Last month, in Part 1, we described the converting “information into intelligence” process. Here, we look at how one “master” handled this “conversion” on the fireground.
As a young firefighter, I was honored to work for a company officer (captain) who was the 1959 Phoenix Fire Department version of Tom Brennan. He was a smart, tough, very experienced, cool-headed (somewhat stoic) former Marine. We were a very busy (responded on all working fires in the city) downtown, six-firefighter(!) squad company. The captain was basically a quiet guy who didn’t say much. His body language was always the same-completely under control and calm. On the fireground, he tended to gesture rather than speak. When we arrived at a fire, the team had a standard routine. We got off the rig and looked at him. If he moved his head toward the fire (about 1/64 inch), we would attack the fire with preconnected lines like a pack of madmen (all men then). This was very fun and what we mostly did.
Once in awhile, we would be in the starting blocks, and he would shake his head (1/16 inch-like shouting for him), and he would send a clear “NO ATTACK” message. He had such stature that when he shook no, it was a definite, no-discussion, the heck with your attack actualization needs NO! In most cases when he would send a “no go” message, the building would collapse, the fire would blow up, or (to a very young firefighter) something like a meteor would strike the fire and destroy the zip code. These unplanned events would generally happen right in the attack position where we would have been.
To me, he simply had gypsy blood-he could see through walls, intuit thermal dynamics, and evaluate outer space. What was most amazing (to that same young firefighter) is that he would do all this while the truck was rolling to a stop and he was getting out to send us his cranial movement signal. As I worked with him, I began to engage him to try to get a “gypsy blood transfusion.”
When I would ask him (like I did Brennan), “How did you know that?” he would explain what was “behind” that visual condition and why he reacted as he did (i.e., moved his head). He would outline in simple, basic terms, fire behavior, structural vs. gravity reactions, attack line management, burn/collapse times, and the effect of action that occurred before our arrival. He told me in one of his (profound) answers: “I never go anyplace on the fireground I haven’t figured out before I go there.”
Looking back at what he did so well was to take in information, process it into intelligence, and then summarize it by communicating with his team of attack whackos by moving his head. In one of his lessons, I remember he said (how could you forget?), “Don’t fall in love in one night.” We had a couple of crew members who had been married five or six times, so we had ever-present familiar examples (and all the associated soap opera psycho stuff). He related that a too-quick romance (based on a single appealing characteristic) is a lot like a too-quick, unevaluated attack. This was from a guy who was a real pro, who loved the attack drama as much as his young hormonally challenged firefighters. In fact, in the beginning of my assignment with him, he energetically took us to some absolutely scary places that I did not think we could survive, but he always took care of us, and he always got us out. I asked him once, “Is firefighting supposed to hurt this much?” He answered, “It does, if you do it right.”
“Slide Tray” in the Brain
A really smart guy named Gary Klein has studied how high-performance bosses are able to make accurate, effective decisions in situations where there is very little time and generally lousy information. He developed the idea of a “slide tray” in the brain that is full of pictures of former experiences. When the viewer sees a tactical situation that requires a quick decision, he rotates the slide tray to a personally historic picture that matches what he is seeing and then creates the action that goes with that slide.
Dr. Klein says that such decision making is not so much the result of a system but emerges from what we have seen, done, sensed, and lived through in the past. There is a lot of Road Rash University lesson plans in that slide tray. He describes how the decisionmaker is directed by the pattern between the current event connected to a past experience. As that pattern continues, it leads the decisionmaker through the decision/action process.
I would add to this smart stuff a new “casino theory” that would include a slot machine with the slide tray. IC #1’s action plan must connect to a triangulation of multiple pieces of related information-three pieces is a manageable number (like the three wheels in a slot). IC #1 pulls the handle and must connect three information factors in the same way the slot machine wheels land (in a row) to produce the intelligence that determines if the attack plan in a particular tactical position is a winner (go) or a loser (no go). When I think back, that was pretty much what my old role-model captain did so well.
ALAN BRUNACINI recently retired as the chief of the Phoenix (AZ) Fire Department, where he has served since 1958. He was promoted to chief in 1978. He formerly was chairman of the NFPA board of directors and headed the NFPA’s Fire Service Occupational Safety and Health Committee, which developed Standard 1500. He is chairman of the NFPA’s Career Deployment Committee. He is the author of Fire Command and Essentials of Fire Department Customer Service.
