“I Know It When I See It”

In a recent conversation with a group of firefighters, we were talking about how critical the calm behavior of the incident commander (IC) is to effective and safe fireground operations. The group mutually wondered how some fire officer ICs are able to stay cool under the most difficult conditions while others let that same level of chaos outperform their self-control, and their behavior becomes goofy. During our talk, we were trying to define what cool/calm/composed command really means; someone said: “I can’t define cool, but I know it when I see it.” After we went our separate ways, I continued to think about what we had talked about. It occurred to me that there is not much instructional material available on calm command behavior, which is odd because it is absolutely critical for a fireground boss (IC) to stay cool when the chips are down, and this skill is universally admired in our service.

Many firefighters are alive today because an unruffled IC moved them out of an attack position that was very quickly going from okay to almost instantly fatal. A special “cool school” that teaches new ICs how to act during difficult times would be a big seller. The following might be part of the curriculum in the school.

• You must learn the basic IC job. It is impossible to define any behavioral part of doing a job (like being cool) if you can’t describe the basic job because the job description outlines what we are supposed to be cool doing. The point is not to be cool just for the sake of being cool but to use your calm composure to do a better/safer job. Being an IC does not involve some mysterious form of voodoo. The eight standard command functions describe it in pretty simple terms. The more a person knows about—and practices doing—those standard command functions, the more capable he becomes and the calmer he is when he must perform. Simply, the basis of composure is competence. The eight standard command functions serve as a basic job description of what is expected of an IC: