Smaller volunteer fire departments often don’t run but a handful of working structure fires each year. Nevertheless, we do our best to train for these calls, whether it be on the station floor or in a burn can (for those of us more fortunate). However, what are we doing to make sure that we measure the results of our training? How can we tell how effective our methods are? Are we doing enough to ensure the safety of our men and women?
Connections
Picture this: It’s a beautiful March morning, a cool spring breeze is blowing, and the buses just dropped all of the kids off at school. The pager sounds for a structure fire on the edge of town. Daytime staffing is limited, and your automatic mutual aid departments are on their way. The first-due engine reports heavy fire from the front of the structure, the officer performs his 360, and the attack team enters. Within 30 minutes, you declare the fire under control and a complete loss is stopped at the 45-minute mark. Well done. You return to the station, get the apparatus back in service and go on your merry way.
In June, you catch another job: a Saturday night, a rural home, well-involved. Mutual aid departments are summoned, rural water supply is established, and a successful transitional attack allows you a good knock on the fire. Quality overhaul means that you aren’t coming back. Your manpower, which seemed adequate on the way, appeared to be stretched rather thinly. Each time that you looked at staging, one or two members were available, but they were there one minute and gone the next. Overall, solid work again.
You’re feeling good about your department, and the last few structure fires went rather well: a few hiccups but nothing to lose sleep over.
Beep, beep, beep. Here you go again, straight to Jobtown. This time, it’s a two-story house on a cold December night: Heavy smoke pushing but little visible flames. The homeowners’ vehicles are in the drive, but no one is in sight. The cold weather hampers water supply efforts. The attack team enters to locate the fire, and you, as the incident commander (IC), assign a search team to begin a primary search on the bottom floor.
Within minutes, you hear the attack team yelling for pressure, and soon, the word that we all fear—“Mayday”—fills the air. As IC, you look around for whom to assign to RIT, but few options are there. You had a few members in staging, but now they are somewhere else doing something else. Just as you are going to pull all of your members, the kink in the hose is found, water to the nozzle is reestablished and the attack team finishes the extinguishment. That was close.
Back at the station, members are relieved that no injuries occurred, and you all informally discuss what happened. Members mention that something similar happened to them with the hose on the March fire. Others mention that, while they were in staging, they saw some burning soffit on the B-side and went to pull it when the issue occurred.
Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it
The need for constant evaluation of training and performance after large-scale incidents is a must in the fire service, particularly in the volunteer fire service where the repetitiveness of these types of calls simply isn’t there. If the IC of each of these structure fires spent 15 minutes after those and other previous calls to perform a basic after-action review or incident critique, some of the issues that were faced that December night might have been eliminated. Remember, a lesson learned should be a lesson shared.
Critiques should encompass all aspects of the incident, from the IC down to probie, and from the initial response tactics all of the way to the overhaul. Critiques should be done within a whole-department atmosphere during a meeting or training, and all of the members should be encouraged to take part. If this was done after the March fire, the hoseline kink might have been discussed, and subsequent training could have been issued. If a critique of the June rural structure fire took place, the disappearing firefighters from staging likely would have been addressed, thus eliminating a repeat issue. The freelancing that was taking placed could have been halted; some standard operating procedures (SOPs) might have been implemented as a result.
Critiques aren’t meant to put members on the spot or to create tension and division within the department. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone. However, you must be honest with yourself and tear down that pride barrier of your department to identify and learn from mistakes. Critiques are a great tool, and they can provide training topics when you struggle to find one for next month’s meetings.
I need more than two hands to count the number of times that my department implemented or adjusted an SOP or standard operating guideline (SOG) based on a post-call critique. I would be foolish to say that I didn’t learn something during our critiques—even if I didn’t make the mistake—thus keeping me from repeating a mistake.
In my department, we formally critique almost every major call. (Smaller calls simply get an “Anyone have any input on how we can improve on anything?”)
The formal critiques are documented, mainly to pass on to training officers for future training topics and to compare with our SOPs and SOGs. No members are singled out, and the interaction usually takes the form of a positive roundtable discussion.
If done correctly, critiques improve morale while improving fireground safety, effectiveness and efficiency. By pointing out our flaws, we learn from them and grow as firefighters. Sometimes, two wrongs do make a right.
Critique sheet
One of the best methods to conduct a critique involves a basic critique format sheet: Blank spaces on the top to fill in the date, time, location of the call, type of call, personnel response and initial size-up information.
Below all of that, make some simple subheadings with a grading scale next to it (A, B, C, D, E) and a section for notes just below that. The subheadings could be PPE, Fire Attack, Staging/Freelancing and Water Supply, although the list could go on and can be tailored to your department. For instance, our department recently took delivery of its first aerial. A line item was added to the critique sheet about apparatus placement.
Give each subheading a grade and make notes, positive or negative, as to why you gave it that particular grade. Make several copies and have them ready. Once completed, discuss at a meeting, then create a folder or binder to retain all of the sheets.
Give yourself and your department the opportunity to learn from every call. The change likely will be subtle, but change will occur, nonetheless. Change isn’t a threat; it’s an opportunity to improve on what you already know and to use it as a tool for success.
About the Author

Dan Rogers
Dan Rogers joined the fire service in 2005 as a third-generation volunteer firefighter and currently holds the rank of assistant chief for the Witt, IL, Volunteer Fire Department. He is employed as a process unit operator for Phillips 66 Refinery, where he is a member of its Emergency Response Team and High Angle Rescue Team. Rogers owns and operates a grant writing consultant company, First Due Consulting.