively and efficiently coordinate interagency action and allocation of resources Fig. 1-5. This 1970 headline was a new phenomenon. in dynamic large-scale situations. In May of 1980 Firefighting Resources of California Orga­ nized for Potential Emergencies (FIRESCOPE), a new concept in multiagency fire suppression coordination, was published and the Incident Command System (ICS) was introduced. Throughout the 1980s and the '90s ICS quickly became the standard practice in the West­ ern U.S. as comfort with the model and terminology grew. Outside of just the application on the scene, many departments began to bring concepts into organizational structures and the titles of \\ chiefs or branch director became positions in departments. While incident command and control was experiencing an evolution as a result of this influence in the western states, the eastern U.S. remained in the more traditional model. As mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, Chief Brunacini recognized that, nation­ ally, fire department incident command models, terminology, and practices were beginning to grow apart. With his text *Fire Command,* first published in 1985, he attempted to balance these differences and also introduce the national fire service audience to the core principles of the Incident *Management* System (IMS). FIRESCOPE/ICS and Chief Brunicini/IMS came of age in the 1970s. Chief Brunacini and IMS were more fireground-centric, whereas ICS was intended for any type of incident, including structure fires. WISDOM FROM THE MASTERS On-Scene and In Charge---The Evolution of ICS CHIEF JOE CASTRO, LOS ANGELES CITY (CA) FIRE DEPARTMENT Early in my career, the Los Angeles City Fire Department's legendary Deputy Chief, Commander of Emergency Operations Donald Anthony, would arrive on-scene at a major emergency incident (more than 15 fire companies working) and our dispatch would announce over the tactical radio frequency, "Chief Anthony is on-scene and in charge." Chief Anthony was an iron-fisted fireground commander who made decisions with a trip-hammer level of efficiency. Just hearing his name announced as the inci­ dent commander gave all responders an immediate sense of relief and confidence. If things were going wrong, he'd fix it. We all knew the incident was going to be run in a manner that was efficient, and objectives and tasks would be relevant and clearly com­ municated, staffed, and supported. The incident would be organized, radio discipline would be maintained, safety elements would be in place, and personal risk would be consistent with potential gain. All this because of the mention of his name. He was THE man! Fig. 1-6. Chief Don Anthony applied ICS to structure fires in the Los Angeles City Fire Department and expected all officers to do so. Fig. 1-7. Deputy Chief Don Anthony was the IC of the First Interstate Fire and utilized ICS to bring it under control within 4 hours, utilizing 55 companies, 4 helicopters and 270 personnel. Most of the rank-and-file members of various fire departments viewed ICS as a system for Chiefs, with little application or usefulness to the ground-pounding mission work­ ers' efforts at the emergency. This contention was further authenticated by the way most people *learnedICS* in the 1970s and 1980s: by filling out a blank ICS organization chart. This, almost subconsciously, taught firefighters that the first step in implement­ ing ICS was to fill in all of the boxes of the organizational chart. This inadvertently created a generation of box checkers who participated in a form over function exercise that was not driven by the needs of the specific and unique incident. Therefore, it's no wonder that firefighters saw little application of this complex and verbose organiza­ tional chart in the daily application of routine (smaller) incident management. What was not taught back in those early years and is one ICS's greatest strengths is its flex­ ibility and scalability. In the 1980s the Los Angeles Fire Department began to require all officers (captain and above) to use ICS terminology at all incidents. This in itself was the beginning of modern all-risk ICS. Of course, the turning point for ICS arose on September 11th, 2001. New York City was sucker-punched with an unimaginably complex and novel incident. 14 months later, the Department of Homeland Security was formed, and a couple of years later the 9/11 Commission report was first published. In 2004 the first edition of the National Inci­ dent Management System (NIMS) doctrine was published. A component of the NIMS doctrine was ICS. The foundational element of the NIMS-ICS component was, princi­ pally, the system built by FIRESCOPE in the mid-1970s. Local, state, territorial and tribal jurisdictions were required to adopt NIMS (and ICS) in order to receive federal preparedness grants, essentially establishing ICS as the law of the land for the entire country. The goal of the requirement was to establish one national system of incident management for all risk and hazards, and all response and recovery disciplines (not just firefighters). This would allow the catastrophes of the 21st century to be managed with a single system that would enable large incidents to accept resources from different agencies and disciplines (local, state, and federal) into a commonly understood system of inci­ dent management. Suddenly, nationwide, firefighters, law enforcement officers, and non-traditional response entities were all (somewhat) forced to abandon whatever As Chief Castro pointed out, early ICS training was relegated to memorizing organizational charts and understanding the difference between a division and a group, for example. Appli­ cation was primarily to larger wildland events. Beyond wildfires, several large-scale natural disasters, including the Loma Prieta (1989) and Northridge (1994) earthquakes, demonstrated the speed and efficiency of expanding and con­ tracting the system to the incident size and on all levels of local, state, and federal agencies. This component is what made FIRESCOPE and ICS the precursor to the National Incident Man­ agement System (NIMS). The Shift in Models *Organizations that fully adopt command and control as* *policy become both commanding and controlling.* In the 1970s, the field of psychology began to present more qualitative and quantitative data on decision-making models. Conflicts in Korea and Vietnam also presented more dynamic battle spaces that challenged traditional linear campaign war planning and experiences of senior staff. The military branches recognized they had to change. This led to an extensive review of U.S. Army approaches and comparisons of problem-solving decision models to tra­ ditional command and control. A 1970 study of professionalism conducted by the Army War College created 31 recommendations to shift the Army from the MDMP to a more modern and adaptable problem-solving model.^13^ These recommendations were specifically connected to operational and organizational issues identified in post-Vietnam reviews. While the 1970s served as a period of reflection and study for the military on lessons learned and modern models, most changes were updates. It wasn't until after 9/11 that cultural change was forced. Immediately following 9/11, the United States launched a war on terrorism and targeted an enemy unlike any previous foe. The new enemy was ideologies, cells, and tribes rather than clearly identified states or tangible actors. The new environment of an unclear battlefield and counter insurgent combat quickly became identified as fourth-generation warfare. The gener­ ational identification starts with first-generation, Revolutionary and Civil conventional and linear war; second-generation campaign wars of World War I and II; third-generation guerrilla warfare of Vietnam; and now the fourth-generation battlespace is still being defined. Just prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom, the U.S. Army Chief of Staff charted a study of oper­ ations in Afghanistan. It was found that the most successful operations were smaller units, working quickly at the local level taking opportunities to build support, collaborate or coor­ dinate information, and integrate into informal systems. The report discovered that traditional power hierarchy and the command and control model countered this need and was develop­ ing an oppressive culture.^14^ A system driven by top-down explicit orders increases the com­ munication demands between subordinates and superiors because any variation, or deviation, from an order requires that consideration communicated back up the chain and permission granted back down. In his text *Developing Adaptive Leaders: The Crucible Experience of Operation Iraqi Freedom* Leonard Wong explains that it was because of conditions associated with fourth-generation warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq, where time and information are at a premium, that the Army could no longer rely on an industrial-era management model. In order operate successfully in the current pace and state of warfare, the Army had to transition from a command and con­ trol model to mission command. Mission command is a command structure where operators understand the commander's intent and the mission at hand. Through their training, educa­ tion, and experience they are trusted to use initiative and creativity to solve problems and adapt to circumstances.^15^ The example of Napoleon shifting an approach but failing to continue to evolve was used to start this section and demonstrate how the failure to extend trust to developing subordi­ nate leaders and adapt to the new pace of war led to his downfall. The shift in the U.S. military to a greater focus on mission command and extending trust to subordinate leaders in the con­ flicts that followed 9/11 has yielded tremendous success and marked rapid progress. In less than a twenty-year period (one generation) from the initial commitment to mission command to today, the principles of mission command have been institutionalized in our military. Attri­ butions of success in operations to mission command models are so clear that countless texts are now in publication, in similar efforts to those of Chief Layman during the 1950s, to provide guidance to fire departments, the private sector, and even educational institutions on how to develop what could be called a highly mature combination of independence and obedience in subordinate leaders. As the military recognizes four generations of warfare with increasing complexity and has adapted, so too must the fire service. Our first generation was the Revolutionary and Civil War eras when, as in the military, a centralized form of command existed and tactical tools like water buckets and steam pumpers came into existence. Next were the World War I and World War II eras that were characterized by continual centralization of command, while portable radios, internal combustion engines, and centrifugal pumps came of age. Then, the Korean War and Vietnam eras gave way to glimmers of a more formalized crossover from the military with the works of Lloyd Layman and others. *America Burning* in 1973 gave way to immense advances in fire prevention, Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA), Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), and resources.^15^ The 1970s also brought paramedics. While these tactical advances came about, the centralized command and control model remained. Where was the advancement in this arena? Despite the advent of ICS, we stagnated. ICS became perceived as a behemoth and myriad of complicated nomenclature, paralyzed by process, clip boards, vests, and processes that bog down the fire department's ability to get to work. We now enter the fourth-generation. Like the advances during the past 20 years in warfare, so too must we advance at the highest levels on the fireground. We must approach ICS differ­ ently, train differently, empower differently, and transform officers from subordinates to lead­ ers who are trusted and trained to make decisions in real time in the field. on September 11th, 2001 was beyond the scope of control of any commander, command team, or command system. As discussed in the previous section, any system driven by top-down orders increases the communication demands between subordinates and superiors. The com­ plexity and size of the World Trade Center attacks paralyzed all communication systems. Nearly all initial and early response actions were independently, locally, or organically initiated. While the number of people killed was 2,152, it is estimated that almost 16,000 people were evacu­ ated or rescued from the buildings and exposures along with tens of thousands more from the Lower Manhattan area (fig. 1-8). The extraordinary actions taken by the Fire Department of New York City (FDNY) officers, fire companies and individual firefighters, untrained civilians, business owners, and individ­ ual police officers on that morning were examples of what many in the field of emergency man­ agement like Dynes had been explaining and researching for decades prior. Traditional civil defense and command and control are rooted in thinking that people and panic will compound a problem. Research, history, and the experience of 9/11 shows that in modern society where education, training, and communication are at a high level, responders---civilian or sworn--- are resources with the capacity to act as problem solvers, not problems themselves. The events of September 11th, 2001 resulted in the broadest and most in-depth review of emergency response in American history. In 2002 the Department of Homeland Security was formed and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEM A), along with 21 other federal agen­ cies, was moved under the direction of the new cabinet. This restructure and reinvestment broadly expanded the field of emergency management, requiring a clear establishment of expectations, roles, and a common terminology across disciplines that had never interacted before. In March of 2004, the Department of Homeland Security released the NIMS with the goal of establishing a uniform guide for all levels of government. The fire service took the introduction of NIMS in stride as most of the structure was based on the familiar Incident Command System (ICS) framework. Unfortunately, seeing the change from ICS to NIMS in name only as an exchange of the word command for management is short sighted. Command remained a title in NIMS, but it was abandoned as a belief. Dynamic inci­ dents and the people involved in them as victims or responders are not commanded, they are managed. More specifically, they are led, and entrusted to lead others closer to the problem than the incident commander.  The professionals in the field of emergency management, disaster study, and social sciences have concluded that in groups that were educated, trained, and prepared, the function of com­ mand and control was undercut. Like soldiers, responders take on their role willingly and par­ ticipate in the development of their physical and mental capacities to respond, intervene, and mitigate. Chaos, command, and control begins with a belief that there is an acute departure from normalcy that creates chaos, requiring a body to command attention, regain focus, and take back control. In actual practice, emergencies are not interruptions to life or acute departures from normalcy for the responders. Emergencies are their work and therefore a continuation of expectation, preparation, operation, and mitigation. Where the military advanced adaptabil­ ity and efficiency in operations by separating strict vertical power structures of command and control to a more decentralized model committing to mission command, the field of emergency management is adopting a doctrine of continuity, coordination, and cooperation. In short, we are no longer looking to command and control, but to command and *coordinate.* As the saying goes, "You may be in command, but God is in control." The military does not wait for the "big one" to implement decentralized mission command; it has become woven into daily work and organizational culture. This is type of thinking with regard to ICS that "we don't need big ICS on a small house fire" is a phrase relegated to the past, because how we practice today is how we perform tomorrow (fig. 1-9). ICS today, as it will be presented in this text, is not your grandfather's ICS. Today, ICS is nimble, agile, mobile, adaptive, and quick. Today, incident command and coordination involves human decision making, tactical prowess, leadership development, empowerment, and a knowl­ edge of construction and fire behavior like never before. This is the only way to outpace the enemy in the fourth generation. Summary In her research for the Naval Postgraduate School, Chief Cynthia Renaud uses an excellent analogy for the differences of approach between command and control models and incident management systems by using a carousel.^17^ Successful incident managers approach a moving carousel and observe what is happening until they find the right time to get involved (con­ tinuity). They know that once they are able to get on, they can work with those already on the carousel (coordination) on a plan to collectively slow it down (cooperation). A command-centric approach would see the carousel and everyone on it as a problem. They have been taught to believe that they are the only ones with the knowledge and power (com­ mand) to act (control). Unfortunately, if a carousel is stopped immediately by someone, every­ one else is thrown off. The purpose of this chapter was to provide a detailed lineage from the source of the com­ mand and control model through the channels that have influenced the fire service using examples of proper and improper application over history. Ultimately, it has been demonstrated through seminal events and evolution of theory in application that in the modern threat envi­ ronment and society, strict adherence to the command and control model with centralized authority and concentrated power has negative functional, organizational, and cultural impacts. Today's fire departments, both career and volunteer, are hiring and developing profession­ als. Failing to trust the quality of today's human resources, the level of our professional stan­ dards of performance, and the extent of our training to operate is a fatal flaw in meeting the expectations of our citizens and devalues our members. The research, case study, experience, and history show that emergencies do not reduce the capacities of properly trained individu­ als; instead, they only present them problems to solve. *Emergencies are characterized by decentralized and pluralistic* *decision-making; therefore autonomy of decision making should* *be encouraged not the centralization of authority.* Chapter Review Review Questions 1. Describe the origin story of command and control. 2. Explain the Military Decision-Making Process (MDMP). 3. Describe the influence of Chief Llyod Layman in regard to fire officer development. 4. What does FIRESCOPE stand for? 5. Explain the generations of warfare and their influence. FESHE Strategy and Tactics (C0279) Related Content Course objective \#2 is to ensure the student possess a working knowledge of the Incident Man­ agement System and NIMS. This chapter provides an in-depth history of how the IMS and NIMS was developed. Section V, Basic Division of Tactics in the model curriculum course out­ line utilizes FPODP as the size-up method. This chapter includes initial presentation of FPODP with the origin story of how it came into fire officer training and development. Endnotes Wilson A. Shoffner, *The Military Decision Making Process: Time for a Change,* School of Advanced Military Studies Monograph, United States Army Command and General Staff College, 2001,. Alan V. Brunacini, *Fire Command,* 2nd ed. (Quincy, Massachusetts/Phoenix, Arizona: National Fire Protection Association, 1985). Russell R. Dynes, "Community Emergency Planning: False Assumptions and Inappropri­ ate Analogies," *International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters* 12, no. 2 (August 1994): 141-58. U.S. Marine Corps, *Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 6: Command and Control* (1996) ch. 1. Peter J. Dean, "Napoleon as a Military Commander: The Limitations of Genius," The Napo­ leon Series, The Waterloo Association, 2000, accessed October 25, 2023,. napoleon-series.org/research/napoleon/c\_genius.html. Roger S. Fitch, *Estimating Tactical Situations and Publishing Field Orders* (Port Leaven­ worth, Kansas: U.S. Army Staff College Press, 1909). "U.S. Army Field Manual 101-5, Staff Organization and Operations" (1932). Lloyd Layman, *Attacking and Extinguishing Interior Fires* (National Fire Protection Asso­ ciation, 1955). Lloyd Layman, *Firefighting Tactics* (National Fire Protection Association, 1953). Robert Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act of 1974, Govlnfo, https:// wwAV.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-2977/pdf/COMPS-2977.pdf Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1973, Fire and Atmospheric Sciences Research, H.R., 92nd Cong. (1972). Gary A Kreps, ed., *Social Structure and Disaster: Symposium on Social Structure and Disas­* *ter, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, 15-16 May 1986* (University of Delaware Press, 1989). U.S. Army War College, Study on Military Professionalism (Carlisle Barracks, PA, 1970),. Donald E. Vandergriff, "One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Mission Command versus the Army Personnel System," *The Institute of Land Warfare,* no. 84 (August 2011). Leonard Wong, *Developing Adaptive Leaders: The Crucible Experience of Operation Iraqi* *Freedom* (U.S. Army War College Press, 2004). National Commission on Fire Prevention and Control, *America Burning: The Report of the* *National Commission on Fire Prevention and Control* (U.S. Fire Administration, 1973). Cynthia Renaud, The Missing Piece of NIMS: Teaching Incident Commanders How to Function in the Edge of Chaos," *Homeland Security Affairs* 8, Article 8 (June 2012). https:// 5vww.hsaj.org/articles/221 Louis Maurer, *Rushing to the Conflict,* 1858, hand colored lithograph, 22^1^/~16~\" x 17^I3^/~16~\", Cur­ rier and Ives.