The Risk Management Process is a conceptual tool for assessing and managing risk in a variety of situations. This lesson will review how the Risk Management Process can help firefighters:
Create more safety during fire operations
Make more effective decisions in limited time
Quickly adapt tactics to ever-changing conditions
Emergency communication—including maydays and emergency traffic communications—is a particularly critical component of interagency operations. When protocols and expectations vary among responding resources, it increases the potential for incident-within-the-incident emergencies to develop and creates obstacles to responding to these emergencies.
In this training, learners will review policy and procedure variations across Los Angeles region fire departments in how emergency communications are managed. Radio operations will be reemphasized through the lesson and a hands-on drill. Regularly refreshing knowledge and skills is an important way to improve firefighters’ ability to respond and remain safe.
When a firefighter is experiencing a life-threatening emergency—a Mayday—it is imperative that the incident commander (IC) remain calm and decisive. And because Maydays generally occur during the first ten minutes of an incident, company officers, as well as chief officers, must be prepared to respond in an organized, efficient, and effective manner. A consistent process for managing a Mayday is critical for firefighter safety and survival.
In this training, learners will become familiar with the procedure through which an incident commander (IC) manages a Mayday. The procedure helps the IC communicate the most essential information and organize efforts to rescue the firefighter while managing the overall emergency.
In recent years, roughly 50% of on-duty firefighter deaths have been attributed to cardiovascular events. Firefighting can be physically demanding, especially while wearing full PPE. If a firefighter becomes unconscious or experiences cardiac arrest in PPE, it can be challenging to administer CPR.
An additional challenge includes stress and anxiety inherent to the situation. Firefighters are accustomed to rescuing and performing EMS on civilians. However, when one of their own falls, it is like watching a family member in distress. Chaos leads to more chaos.
Because of day-to-day mutual and automatic aid between fire departments across Los Angeles County, it is important that a standardized approach to PPE removal be developed and practiced in the Los Angeles region so all firefighters will be prepared.
Within the fire service, effectively assessing and managing the exposure to risk in an all-hazard environment is necessary to reduce firefighter injuries and ultimately prevent line of duty deaths (LODDs). During emergency operations—where time is compressed and information is limited—it may be impossible to accurately predict the outcome of what could and will happen with any degree of certainty.
This lesson introduces a template for effective assessment and management in uncertain conditions. Following this process, firefighters will be able to:
Identify the threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences they are exposed to in a given situation
Determine the life safety profile
Apply appropriate tactical actions associated with perceived risks
The rapid intervention crew (RIC) is a critical tool for managing risk during an incident. Assignment to the RIC carries a specific responsibility to enact a rescue whenever a firefighter is missing, down, or trapped.
Not every Mayday is ultimately resolved by the RIC but, of all those involved in the incident, RIC members must not be caught off guard or unprepared when one of their own is in trouble.
The assignment of a rapid intervention crew (RIC) is a critical step in managing incident risk. For the RIC to perform its critical, life-saving role:
RIC assignments must follow OSHA regulations, NFPA standards, and other guidelines.
RIC members must be focused and engaged in their assignment.
Although RIC is often an undervalued assignment, effective rapid intervention is an essential element in an overall strategy for operational risk management.
This lesson reviews the Risk Management Process, which is an all-risk tool, and applies it to structure defense. The lesson also explains how the Risk Management Process can be applied to a variety of other situations,including incidents likely to be encountered during major CBRNE events or other large-scale disasters.
