Crew Resource Management

These are the first responder situational awareness and decision making issues and opportunities related to crew resource management.

Healing and growing from tragedy

I had an opportunity today to present along side Asheville Fire Chief Scott Burnette at the North Carolina Society of Fire Rescue Instructors Conference. This opportunity came as a result of another wonderful opportunity that Chief Burnette extended to me to conduct facilitated debriefings following the line-of-duty death of Captain Jeff Bowen. During the debriefing …

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Trained to Fail

There are probably few things I say in a classroom that raises the ire of instructors more than “You’re training your members to fail.” I understand why they wouldn’t want to hear that. No instructor wants a member to fail. Even more so, no instructor wants to be implicated for being the one responsible for …

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Staffing for the Mayday/Rapid Intervention

I recently received an inquiry from an SAMatters member asking my thoughts on front loading command personnel in the event of a Mayday. Specifically, the reader wanted to know if I thought it was a good idea. I could answer the question in one word: Yes. However, I like to help my readers build deep …

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Tracking of personnel

Accountability: A critically important component to emergency scene safety when personnel operate in a hazardous environment. From the perspective of situational awareness, accountability plays several roles. The obvious role is personnel accountability facilitates the rapid deployment of rescue teams if something goes awry. Command knows the crew sizes and where they are operating at and …

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