Unity of Command: Unity of command is best achieved by vesting a single commander with requisite authority.
—Principles of War 1954
In part six (6) of Principles of Fireground Battle, we will discuss and give insight into the sixth of the nine (9) tenets of battle.The sixth tenet in the original works from General Fuller would be Unity of Command. Yet, as we take into consideration the Fire Service terms of those particular tents we capture Unity of Command in the term of Command Structure.Colonel Ian Hope of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry wrote in his works, Unity of Command in Afghanistan, A Forsaken Principle of War, “Failure to address the current problems of unity of command will result in the failure of the alliance—and the coalition—in Afghanistan”.When Carl von Clauswitz wrote the Principles of War, he knew the absolute importance that Fuller spoken to about the Unity of Command, in the fire service we see Unity of Command and the Command Structure as one.There is no denying the absolute need for a Command Structure.Time has proven over and over the failure to establish a Command Structure has terrible and tragic results. The same failure Colonel Hope discusses in Afghanistan is the same failure the American Fire Service will face unless people embrace and utilize the Command Structure for which it was created and intended to do.That’s to have a functional, simplistic, expandable system to manage the incident in which all personnel know their roles, to whom they are responsible or accountable to, and lastly for whom is in charge of the overall incident.Simple stated, its ICS. I recently said awhile back, “ICS is like a condom, it does no good to put it on halfway through the event”. Although said somewhat tonguein cheek, there is a lot of truth in the matter.An incident must have a Commander. No matter how much we discuss and argue about the functions of the fireground, the biggest failure I continue to see is the lack of command.Just recently I witnessed a commercial structure fire where the the arriving Battalion Chief failed to notify all units on scene and the command center that he was assuming command from the first arriving company officer. The may seem to be a small piece of the pie, but if you’re the Captain leading a fire attack team and you need to relay some vital intelligence to the IC, you sure as hell ant to know who it is! Part of the problem I hear all the time is, “ICS doesn’t put out fires”.Give that man a lolli-pop.No kidding, but failure to establish a Command Structure and no one will know who is suppose to put the damn fire out.Which gets into the whole SOG/SOP thing.I personally have operated my entire career with strong SOP/SOG’S established in effective fireground behaviors.Equally, I have grown up in a culture of strong command structure with ICS.With that said, I can safely say the ability to couple good fundamental SOP/SOG’s on the fireground with a command structure is a force multiplier.ICS or a command structure does not take away for the use or implementation of SOP/SOG’s, just as SOP/SOG’s do not take away from ICS.In fact, if anything they compliment one another. The problem with attempting to establish any incident structure with just SOP/SOG’s is simple. If you fail to have one central authority figure determining the placement and actions of resources, and you rely upon a written policy where your ASSUME all personnel will follow those policies and you don’t take into account the changing dynamics of the incident, you will in fact find yourself on an incident with freelancing, counterproductive actions and uncoordinated tactics taking place.Hence, CHAOS!!! Recently I taught the Mission Focused Command course where we had approximately 35 students.As part of the program we did our typical simulations.A group of students who are getting ready for a Captains test and prided themselves on the fact there department, “Just puts the fire out, we don’t worry about ICS”. In knew where this would go as they sat down for the simulation.This was an easy multi-story commercial strip mall with multiple exposures simulation.Upon arrival the first in company officer assigned his entire 1st alarm to task based upon single view of the simulation. To make matters worse, I asked if the 1st alarm was on-scene and he stated no! (This is typical for this organization) He further went on to assign himself and his crew to “Quick Attack Mode”. Again I asked who would take command and he responded the Battalion Chief who usually arrived 5 Minutes into the incident after other units have arrived and gone to work based upon his assignments.Well, as we played the simulation out and we showed the Bravo, Charlie, and Delta Divisions the entire group went white and silent.The reason was simple, they had all gone straight to the fire and set-up a huge RIC team.Nobody was assigned to check for extension or capture exposure control, nobody was performing search, and nobody was providing ventilation support to the interior companies as the situation worsened. Guess what, built into the simulations was a rapidly spreading fire into the Bravo and Delta Units with rescues above the fire. In the end, we discussed the merits of there actions and worked to broaden their ability to use a command structure early on into the incident to be more effective and meet the needs of the incidnet.The reason this went so bad was equally as simple, they assign resources based upon some loosely followed SOP/SOG’s that works on most single room and content fires in one story homes.You know the bread and butter fire. RIGHT!!!! Well when you step out of the box and bit and follow that same horse back to the stable you might not like what you find there.To illustrate the point, about three weeks later I got a phone call from one of the guys, he told me the department lost a large L shaped strip mall in there city.He said all the guys who had taken the class where telling their Captains they needed to change gears and do the things we had discussed in class, but to no avail, they were stuck in neutral!Bottom line is this, Unity of command is best achieved by vesting a single commander with requisite authority to organize and assign the resources based upon incident driven needs and principles. Supplement his ability by establishing good fundamental and sound SOP/SOG’s which are know, trained to and train on often. Develop personnel to understand the need for and follow the principle of Unity of Command which operating under the Command Structure of ICS and we and a fire service will see more efficiency and effectiveness s within and upon the fireground.Until the next time…Sit back and have a Cuppa.
