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Firefighter Situational Awareness

These articles related to firefighter situational awareness.

New eBook Released!

I’m very excited to announce the release of my new eBook, Situational Awareness Matters Volume 2. The book is a collection of articles from the Situational Awareness Matters website, compiled for your convenience so you don’t have to search them out or click on a bunch of links. Thirty great articles, one easy download! Share […]

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Working Command and Situational Awareness

I seem to be getting asked a lot lately about what the first arriving company officer should do at a working structure fire. Specifically, the debate revolves around two basic premise. Should the first arriving company officer assume a fixed command position outside the structure and coordinate the activities of incoming units? Or, should the

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High Reliability Organizations – Processes

Last month I wrote a piece on the traits of high reliability organizations (HROs) and received a lot of very positive feedback. Thank you! This article will focus on the processes used by HROs. These processes definitely provide some valuable lessons for public safety agencies. Compare your organization and see if you may find some

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High Reliability Organizations – Traits

There’s a lot being talked about these days about the concept of high reliability organizations. The concept is being embraced by many hospitals throughout the United States and, arguably, for good reason. The principles of highly reliable organizations have direct application to first responders. This contribution focuses on helping you understand the overarching concept of

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Situational Awareness Conference Call

A free Situational Awareness conference call was held  on Tuesday, June 19, 2012 (during International Fire/EMS Safety & Health Week). Thank you to Tiger Schmittendorf (Erie County, New York), Ryan Pennington (Charleston, West Virginia) and Will Ball (Williamsport, Maryland) for being my guests panelists as we took caller questions and discussed topics that included:

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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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Thank you Stowe Fire Department

In 2011 I had the opportunity to deliver a Mental Management of Emergencies class for the Stowe Fire Department. The program focused on how to improve first responder situational awareness and decision making processes under stress. I have been afforded the wonderful opportunity to share this message with many fire departments over the years. This

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