Managing The Insanity

The fire service has relied on the actions, and attitude, of “can-do” firefighters for many years.  To truly be successful at this job, one must take on this persona.  The public, and the fire service, depend on these “can-do” firefighters to step up and do whatever is necessary to get the job done.  I pride myself on being a “can-do” firefighter and try to surround myself with “can-do” firefighters.  While there are numerous benefits to this type of fire service member, there is one inherent weakness.  Failure is not an option (nor should it be!) and sometimes we become so focused on completing a task or mission, we fail to fully evaluate the effectiveness of how we are completing the task or mission.  As Albert Einstein is quoted: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results”. The good news is that this “weakness” can be managed to allow members to operate as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Some examples of “insanity” I have witnessed first-hand, or been a part of, include: Trying to force a door for 5 minutes without a striking tool when 30 seconds of walking, coupled with opening a compartment door, would have shaved off 4 of the 5 minutes.  Trying multiple times, with multiple tools, to cut the B-Post on a late model Mercedes when the company could have cut in to the roof rail to avoid the HSLA steel in the B-Post.  A company trying to make the second floor of a 2000 square foot house with a 2.5” hose for 3 minutes before two 1.75” hoses, flowing more water and maneuvering better from room to room, come past them and put the second floor out.  An IC who kept deploying companies to the inside of a house on fire and wondered why the fire wasn’t going out when the exterior building materials continued to burn unchecked.  A pump operator who was unable to get the steamer cap off of a fire hydrant and thought they were unable to use the hydrant instead of running dual 3” hoses off of the spud connections.  One of my all time favorites, the firefighter yanking as hard as they could, and screaming at everybody, to get more line instead of walking 5’ out the front door and removing the coupling from the handrail it was caught on.

As you can see, the “insanity” can occur at every level during an emergency incident from Firefighter to Fire Chief.  If it is happening at all levels, surely our efficiency and effectiveness have been compromised.  While everyone’s operational efforts may be well intentioned, “the path to hell is paved with good intentions”.  Discipline, training, and experience will allow the fire service to overcome, and prevent, this behavior.  Often, somebody needs to take a step back and look at the “big picture” which will help examine the effectiveness of our actions.  Many times this will be an officer, or someone else whose hands have not been at work.  This will make it that much more difficult to listen to the person, though you must put your pride to the side and realize that their perspective may be bigger than yours.   

I have operated on many incidents where this type of behavior has been exhibited, and have been guilty of it many times myself.  I have found that it is often better to manage your own actions before having to rely on the intervention of others.  Through the years I have worked to become better at preventing it’s occurrence and try to utilize the “2 strike rule”.  The “2 strike rule” can be summed up as: “if true progress has not been made after two attempts of using the same technique, a different technique needs to be utilized”.  After many self-performance evaluation sessions, and by identifying a trend, I came up with the “2 strike rule” to improve my performance.  It’s not rocket science, nor is it, to my knowledge, published in any formalized fire service educational texts.  However, I believe it is very applicable to the fire service and allows individuals to manage their own actions.

Hopefully I have been able to help identify the “insanity” that may affect you, or your fellow fire service members, and provided methods of managing this “insanity”. Managing the “insanity” will allow the “can-do” firefighters to remain as efficient and effective as possible.