Promotional Scenario #5

Promotional Scenario #5

Conflicting Radio Reports

Scenario: You are operating at a 1 story Class 3/Ordinary Taxpayer. During the incident or exercise, there are indications that reflect conflicting or confusion between assigned areas, most notably the interior of the fire building and the roof.

Radio report # 1 – “Interior to Command, we have heavy smoke, no visible fire, and increasing heat within the building.”

Radio report # 2 – “Roof to Command, the roof has been opened with only light to moderate smoke showing from all openings.”

Question: What concerns do you have and what actions will you take?

Author Note: As we continually prepare students to take promotional exams or ready them for battle in the street, seminar objectives must not only ensure that each and every member is prepared for the challenges, we need to go beyond in many instances and provide them with an enhanced level of education to ensure not only a great score, but a battle ready fire officer. Test designers, promotional exams, as well as those who consult on them must prepare current and future fire officers to meet the realistic challenges presented today. In my opinion, we don’t see enough of this in promotional testing. It is critical in all areas of instruction that we ensure that we are not only producing a qualified fire officer, but we must also ensure that we are producing an extremely capable fire officer.

The above exercise is citing an often-experienced area of concern within our taxpayer, strip mall and store occupancies. More specifically; multiple ceilings, rain roofs, high ceilings, and the overall concern with concealed spaces. We can find many of these life threatening conditions in taxpayers and strip malls, as well as in supermarkets, bowling alleys, home decorating centers, factories, warehouses, etc, etc, etc. (you get the idea)

One such way to meet this challenge is to use an evolving scenario in a promotional or educational class and introduce a radio conversation into the exercise that is indicating a conflict of information that needs to be recognized, identified, and acted upon by the students. The information presented above is identifying the concern that the store/occupancy may have:

Concerns:

A rain roof installed on top of and over the buildings original roof.
Multiple/suspended ceilings within the store proper, or
Fire in the basement. (Possibly combined with one of the above)

Actions:

Barring anymore information; radioed, visual, or other:

Resources would need to be alerted to the concerns.
Resources need to be directed to correct the concerns.
Seek progress reports and assess the attempt and/or completion to correct the concerns.
In the event that situation presents deteriorating conditions, with draw all forces from the building or effected area.

All of the above are common occurrences in the buildings described. In a testing and/or educational environment, a knowledgeable or capable student should at least recognize the conflicting report and begin to diagnose the concern through further actions and orders. These are very measurable and creditable actions. The above example is attempting to indicate to the student that fire is in a concealed space, or at the very least in an area that is not located yet. Furthermore, it is pointing toward an extremely dangerous situation if not recognized and acted upon. Let’s take this one step further: If on the other hand, the student recognizes that a radio report conflict exists and simply opts out for a “complete withdrawal from the building”; this may be deemed an acceptable response to some, but may also be viewed as a lack of experience by others. Think about it….. The fire service experiences many of these actual situations in older commercial occupancies, most notably the taxpayer, supermarket or retail type occupancy on a regular basis. Barring more information from the exercise or actual incident, simply blanketing a statement that removes firefighters from a building every time a conflict in radio information exists could very well be viewed as a poor response for an Incident Commander. Whether taking a promotional exam or commanding an operation in the street, we must demand a level of knowledge and experience in our leaders that is second to none! The key to this exercise is Building Construction, Building Construction…..followed by more Building Construction…..you can never know enough!

For additional information:

Promotional Prep Seminars: promotionalprep.com
Promotional Prep – Face book discussion page
Firenuggets.com
“Assessment Center Strategy and Tactics” from Fire Engineering books: Author Deputy Chief Terpak – Jersey City
“Collapse of Burn Buildings” from Fire Engineering books: Author Deputy Chief Dunn – FDNY
“Safety and Survival on the Fire Ground” from Fire Engineering books: Author Deputy Chief Dunn – FDNY
“Fire Ground Size-Up” from Fire Engineering books: Author Deputy Chief Terpak – Jersey City