Does your department use the Incident Command System (ICS)? Recommended practices (standards) call for everybody to be using it by now, but I know that some have been slow to train and implement the practice. And too, some departments only put it in use during large incidents instead of every working situation.
When you begin establishing your ICS on the scene one of the priority slots to be filled is that of the Safety Officer. And I emphasize the term priority. ICS and safety should be implemented in jobs other than fires, too. But it’s easily forgotten about when there aren’t hose lines and flames dominating the scene.
What brought all this up was this video that was sent along to me yesterday taken at a very challenging auto extrication earlier this week in Massachusetts. Challenging isn’t too strong a word to use to describe it, either. These crews did a fine job and you can tell that they are both organized and experienced at it. But the correspondent who sent the video was concerned with a particular moment in the video and pointed that out. Around the 40-second mark of the video take note of the man using the chain saw. From this camera angle, and it could well be just the camera location distorting the actual scene, it appears that the saw blade is just inches away from another firefighter.
Whether that’s the situation or not, I’m not trying to nitpick anybody’s operations. But I wanted to use this as an illustration to point out the value of having a safety officer on all incidents. In this case, while everybody is concentrating on the job at hand and intent on what they are doing, it is so easy to let little potentials crop up that can have deleterious effects on the operation and the well-being of the firefighters/medics. I’m also thinking head and eye protection here, too.
When utilized properly, the Safety Officer has the authority to demand immediate corrections or adjustments during an operation without fear of being overruled by a sector commander.
Another concern that people who are newer to using ICS have is that they seem to think that you have to automatically fill in ALL the command boxes on the chart when you implement the program. But that’s not so. When you are well-practiced and experienced with it, you will automatically just set up whatever portions of the command structure are called for by the incident at hand. But the Safety Officer should always be one of them.
We’re running a little late here, so let’s get this equipment checked out. I need to get some more coffee going.
