The senior fire instructor was upset. The list of chapter titles for the 4th edition of Fire Officer: Principles and Practice did not have a stand-alone chapter dedicated to Crew Resource Management (CRM). CRM is always the first topic in the courses he teaches because CRM is linked to every emergency service activity. Lacking a dedicated chapter in the new textbook must mean that we “dropped the ball” on this vital firefighter safety and survival procedure. But we did not …
Sequencing Concepts and Practices
The 4th edition of Fire Officer: Principles and Practice is a major update that separates Fire Officer I and Fire Officer II material into two separate sections. This moved many topics around and allowed integration of some concepts into larger themes. About 35% of the content is new.
“Crew Resource Management” was the last chapter in the second and third editions, a stand alone section that provided five textbook pages focused on the International Association of Fire Chief’s approach to the practice.
The editors and I worked with the 24-member 4th edition focus group to make sure essential concepts and ideas were appropriately placed under the new format. We placed Crew Resource Management completely within the Fire Officer I section of the book.
Crew Resource Management As A Core Fire Officer Leadership Activity
Chapter 2 “Understanding Leadership and Management Theories” provides an overview of 11 leadership and management concepts. When describing the Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid, crew resource management is used as an example.
Starting on page 56 with “Origins of Crew Resource Management,” Chapter 2 provides an 11-page description of the concept and application of Crew Resource Management, tying CRM activities back to the leadership and management concepts covered in the beginning of the chapter.
The fire officer application of communication skills, teamwork, leadership, mentoring, handling conflict, responsibility, self-assessment are described within the context of CRM.
We added information from task allocation (NASA and flight safety), recognition-primed decision making (RPD), and situation awareness (Dr. Gasaway). Twelve of the 31 references listed for Chapter 2 are related to crew resource management. CRM represents 41% of the content in Chapter 2.
Crew Resource Management came to the fire service through flight safety over 20 years ago. It is time to move it from a “nice to know” topic at the end of the textbook to a core element of fire officer preparation.
This Week’s Take Home: Fire Department Takes Over EMS due to Budget Shortfall
Torrance, California, voted 6-1 on January 12 to end its contract with McCormack Ambulance and bring 9-1-1 ambulance service in-house come July. The revenue from staffing 5 fire department ambulances is intended to offset a $2.4 million budget cut that could lead to the layoff of 10 firefighters and a loss of the ISO Class 1 rating.
For students of local government operations, the city posted a 232 page package of information and presentations leading up to this decision. You can access the 52 MB .pdf file from here: https://torrance.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=8&event_id=7340&meta_id=321316
The current contract with McCormack calls for five 24 hour-a-day ambulances every day of the week. The Fire Department will be staffing two 24-hour-a-day ambulances and three “peak hour” units … along with a “surge” agreement with McCormack
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Feature Image: Camp Pendleton firefighters make their way up the Naval Hospital’s stairwell during a high-rise fire training exercise, May 19, 2012. Base and local units came together in a psuedo-scenario drill to test their communication skills with each other, as well as enhancing rapport for further incidents that may require the departments to work together. This Image was released by the United States Marine Corps with the ID 120519-M-6457B-002
Related Company Commander 4th edition post: