Who’s in command at your fire department’s responses? I mean overall, permanent command from the moment units arrive until the operation is completed. The reason I mention this is that many departments leave this important task to a company officer who arrives at the scene on an apparatus as part of a company. Yes, I know the first-arriving officer is the initial incident commander, but many departments are harnessing that officer with the job full time. No later-arriving officer relieves the company officer to rejoin his or her crew inside the building. Let’s take a look at this situation and talk a little about the pros and cons of this practice.
We are talking about two distinctly different jobs here. The company officer is just that – the officer assigned to ride on and supervise the operations of a company. Company officers have many responsibilities. If they arrive first, they give a radio report of conditions, conduct a 360-degree survey of the building (if possible), size-up the situation, supervise the stretching of hoselines and the throwing of ladders, and then they enter and keep track of the members of their crews during interior operations. Let’s just say they are pretty busy.
Now, all of these activities are important or we wouldn’t be doing them, but if we must prioritize them, the most important would be the interior operations – entering the burning building with a crew to perform fire extinguishment or search and rescue operations. Once inside, the officer is responsible for the safety and survival of the crew. The officer must be aware of the conditions – heat levels, smoke movement, building stability and fire spread. The officer is absolutely responsible for the accountability of the crew.
Company officers are the folks who make sure we all get out of a burning building safely. Additionally, they are in the best position and have the most experience to give proper and accurate radio reports to the incident commander of the company’s progress or lack thereof. So, how can anyone require this officer to stay outside the building and perform the duties of the incident commander without endangering not only the success of the firefighting operation, but also the safety of the interior, unsupervised firefighting crew?
That’s the company officer’s side of this story. Let’s examine the duties and responsibilities of the incident commander and take a look at how well the company officer can handle them. Of course, the incident commander is in overall command of the operation and all of the operating units. The incident commander also must:
- Take up a position where he or she can see the involved building and where arriving units can see and report in
- Size-up the conditions and develop an effective strategy
- Assign individual units – either engines, ladders or other specialized units – to specific jobs in and around the building
- Ensure that a rapid intervention team is assigned, has arrived and is prepared to be deployed for firefighter rescue and removal
Communicate with interior units and collect information on conditions and the progress of operations
- Reevaluate the operation at measured intervals and provide progress reports to the dispatcher or other department officials
- Account for primary and secondary searches
- Monitor or assign companies to exposures to uncover and prevent extension
- Stay on top of the fire attack units to monitor the progress of the extinguishment effort
Let’s ask ourselves a few questions. Do you think the company officer is qualified, trained and experienced enough to perform company officer duties? Let’s say yes. That brings us to the next question. Do you think this company officer or any company officer is able to handle the job duties of the incident commander as described above? The answer, generally, is yes. So, why is this an issue? Because the company officer cannot do BOTH!
The company officer cannot respond to the incident on the company apparatus with a crew, arrive at the scene and deploy the crew into the building without supervision, establish command, and operate as the incident commander for the entire incident and successfully handle all of the duties and responsibilities of both positions. IT CAN’T BE DONE!
What is the solution? To solve this problem, you must have an incident commander at the scene of every response. The incident commander should arrive in a vehicle other than a fire apparatus with a crew. The incident commander may be alone with accompanied by an aide, but should be solely responsible for the command element of the incident and in command from arrival until the incident is concluded. The incident commander could be a chief of department or maybe a battalion chief or district chief. Some departments have a captain who is the “shift commander” and responds in a “chief’s car” along with an assignment of engines and ladders to certain categories of alarms.
The jobs of incident commander and company officer are important. One person cannot do both jobs effectively. If your department expects someone to do this, the only comment I have is, “Where’s the chief?”
