B Shifter
Fire command and leadership conversations for B Shifters and beyond (all shifts welcome)!
B Shifter
Good News Reporting
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This episode features Nick Brunacini, Josh Blum and John Vance.
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This episode was recorded at the AVB CTC in Phoenix, AZ on October 18, 2024.
We tackle a question from a listener: Should good news be announced or should silence be maintained until prompted during fire incidents? You'll hear firsthand the importance of sharing completed objectives and how this can critically impact emergency response.
welcome everyone to the v shifter podcast. John vance, nick brunicini, josh bloom live via zoom here with us today. How are you guys doing Zoom here with us today? How are you guys doing? Muy bien, how are you doing?
Speaker 2Josh, I'm doing good Winter kind of set in this week. What kind of temperatures do you have? In Cincinnati we had frost every morning this week, but it looks like it's going back to like 75 this weekend, so 75 in the morning or in the afternoons and 40s and 50s, and then we've got like six more days of that and then it looks like it's going to turn to more winter like weather.
Speaker 1But how did you recover from the conference? I think this is the first time we've had you on the podcast since the conference happened. What's your wrap up of that for us?
Speaker 2I'm still catching up. Yeah, a week a week of not returning phone calls and emails adds up to a few weeks of catch up, so, but it's all good. I mean uh. So the, the, the workshops. Um, a lot of organizations are reaching out and they want workshops based off of what they uh connected with. You know one or two people connected with at the conference. So the May Day workshop, the Big Box workshop, chris Stewart's critical thinking decision-making workshop you know the size of fire extinguishment tactics. January to December budget are trying to spend and close out their year and then those that are on that same cycle are looking at what they're going to do next year. So it's all good and we'll be back in Sharonville next year for the conference. We're going to add a few other uh workshops on the front end and keep, keep growing uh the B-Shifter gathering.
Speaker 1So and, uh, I think all the instructors were awesome. I know the participants had a great time, so thank you for all your hard work to get that done. We're all in it together.
Speaker 3Labor of love baby.
Speaker 1So we get questions and there's a new way to submit questions. If you'd like to submit a question, you can do it through fan mail on Buzzsprout. So Buzzsprout's our provider for our podcast. So if you're watching or listening to our podcast, there's a couple of different ways. You can click on fan mail and that gives us these questions directly. Now when you send us a question, we are not able to respond to you unless you give us your contact information. So sometimes we are getting questions that maybe are best answered one-on-one, but we have no way other than the podcast of getting in touch with you. So you can leave your contact information if you want us to directly respond to you. But this case, this is a great question and we wanted to bring it up on fan mail. So thanks for submitting it for the podcast today and it's a really good blue card question and it says can you guys do a podcast episode where you speak to?
Speaker 1No news is good news? My department has taken to such an extreme. They do not want us announcing when a primary is complete or when the fire is knocked down or we have fire control until the IC asks for a can report. I feel like good news is good news and needs announced. Bad news is bad news and needs announced. No news is good news means that the radio is quiet, that's okay, but it also means people are working. But is this taken to an extreme so far? Can you guys elaborate and give examples please? I would like to forward the episode to my battalion chiefs and counterparts in administration. Thank you, guys. So it sounds like they're getting criticized for any news that could be conceived as good news.
Speaker 2Yeah, so we get this quite a bit right. So I mean, even in classroom settings, people you know ask that question of what do you say and what don't you say. So we Blue Card has always had a place for all of the other fire ground traffic that just is going to happen. So a challenge, I think, with some of the people who take the approach of we don't want you. They go to an extreme. Oftentimes, I think it's people who aren't necessarily operating in the field and they're acting like the professor instead of really considering operational in the field. What are we really doing? And does that communications mean something? So I think that's what a lot of it comes down to is what are we going to do with that piece of radio traffic and is it going to make a difference? So when you look at you know blue card command function five and within the system of communications, priority traffic obviously is priority traffic of. You know there's going to be some kind of need connected to it, usually a red flag, something negative, potentially need additional support and so on. And then really we use status change for a whole bunch of the other pieces. So people look at status change like I'm just changing location, but status change in the system and in the SOG that we'll share after this podcast that we've had out for I don't know, 18 months or so If you've completed an objective. So I mean we could talk about it for days.
Speaker 2But one example is if you give somebody a task, location and objective for an assignment. An example, a super simple example I give truck for an assignment to control utilities, well, I expect them to let me know when they've controlled utilities. They got an assignment, they've controlled utilities and then, depending on where they were operating, they're going to be ready for reassignment or if they were in some sort of hazard area, they might need to recycle. But we want to know when objectives are being completed because that's what drives our incident action plan. So the priority traffic piece of this isn't going good and we need to support that. And then the status change.
Speaker 2Or, as some people are maybe putting it into the column of good news reporting, which really it is good news, but it's not like good news reporting. Don't say that also drives our incident action plan, but in a good way. So you know, a company gives us information that they were assigned primary search and fire control and they get into the house and the stove's on fire and they put it out. Well, we expect that transmission because our incident action plan is going to start to de-escalate instead of escalate.
Speaker 2So we can talk about this and I'm sure we'll throw it back and forth and I think we got some audio that we can listen to. That's got you know, status changes and some just some, even some transmissions on it of just putting out over the radio, so everybody hears some information, which we hear that all the time. Nick has talked about that before in the past, I think, of making an announcement just because you wanted everybody on the fire ground to know something, whether it was a hazard somewhere or whatever it is. So that's kind of my jump-off point for the good news reporting.
Speaker 1If we're going to talk about good news reporting, we got to talk about all of the reporting really there are also some benchmarks that departments would like to monitor as well, because I know there's some performance measures that either people have in for accreditation or just trying to show how efficient the department is things like water on the fire. That's a status change as well, correct?
Speaker 2Really it is a status change. You were given an assignment for fire control, primary search. Granted, you don't have fire control, but you're getting water on the fire and you know, sometimes, with Blue Card I think, people get wrapped around a house fire and you know, with a house fire I can probably see what's going on and maybe I don't need you to tell me that you have water on the fire. But you know, within an organization that's one of the things that they can, you know, train on and say, hey, when you have water on the fire, we want you to say that One part of it is the objective and benchmarking piece of how long is it taking us to get water on the fire, and it's a reporting thing. So not that we should hang our hat on. Uh, because a reporting program, nifrs or whatever says that we should be tracking water on the fire or maybe even accreditation, saying how long has it taken you to get water on the fire from the time you arrive at a house fire? Um, and it's valuable.
Speaker 2You know, I've, we've all been at those fires where company says we're getting water on the fire and you're looking at it and it's valuable. We've all been at those fires where a company says we're getting water on the fire and you're looking at it and it's like I don't think you are. So they say they're doing one thing, but it looks different. So it's not like it's a big long transmission and there's value in saying that basically we see the fire and we're getting water on the fire. Basically we see the fire and we're getting water on the fire, no different than a crew that's doing a search, saying that they were assigned a search to first floor of a two-story house. They've completed a search on the first floor, it's all clear, and they're going to change location, which is a status change, to complete a search on the second floor.
Speaker 2So people get wrapped around. That's good news, but really it's a status change and we do that for the purpose of that company that's going to the second floor now says mayday, mayday, mayday. We've fallen through the floor. Well, if they didn't tell us they went to the second floor, we think they're in the basement. So we really need to look at the reason why we're getting on the radio and how does that drive our incident action plan and how does it affect and impact, you know, accountability and then the bigger picture of what we went there for Put the fire out and make sure that if there's anybody there that's in a survivable space that we remove them. So you know the primary search and fire control piece survival space that we remove them.
Speaker 1So you know the primary search and fire control piece. When known good news reporting came up, that was a revision to do blue card a few years back. What was the original?
Speaker 2intention of that. Why did we go to no good news reporting? Well, some of it was because of what we don't want to hear is you know every step of the way. They don't need to leave a bread trail. You know of where they are and exactly what they're doing. We're not there to micromanage them, but we do want to address benchmarks. So it comes down to the I want to talk on the radio and want to say something, and if we're going to key the radio and talk, there should be a reason behind it.
Effective Communication in Emergency Response
Speaker 2And you know, like I already said, the good news of addressing objectives that are complete is a big deal. As far as driving our incident action plan that maybe we're going to start to, you know, de-escalate and it impacts our forecasting of the event. And then the priority traffic. The other side of it is this thing's going to continue to escalate. So that's really where the no good news reporting piece came out. But if you really just think about it, you want your communication to have status change or priority traffic, or on the scene with an initial radio report or command, with a follow-up report, a front-end piece for all of those different transmissions. It really does away with the good news reporting that people are talking about.
Speaker 3As we continued. The evolution of all the systems we use within the hazard zone blue card piece of it, so like accountability got added in the late 80s, early 90s. So that changed radio reporting a lot. And then, with the advent of doing like real-time accountability, you had all these PARs coming in. So we over-PARed it in the beginning because that's just kind of the way we were trying to figure out okay, how do we actually manage accountability for personnel? Well, we figured out we didn't need 27 PARs during one work cycle. And then I'm on air and now I'm PARed and now I'm putting water on the fire.
Speaker 3So there was just too much gibberish that had nothing to do with the incident action plan and, like Josh said earlier, it was mostly to blow stress off and let people know this is what we're doing now. Well, because we all kind of came from the same place, we know what you're doing, that's what the order was. You know the task, location and objective and it goes both ways, see, and strategically, if the IC will give periodic updates when milestones are met. So if I'm ordering people in to get fire control in whatever shape building it is, is once they start to achieve fire control, is the IC is, I can start to say things that are going to help steer the incident action plan in the correct way. Say, hey, you're making good progress on the fire, you're getting good knockdown from the outside position, yada, yada, yada. And what that does is when the IC does. That is that will help to eliminate unnecessary task level transmissions back to you, because everybody's on the same page now and so you're doing these periodic updates and, really strategically, you're letting them know what you're doing is working. And the opposite is true. So if I'm the IC and I send people in to do fire control and it's been two or three minutes and it's getting worse and not better, that's the reason we don't do good news reporting in the front end of this or just to talk on the radio to talk. So I've got clear radio space that I can call the interior crews and say what are you doing in there? It's looking worse from out here. Well, we're dot, dot, dot. Well, get the ceilings opened up and put water in the attic right now. So then in the after action review, that's where we start to discuss. No, no, no, no. When you come in here, we knew where the fire was and you quit screwing around. Well, I was searching in here and doing this. I sent you in to do fire control. You should be doing fire control.
Speaker 3So a lot of this is it's just agreeing on things ahead of the fire and the sequence we're going to do things. So training eliminates radio traffic because we're going to do things. So training eliminates radio traffic. Because we know what to expect from each other. So that's kind of how you hook all this stuff together to keep the thing.
Speaker 3But anytime you reach a milestone, you're a task level crew that was given an assignment. As you guys have already said, if it affects the incident action plan in a way that you're going to switch it either up or down or across or whatever it is. That's what we need to be sharing over. The tactical channel is because that impacts everybody on the scene. So that's why we keep it clear and there's a lot of times that I mean that can be uncomfortable, especially once you got the thing set up, and now it's going to be a while while you're operating, whether it's offensive, defensive, whatever it is.
Speaker 3But I've been in places where, like, for five minutes, nobody said anything on the radio, which is really a long time, and then people start to get nervous. Well, that's where those periodic updates from the IC come in. Very good, and then you've got a clock on that. You're keeping track of time. So if you haven't heard from crews that were in positions for six, seven, eight minutes, it's like no, where are you now? Because you're running low on air and so I need to know how to make the next switch. You're running low on air, and so I need to know how to make the next switch. Do I need to replace you as a crew or is it your work done inside? So that's the kind of stuff that we're talking about. And then that's where the PAR really comes in. Is the PAR? We assume you have a PAR before you go in and then you have to actually report a PAR when you come out. So you have to verify okay, I got everybody I went in with and we're good. And then that's a check off and boom.
Speaker 2Just real quick. So, like some of those things that we say on the fire ground that are just not going to go away, that people, I think, try to fix or do away with, but we really can. Is, you know, engine four operator charged the red hand line? Well, it's just a transmission, it's part of the work we do. That's why we have radios, so that it's not face-to-face anymore, or hand signals, right, it's some of that work that needs to happen. We'll be communicating over the radio so that we can do the work that we went there to do.
Firefighting Operation in Residential Area
Speaker 2So we hear that sometimes like, well, how do I talk on the radio? Because people take it to an extreme, right? So how do I do work if I don't say these things Charge the hydrant, truck seven, we're ready to engine four. You're pumping our supply, we're ready for that water. You know all of those things that affect the work that we're doing. So I mean, just like Nick said, if it has an impact on the incident action plan, good or bad, we should communicate it. And the key is back to the training piece of how do you say it on the radio. You don't need to have a whole dissertation. A few words mean a lot, which just comes back to the system that we have of a couple of words mean a lot of things. So, like fire control means several things in our system, like you know, two sentences worth of stuff, but I just can say fire control. So, yeah, I think we can move on to the radio traffic and hear, you know, a bunch of different types of transmissions throughout this that we can talk about.
Speaker 4Looks like the house is going to be located in a cul-de-sac. We do have a hydrant in the cul-de-sac. First they should have their own water supply. Battalion 5 to radio. Look for responding units.
Speaker 5Battalion 5,. Look for responding units Right here, battalion 5, upgrade responding units.
Speaker 4Right truck 13 is on scene. Looks like we've got a two-story on a basement. We've got smoke showing from the attic. 13 will be. We'll have command engine 13,. You'll be fire attack. We're going to be in the offensive strategy on the opposite side.
Speaker 5Clear on scene two-story on the basement smoke from the attic engine 13, fire attack.
Speaker 4Battalion 5 to radio balance the alarm.
Speaker 5Clear to balance.
Speaker 4The alarm. Engine 18 is on scene with 4. Command engine 18. 18, command go ahead. Assist 13 with water supply. Engine 13, stretch your fire attack line to the alpha side door. Alpha side door. Engine 18 is clear. Assist 13 with water supply Attack, bumper fire attack. Are you ready for water Charging? Engine 24 is on scene with 3.
Speaker 4Rescue 24 is on Attack bumper fire attack. Are you ready for water? Age of 24 is on the scene with three rescue 24 is level one man, all you, okay, walk around. Complete fire appears. It's on the first floor. We got a fire attack line in on the opposite side. We got reports of a person possibly trapped or all in rescue at this time. Radio Battalion 5 is on the scene.
Speaker 5Battalion 5 is in command Go ahead.
Speaker 4Okay, just a quick rundown. Engine 13 is doing fire attack entering the opposite side with one hand line. Truck 13 is all in search and rescue. Engine 18, performing water supply. If that's correct, give me a can report. That's affirmative. We got neutral plane halfway down on the front door Fire attack searching for the fire right now. Truck 13, all in rescue. I'm clear, I'm taking over from here Great Battalion 5 to radio.
Speaker 4I'll be assuming old Hickory command, we're on man-in-the-offensive strategy. We've got one line in operation. Primary search is underway. Command to Rescue 24. Rescue 24, go ahead. Rescue 24, send medical group out the side. Be prepared to receive a victim. Command to Engine 24. Engine 24, go ahead, out the side. Engine 24 to Command Stage 1. Stage 3. Engine 24 to Command. Can you repeat that assignment On deck Out the side? Engine 24 is clear. Can you repeat that assignment On deck opposite side? Engine 24, it's clear. Opposite side.
Speaker 5Attack Comforter to Command. We have permanent water.
Speaker 4Command is clear. You have permanent water. 18 to Command. We're finished with establishing water supply. We're ready for assignment. Okay, let's go ahead and stretch a second cross lay off of Engine 13 as a backup line. Let's have it at the opposite side ready to go. 18 clear backup line. Let's have it at the opposite side, ready to go. Indeed, sir. Second line Command to Engine 13, can report.
Speaker 5Engine 13, we're inside the opposite side door. We're attempting to locate the fire on the first floor. We have our line, but it's a little short. You got a second line coming to the front door.
Speaker 4Yeah, that's a problem. We're stretching a second line now. We'll go ahead and extend it if we need to. Just let us know You're on the radio. Engine 23 is level 1. Engine 23,. You're level 1.
Speaker 5Engine 4, level 1. Truck 13, we're priority traffic.
Speaker 4Man truck 13,. Go ahead with your priority traffic. We got low visibility smoke all the way to the pool on the first floor. I need somebody to force a door in the trolley side basement to check the basement. On the walk around there was no smoke. Okay, I'm clear, agent 24, that's going to be you. Report to the trolley side, force a door, check the basement for extension.
Speaker 4Agent 24 is clear. Trolley side, 4th door, check the basement Command all units. Battalion 4 is going to be assuming Alpha Division. He will have Engine 13, truck 13, and Engine 18 working for him.
Speaker 5Engine 13 to Command with priority traffic.
Speaker 4Engine 13, go ahead.
Speaker 5Fire has been located on the Bravo side near the Bravo Charlie corner. If there's another door on that side or you could enter in the garage, we could pincer it.
Speaker 4Okay, I'm clear. I've assigned Alpha Division. He's working on that. Now Command to Engine 23. 18 Command do you want us to relocate our line to the Bravo side? You're working for Alpha Division. Coordinate with him. Let's find out where the seat of the fire is. Let's move your line to that location. Work with Alpha Division, Engine 23,. Go ahead.
Speaker 5Alpha Division come in, Alpha, go ahead. Okay, I'm positioned in Engine 18.
Speaker 4Bravo Charlie corner.
Speaker 5I've done face-to-face with Truck 13.
Speaker 4Engine 13 is stretched short, so we're repositioning the second line to enter the garage. Bravo, charlie Corner, to make a hit fire. Okay, I'm clear, I had a radio.
Speaker 5I'm coming. Go ahead Alpha Division to Command, to the last unit you Come in. Go ahead, alpha Division to Command.
Speaker 4The last unit you broke up. Go ahead. This is Alpha Division. We're going to need a bulk load off the truck to get to this. Okay, I'm clear. Do you need another unit to stretch that for you, 10-4. Okay, great Command to Engine 23,. That's going to be you. Let's assist, report to Alpha Division and stretch the bulk load off of Engine 13.
Speaker 5We're clear to stretch the bulk load and report to Alpha.
Speaker 4Charge the Red Line, red Line's getting charged. Engine 24,. This is Command with.
Speaker 5Priority Traffic Command to Engine 24, command. What's the priority traffic?
Speaker 4Command Engine 24,. Go with your priority traffic.
Speaker 5Base vent is clear. We have found one dog.
Speaker 4Okay, I'm clear. The basement is clear and you have found one dog. Are you bringing them out? The opposite side?
Speaker 5That's negative. We're coming out the Charlie side.
Speaker 4Let's bring him around the outpost to rescue group.
Speaker 5Engine 24 is clear. We're coming up to Alpha side Truck 13,. What's up here?
Speaker 4Command to Truck 13,. Go with your traffic.
Speaker 5Primary search is complete on the second floor. Nothing's found. We're moving to the first floor.
Effective Incident Command System Communication
Speaker 4Command is clear. Primary search complete. On the second floor You're moving to the first 24 to Command Status change. Command to last unit. What status change? Engine 24, we got the dog on the alpha side. We're ready for another assignment. Okay, I'm clear.
Speaker 524, just recycle the long deck alpha side Truck 13, command priority traffic.
Speaker 4Go ahead, truck 13. Located the residence first floor bedroom D side D built. Do you advise? You have located a victim. He's not aware of what's going on. Fine, there's limited smoke in his bedroom, sheltering in place for the moment.
Speaker 3I'm clear.
Speaker 4You've located a resident and you're sheltering in place for the moment man to medical group Rescue 24. You clear on that traffic. Be prepared to receive resident. Rescue 24 is clear and ready to receive Commander Radio. I need a status on the name of an.
Speaker 5ETA Mitchell guys, the call is sending.
Speaker 2Yeah, so this is back in Cobb County and there's a whole lot of moving parts in this whole incident. And though we were here to really talk about, you know, good news reporting, we can't talk about good news reporting without talking about all the reporting, kind of like I said. So you know. The whole example here is the fire department, the entire agency, using training with and deploying with one system. So everybody's on the same page, everybody's trained together. They laid out expectations, good size up command transfer. They use the system with priority traffic to identify things that aren't working or red flag things.
Speaker 2They made the transmission of we have a permanent water supply and some people would be like, well, why did they say that? Well, in this case, clearly they thought one company was getting the water supply. They assigned a second company to assist them with getting the water supply. So you clearly have a working fire. Companies are saying at this point they hadn't located the fire yet. So it was three seconds on the radio of hey, you got a permanent water supply and now we're ready for another assignment because that engine 18 was assisting to get the water supply. So they're ready to do something else. So they put it out there. Basically the assignment was complete, right.
Speaker 2And then you know a couple of transmissions there, you know, charge, the red line, several priority traffic pieces, status change, from the truck company that was on the second floor doing a search, letting command know they're going to the first floor.
Speaker 2I mean those are all parts and pieces of the system so that command is really in command, that they're doing real accountability and they're going to check off. Now I got a primary all clear of the second floor so there's no reason for anybody to be back up there. So just a really good example of the system working and a lot of good communications throughout the whole thing. And on top of it, you know like we talk about. They find a victim, victim didn't even know there was something going on in their building and then they sheltered in place. So it's just another piece like put the fire out, leave the people, people behind the doors, behind the doors, which is what they ended up doing here. They didn't pull them out, they didn't pull them back through the smoke or whatever. But I think there was five different times they said priority traffic and all five of them were times that they needed to say priority traffic From a strategic perspective.
Speaker 3This is the first time I've heard this. So if I'm the fire chief sitting at home, the dispatch comes out, it's a house fire with a reported victim. Very soon you hear somebody say, yeah, it's in a cul-de-sac, there's a hydrant here. So okay, that's good. Cul-de-sac, there's a hydrant here, so okay, that's good. You know, you got a water source. Initial radio report.
Speaker 3You got two stories in a basement with a working fire somewhere coming out of the attic showing in the attic area, right. So you think, okay, I got a fire, probably on the second floor, Maybe it's extended into the attic. As the thing goes on, they say no, we think the fire's on the first floor, we've done a 360. And then you start the IC1's doing their thing, ic2 gets there, does a transfer of command. You know where everybody's at and what they're doing. So from our goals of completing the tactical priorities, first they come back with the basements clear and we got a dog we're bringing out. So okay, they found a dog in the basement. Maybe that's the victim, maybe that isn't. You know it's sitting there wondering. Then you hear the second floor is clear, nothing up there. And you think, okay, a little back and forth about the line's not reaching. We're going to do this. There's a little bit going on, some face-to-face with the division boss who's been assigned. So now I'm sitting at home thinking, wow, they're making good progress, they pulled the dog out, they're getting the water to the fire now. And then the report comes back with we found a victim behind a closed door. We're not going to take them out because they're safer in here than us taking them where the products of combustion are. So, in that, what did that whole thing take in real time, probably 10, 12 minutes for all that to happen.
Speaker 3And, like Josh said, you had more than half a dozen priority traffics in there. Nobody was ever yelling and screaming. You knew where every company was all the time. It made sense as you kind of followed along in your mind. So, and if you are in fact the chief of that, you know where all those companies are, where those stations are, who should be on the scene, who should be running it.
Speaker 3And the radio traffic matches reality. And what it says is we all are under control and doing the most urgent work first, and then coming back down into we're de-escalating hazards, essentially until they get it all clear and the fire knocked down and you say, okay, that's perfect. Yeah, and it's not perfect, it's never going to be, it's not supposed to be. You say, well, you missed this here. You missed. No, I knew everything going on all the time. You missed this here. No, I knew everything going on all the time. I knew what the strategy was and I knew the progress they were making.
Speaker 3The incident action plan goes over the radio. We don't write it down. The IC is tracking on a sheet to keep accountability in their mind, but the incident action plan is taking place at real time and it's verbal. That's the difference between IDLH hazard zone and incident, where you've got 12-hour work cycles. It's just so it matches the hazards we're facing and the goals of what our work is, of what our work is. That's really kind of why Blue Card's here today is because that's where the proof of the pudding is in the radio traffic. The radio traffic don't lie.
Speaker 2I think the training right.
Speaker 2You have to stick with it and you have to train, because everybody who was on the radio, like Nick said, nobody was yelling, nobody was amped up, everybody understood the incident action plan, everybody was working within a system.
Speaker 2They all probably knew what everybody else's next transmission was likely going to be, because they all worked in the same system and then there wasn't a lot of jibber jabber on the radio because they train in a way that words mean something. So when you say priority traffic, that causes everybody's head to snap around a little bit Like what are they about to say? And then you can be very direct and to the point with just a couple of words of what is the problem and what do you need to solve the problem. And then all the rest of those transmissions just to circle back around on it of you know, charge the hand line, we got a permanent water supply, we've the EMS unit updating that. We're now on the alpha side. So I mean somebody could interpret all that as good news reporting, but it all impacts in a positive way the incident action plan. So I mean I think the takeaway here is that say what you got to say and what you need to say as long as it's impacting the incident action plan incident action plan.
Speaker 1All right, here we go. Timeless tactical truth. Today we want Josh and Nick to chime in on this one Use staging assignment by the incident commander and accountability SOPs to get firefighters into the standard work cycle. Staging assignment by the IC and accountability SOPs to get firefighters into the standard work cycle. You know Bruno had a quote that if you don't have staging, you don't have an incident command system. And there are still a lot of departments out there that either auto deploy or have some kind of way that they get into the game without getting an actual assignment from anybody. And that really goes along with some tracking as well, right, mm-hmm.
Speaker 3There's three deployment, three ways to deploy Assignment by the IC, sop and freelancing. The IC, sop and freelancing the only one that is based on the current critical factors is assignment by the IC. So SOP-based deployment is great for covering all the sides of a building, but it ignores the fire. So in this case, we just listened to a three-level house where they thought the fire was in the attic and it ended up being on the first floor. So if you're doing the SOP for an attic fire, that's not going to work at this particular incident. You're going to waste resources going to a place where the fire isn't and you're going to ignore where the fire is, which jacks your firefighter, safety and survival equation too far out of balance. So, assignment by the IC. Well, to be assigned by the IC, everybody's got a stage. The officer or the first arriving unit becomes the IC, so they get to assign everybody else behind them. Well, in most cases, over half the structure fires in North America are put out with one attack line and less than 300 gallons of water.
Speaker 3Who knows the best of where the second company should be assigned the SOP or the IC? The mobile IC? Who's currently managing the incident action plan? The IC. That's why we hire people to be ICs and we don't have an SOP. Put the fire out, it just doesn't. That's who? Yeah, that's incident command. So that's why we do assignment by the IC. And now you can use SOPs and we do. We rely on SOPs, but not to assign the incident operation. We use staging and allow the IC to assign those individuals. Got anything on that, josh?
Speaker 1I think he's got it All right. Well, guys, it's been a great discussion today. I think that was great audio that we heard from Cobb County to give some examples of information that maybe some people would call good news reporting and then kind of following it up with some really nice work there with their communication process. If anybody out there has audio you'd like to submit and show us some other examples. Our information is in the show notes and we'd love to get that audio from you. Thanks everyone for listening to B-Shifter. We'll talk to you soon.