Photo by Tony Greco.
By Thomas N. Warren
情境意识是消防员的一个相对较新的概念，但这不是他们多年没有练习的东西。它是一个密切的相对和延伸的大小技巧。我们一直在教导和执行大小多年，为我们的消防力量准备在火场上的期望。188金博网网址多少这一概念已经发展成为消防作业的一个非常成功的战略，最重要的是，为了保持我们的消防员安全。188金博网网址多少
Situational awareness can have different definitions depending on its application to a specific discipline. For the fire service, we can define situational awareness as the continual observation of your specific environment and how any change in that environment affects your mission and safety. These continual environmental observations will become part of the overall strategy developed by an incident commander (IC).
We think about and plan for what we expect to encounter at fires and emergencies. With situational awareness, we extend the size-up concept to continually reading our environment—looking for changes that could affect the firefighting operation or our safety.
Situational awareness has its roots in the military. Aircraft pilots (particularly those engaged in dogfights) found that it was easy to become disoriented with the actions of their aircraft, the opponent’s aircraft, and the numerous gauges they need to monitor during combat flights. This concept of maintaining a vigilance of your surroundings and acting on the changing environment has extended to the other branches of the military.
For instance, the Coast Guard has a very detailed training program that explains how important situational awareness is when piloting Coast Guard vessels during their missions. The fire service has a long history of adopting concepts, strategies, and terminology from the military, so it is not surprising that the fire service has embraced this concept.
Now that we understand how situational awareness came to be and what it is, the question naturally becomes, Who is responsible for situational awareness on the fireground? The answer is: everyone on the fireground. Every firefighter operating on the fireground is responsible for developing a situational awareness in his environment; every fire officer is responsible for developing a situational awareness of his company’s operations, evaluating how changes can affect the mission and firefighter safety; and the IC is responsible for developing an overall situational awareness of the entire firefighting operation.
To blend every firefighters’, officers’, and ICs responsibility for effective situational awareness into a comprehensive and effective firefighting operation, we should look more closely at what it is exactly each person on the fireground is evaluating in his environment.
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Firefighters
当我们提到消防员时，我们指的是在中尉等级低于中尉的消防力量的成员。188金博网网址多少消防员没有任何监督责任，他们的工作主要包括进行对抗火灾的体育活动。消防员是Firegound上的人员，他们执行操作泵送设备和空中设备，推进软管，养殖梯子，搜索建筑物，通风活动，强制进入等动手活动。
在大多数情况下，消防员在公司官员的监督下运作。然而，在许多情况下，消防员从他们的官员远程运作，例如泵运营商或消防栓消防员。无论官员是否在那里，消防员仍然有责任保持对环境的认识。正在向发动机公司泵送的消防员必须保持对其供水和其设备的机械条件的情境意识。当一个条件发生影响，这会影响水的持续流动泵或残留压降，结果可能是灾难性的。泵操作员必须保持发动机温度和油压的认识，以保持水流不间断。
该地区环境泵操作符around the engine truck, the mechanical operation of the truck, and the flow of water to and from the truck. Any changes in this environment must be reported to the IC. Similarly, the operator of the ladder company must maintain a situational awareness of the mechanical operation of the truck and the movement of the aerial device. Overhead obstructions as well as advancing fire conditions will affect the operation and effectiveness of the aerial device. A firefighter positioned at the controls on the turntable must maintain an awareness of the operations occurring at the tip of the aerial device. Like the pump operator, the environment for the ladder operator is the mechanical operation of the truck, the movement of the aerial device, and the integrity of the stabilizers. Again, any changes in this environment must be reported to the IC.
在公司官员的监督下，从事消防镇压，通风和搜查行动的消防员并不免除对其环境的情境意识。拾取像室内门这样的燃烧建筑的变化，这将不会关闭，墙壁与墙壁相遇的空隙，或通过砖墙发射的烟雾可以发挥迫在眉睫的建筑崩溃。消防员完全从事情境意识将注意到他们的环境变化并向他们的公司总监报告。在燃烧建筑外面的消防员在燃烧的建筑物外面操作，他们看到了其环境的变化，如电气服务下降，烟雾颜色/压力变化，消防员职位或曝光建筑物下方通过加强火灾条件威胁将报告观察到这些条件在他们的环境中向他们的官员转发给事故指挥官。在Firedround上运营的消防员可能是第一个注意到他们环境中可能成为尚未发生的事件信号的细微变化的人。情境意识基本上是“抬头”消防员。
Company Officers
火的本质官responsibilities is to direct and supervise the operations of their fire company. Company officers are always looking at the environment in which their firefighters are working in. This very responsibility means that they must have a strong sense of situational awareness. Fire officers will measure their company’s success by accomplishing their assigned task with the least amount of risk. To achieve operational success at the company level, a fire officer must maintain a keen sense of situational awareness for both the safety of his company and the success of its mission. Fire officers will constantly observe their firefighters and the environment in which they are operating. They will be looking for any conditions that will have an influence on their firefighter’s safety like fire spread, heat conditions, building integrity, or smoke conditions. Fire officers will listen to all fireground communications for signs of worsening conditions. For fire officers, their environment for maintaining situational awareness is somewhat larger in scope than that of the firefighters. However, it is vital that the fire officer’s analysis of his environment is accurately interpreted and reported to the IC.
ICs
IC operating at the scene of a building fire are, in a sense, the repository of all the information observed and transmitted. Fireground operations will depend largely on the reporting of the company officers and on the change in conditions observed by the IC, who cannot see inside the building and therefore cannot notice if the walls are parting from the floor. The IC will have to depend on the situational awareness of his company officers for this kind of information. His situational awareness is on a larger scope. From the command post, the IC will observe the fireground environment, looking for dangers like smoke color and pressure, visible fire, obstacles to line advancement, possible victims, age and condition of the building, and company operations. The IC will measure the operation against established standard operating procedures (SOPs) and ensure all components of the SOPs are met. The IC’s situational awareness will lead to a processing of all the information reported and observed, understanding the meaning of these reports, and adjusting the incident action plan accordingly. The IC must maintain this continuous situational awareness and avoid the trappings of tunnel vision; his observations are usually a good indicator of the progress being made and the success of the outcome. The IC can never become complacent even when the fire is extinguished.
A keen sense of situational awareness must always be present even when the fire is out; some of the most tragic firefighter deaths and injuries occur after the fire is out. One of the most famous incidents was the Hotel Vendome fire in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 17, 1972, when nine firefighters were killed in a building collapse during overhaul. This incident demonstrated how important it is for the IC to maintain a strong situational awareness throughout the course of an incident.
As we can see, every person operating on the fireground has a situational awareness responsibility to varying levels. It is important for everyone to understand how important it is to constantly observe your environment and report your observations. The IC must continually evaluate and interpret these observational reports; these reports can be a strong indicator of events to come.
The Department of Homeland Security’s motto, “If you see something, say something,” is a good relation to the importance of situation awareness for firefighters.
Thomas N. Warrenhas more than 40 years of experience in the fire service in both career and volunteer departments. He retired as assistant chief of department of the Providence (RI) Fire Department after 33 years of service. Presently he is a faculty member at Bristol Community College in the Fire Science Technology Program teaching a variety of subjects in the fire science discipline. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in fire science from Providence College, an Associate’s Degree in business administration from the Community College of Rhode Island and a Certificate in Occupational Safety and Health from Roger Williams University.
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