Search Results for: Past Events

Situational Awareness: Think Past, Present & Future

Flawed situational awareness (SA) is one of the leading contributing factors to first responder near-miss and casualty events. In fact, it is nearly impossible to find a line-of-duty death investigation report that does not implicate flawed SA, or one of the barriers that flaw SA, as contributing to the tragedy. As often as flawed SA […]

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Periodic Chart

Sponsored by Midwest Fire Thank you for visiting the Periodic Chart of Situational Awareness page. If you would like to purchase the chart, please visit the SAMatters store at: www.SAMatters.com/store/ Each situational awareness barrier identified on the Chart is clickable link that will take you to articles, audio and/or video lessons about the barrier that

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Situational Awareness Starts with the Size-Up

During my fireground situational awareness classes we talk about the process for making high-stress, high consequence decisions. The first step in this process is performing a rapid size up. When I ask participants how long they take to size up a single-family residential dwelling fire with no exposures, the answer I get ranges from 10

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Ignoring the Signs of Danger

A lesson on situational awareness: The tones drop for a reported residential fire. On the way to the call, dispatch reports multiple calls, confirming a working fire. On arrival the crew sees fire blowing out the B-C corner of the single story, detached residential dwelling. The resident is standing in the front yard. A quick

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Flawed Expectations of Personnel Can Impact Situational Awareness

You develop situational awareness by using your senses to capture information (Level 1 situational awareness). Those clues and cues are then processed into understanding (Level 2 situational awareness). Once you understand what is happening, you can then make predictions of future events (Level 3 situational awareness). This article focuses on the third level of situational

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Situational Awareness Matters

Another False Alarm: A Tale of Complacency

Complacency is a big deal for first responders because it impacts your situational awareness on multiple levels. I would like to give every responder the benefit of the doubt that if or when they have found him or herself being complacent that it wasn’t happening on purpose. In other words, I hope every responder desires

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Unexpected Information Can Be a Barrier to Situational Awareness

One of the foundations of situational awareness development is being able to make accurate predictions of future events. Making (accurate) predictions is a fairly complex neurological process that relies heavily on gathering information, comprehending the meaning of the information, tapping into your stored knowledge of past experiences, trusting your intuition and using your imagination to

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Where Does Intuition Come From?

  It is amazing how many articles and videos I have watched lately in which they are talking about decision making based on “gut feel.” It is also disheartening how many first responders I have interviewed who have admitted to me that they have dismissed their gut feelings and proceeded to do things that resulted

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The Normalization of Deviance

      It’s an odd term –  normalization of deviance. But the term and the premise behind the term provides a valuable explanation as to some of the behaviors we observe in the first responder world. Defining the term Normalization: To make normal; to make an established standard. Deviance: Departing from the norm; performing

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