You’ve spent the last couple years taking classes, reading the books, getting ready. You’re at THAT point. It’s your turn. It’s your day.
It all starts so simple. They let you ride the front seat on the “BS” calls, you pick up the brush fire, the vehicle accident, the car fire, the automatic alarms. You’re feeling good; in fact, you’re feeling cocky. Bring it on (says your bravado)! You handled all those “big ones” without issue.
Call comes in
You’re on your way back from that last service call, and wait a minute, what’s that? Beep, beep, beep—a first-due house fire, children trapped. You are close, it’s a cold, dark night in Whoville. Crap, you were on a service call and didn’t have all your stuff on. No big deal, you’ll swing your coat and bottle on when you pull up.
The driver pulls around the corner and wants to know where the hydrant is. Crap, hold on, Joe. “You passed it. Stop! Layout!” you yell to the “kid” behind you. Start the clock. Ten seconds later, you pull up to a single-story frame house on a basement with smoke showing from the eaves on the Alpha side. Mom is jumping up and down in the street. “My babies are in there,” she screams. “I’ll get them, ma’am. Where are they?” you ask. “In the front door, down the steps,” she replies.
As you stumble off trying to sleeve your bottle straps and buckle everything up, you tell your crew to pull a line. Your crew has less time on than you; this is their second, maybe third fire. “Wait, which line?” someone asks.
At the front door, you mask-up, pull on your gloves, throw your helmet on and make a break for the basement steps. Now 25 seconds in.
Your crew is struggling with the 400 feet of 2-inch line they just pulled. Wait, did that floor just sag under your weight? Did you just hear a child cry? Oh crap, you forgot to tell them where to pick up my line. Your lineman shouts in the front door, “Hey, I can’t get water in this line!” You’re feeling bees stinging your ears, and you haven’t found those steps yet. Wait, they got the line charged, the driver’s throwing a ladder. Now 45 seconds in.
The second engine pulls up where they figure you laid out from. Don’t see any line. Crap, they start to lay out from here. Three seconds into their layout, they see your line sitting in the middle of the street (remember, you passed the hydrant). Now they have to back up. But the ladder truck is behind us. Pull over, 10 more seconds. Now 58 seconds in.
You got your line figured out, so let’s get it inside the front door. The floors are sagging badly, and you hear screams and yelling. Wait a minute, what’s that? Who’s that? Don’t push me. Put some freaking water on this fire! Who’s in charge? Where are my kids!? Where’s the command post? What do you want my crew to do? “Bail out, bail out. MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY!” You’re two minutes in. There is little opportunity to recover from this one, pal.
Set the stage
The first two minutes of any incident sets the stage for the rest of the incident. I’ve heard people say it’s 35 seconds or a minute, but I’ll give you a little more. You might be able to recover from some mistakes made in the first 35 seconds. If you haven’t recovered by two minutes in, your incident may be headed to hell in a hand basket.
From the moment you set foot in that front seat, you take on a different set of responsibilities, a new role, and you have a solemn responsibility—a responsibility to serve the public, protect your crew, protect yourself and protect everyone who may end up falling under your charge. You cannot realistically assume that responsibility if you’re not physically, mentally, emotionally and professionally ready. Mental toughness, coupled with all of the training and development you have acquired, will help you through this scenario.
Change the outcome
In this case, a train-like-you-fight and fight-like-you-train attitude and approach might have made all the difference. Properly assembled PPE would have prevented burns, and a properly completed 360 size-up would have identified an easily accessible basement-level entrance, with the two kids just inside the sliding glass door.
I can’t stress enough the importance of practice, practice, practice. While practice may not make for perfect operations every time, it sure does provide you the opportunity to hone skills and gain confidence that you’ll lean back on when those close call incidents come calling. When I used to ride the back step (yes, I’m just old enough to remember when we did that in the Prince George’s County Fire Department), it was not unusual for us to run through scenarios at particular buildings while we sat at red lights. More than once, those simple preplan/simulator-style back-step training opportunities paid off at a real incident.
As a firefighter, when others would lay back and play pool or watch TV, I would soak myself into the first-due map books and preplans, batting ideas off of the other firefighters who had the same passion. As an officer, even while working for five years at Silver Hill, one of the busiest engine companies in the county (that station currently answers 15,000 calls annually), it wasn’t unusual for me to hold unannounced mini-drills, ordering the driver to nose-up to a hydrant while returning from a call and having the crew run an impromptu hoseline or master stream drill. I remember at least a couple times when senior firefighters would say, “Sergeant, why do we have to do this? We run these things every day.” The truth be known, they did run the regulars every day. The drills we should run each other through should also include things and places where we don’t run every day. Every one of those exercises helped build that “mental toughness.”
Practice will eventually make as perfect as you’re going to get. The first two minutes will indeed set the stage. It’s your play, your act, your scene. You can be the leader or you can be the slug sitting on the sidelines. Make the best of it. You might not have another two minutes left!
