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An Argument for
Training in Tactical Fire Behavior Prediction for
Groundpounders
What are the "Barriers" to Such Training?
by Mellie, from theysaid 3/28/05
It looks like Doug Campbell's tactical fire behavior
prediction class (Fire Signature Prediction) might be taught to line
officers in R3 so they can try and cover their legal posteriors. Helibase
managers and others have also been worried they're at risk as a result
of Cramer and OIG/DOJ. Of course, here on theysaid we've had a
first-hand seat on the legal concerns of ICT3s and higher ICs. Legal concerns
are mitigated to some degree if firefighters buy criminal/civil
liability insurance. <hellof-a'note> However, problems that led to the
concerns have not been mitigated. I do commend the good efforts underway
to clarify Fire Doctrine, policies and practices. We need some real
solutions.
There's growing momentum for tactical fire behavior
training - Campbell's fire signature prediction - and it's my
professional opinion that this method
has real value. I know firefighters have lot on their plate, a lot to
teach, a lot for new folks to learn, a lot of new folks. That said, in my opinion Campbell's method should be taught to all on the fireline so
that Commanders Intent more easily and safely can be implemented as
Doctrine.
For all you old fire dogs out there, I imagine you've heard about Doug's
Fire Signature Prediction class, have taken it, have integrated parts of
it into your S-190 class, and/or have focused on computer-oriented
fire prediction route. All of you have fire behavior experience and
at this point have a perspective, which is not a novice's
perspective. While you don't necessarily need a tactical fire prediction
course, the groundpounding novice does, especially as more of you retire.
So how does this training impact a novice?
Here's my "take" on Fire Signature Prediction from the
perspective of the novice and why I think it's important training. I
also offer psychological insights as to
why its not more universally required for novice firefighters.
Overview: When I took Doug's Fire Signature Prediction class in
spring 2000 with the Ventura Co Fire Dept, I literally "felt" the
cognitive shift ("blinding glimpse of the obvious": BGO) that many
inexperienced participants report. It occurred in my brain when all the
many possible fire factors got organized and prioritized and I realized
you could ask and answer:
-
"what particular important fire factors made this
fire do what it has done on this piece of ground" and
-
"when and where might those factors change,
changing the fire's behavior and putting me at risk?"
The logic to evaluating fire behavior change on the
ground, so as to evaluate the 10 and 18 (or more simply LCES), dawned on
me in a flash. In cognitive psychology, we'd say that Doug's teaching
enhances the "chunking" process -- the process of ordering and
prioritizing many complex bits of information at a higher level.
Chunking information can be a meta-cognitive
process that develops in people with years of experience who more
automatically make sense of a situation involving complex inputs. Their
mental organization is usually gained in small increments, like
gathering a photographic slide here, a slide there, with relations
between slides -- over years. Often experts in professions that deal
with very complex phenomena can't tell you how they know what they know, but
if you used a method of brain imaging - like a PET scan - their brain
patterns would probably light up differently than a novice's brain would
when confronted with the same task.
Interestingly enough, Campbell's method has met some resistance in fed
fire circles outside of Southern California for a number of reasons that I can see.
Here are some I've observed in the order they popped into mind.
1) Cognitive processes: First and foremost! Through fireline
experience, advanced firefighters reviewing Doug's method have already
achieved some level of "chunking" of the myriad predictive fire factors.
They can't go back to having an inexperienced mind (for example, as when
they had no "slides" in even one tray of their Recognition Primed
Decision-making or RPD fire slidetrays). As a consequence, they may not
see how Campbell's method can really help new folks get a handle on all
the info that they themselves first recognized and then integrated,
through experience and/or guidance under their fire mentors.
Most experienced fire minds already have the bigger fire
behavior picture - in the RPD analogy - more slides and fire outcomes
organized by category in multiple prioritized slidetrays. As a result of
their developed brain organization, experienced firefighters are freed
up to notice the nuance of little details that might still impact the
fire's behavior. To the inexperienced all those details are simply a
jumble of little details, each item having the same importance as every
other, and lots of lists to memorize in training. Lists of disjointed
items are not slides that inform behavior. Slides need slide trays to
have coherence and logic and meaning.
You can think of chunking as placing the many details into categories or
into a hierarchy of groupings of details with an emphasis on the
hierarchy, i.e., training yourself to look for the most important
combination of things first in answering the question "What made the
head and heel and flanks of this fire burn as they did?". Novices pull
on individual slides with little or no organization imposed. Masters
pull on trays of slides with known relations to other trays. Having some
way to facilitate chunking of the most important information is critical
to move more quickly toward achieving a metacognitive structure. You
could say that Campbell's method experienced by the novice creates and
orders the slide trays that form the logical structure that the slides
will go in, and provides a number of illustrative slides as well. The
feeling you get when you see the logic of the slidetray arrangement is
profound. It's that "blinding glimpse of the obvious".
The "blinding glimpse" (BGO) I felt when I first "got" the structure Doug
presents was similar to the feeling I had in my youth when I first
looked at 3-D terrain photos through the stereoscope glasses: At first
it looked flat and I wondered "what's the big deal, looks like a flat
map of all the details" and after a few minutes I thought "man, I'll
never see what they expect me to see", but then I saw the photo
as 3-D terrain with all the glory of the peaks and valleys and trees and
watercourses. WOW! After you see in 3-D you can't go back to seeing
flat. Your brain is rewired. A similar thing happens when information
has been "chunked".
Now this doesn't mean you have it all. Far from it, but you have the
beginning blueprint that will hold the critical info in a logical way to
make sense of it all with respect to what the fire likely will do next.
You have the logical terminology to talk about it. Such language also
enhances and reinforces the chunking process. After Campbell's course,
you start keeping your eyes open in a new way - and thinking from the
fire's perspective. You focus on why it's burning that way. What's the
dominant force, weather/wind, topography, fuels? What about slope,
aspect, time of day? You notice critical interrelationships - factors
that may combine synergistically. Are any of the forces in alignment
with each other, resulting in the fire escaping the threshold of
control? If not now, when? Transitions can be deadly. Let's set a trigger point or time tag that
tactic. (Doug's
fuel flammability curve is straight out of Countryman's work.) You
look at the combinations of factors that are crucial to consider
together for understanding what made the fire do what it did on a piece
of ground similar to yours (wind, fuel, topography, slope, aspect, time
of day); this gives you a picture of how the fire's likely to behave next
on your piece of ground. The blueprint for acquiring and building
your metacognitive structure is in place.
2) Overload, personalities and need for change: Besides my first
point, probably the biggest barrier to change or being open to ideas
"outside the box" is
the fire professional's overload - overloaded with courses, other management priorities and
expectations, too much work to do to really consider Campbell's method
or anything but doing it the way it's always been done. Some may feel
"you have to do it the way I did".
Some don't like Doug's personality. He can be a bit
irascible sometimes like some other ex-hotshot supts I know. <chuckle>
In fire as in life, people sometimes get the message mixed up with the
messenger. On the other hand, some who see the logic or the impact of
the fire signature method on new people have folded Doug's info into
S-190. Some have had him come teach or have had one of the FS trainers
come teach. Lanky had the FS Fire Signature Prediction trainers come train the Redding shots
every year. Campbell's course has been taught to more than 3,500 people in the
past 8-9 years. In my opinion, it should be taught to all.
3) Copyright of Fire Signature Prediction: One common misperception is that because the
Fire Signature Prediction material is copyrighted, it is untouchable or unchangeable. Doug has
waived copyright in Spain and in at least one country in South America.
By virtue of having a FS trainer, he says the FS "owns" his course
already. He says copyright is not an issue. An arrangement could be
made. If the integrity of the course concept is maintained, books could
be rewritten to better fit the need. All it would take is talking to him
about it.
4) Status quo and computer predictive models: Firefighters
who teach fire behavior courses (a number of them are my friends) have a bias toward the course trajectory
for S-190, 290, 390, 490. They're experienced firefighters and
don't need something different. In addition to having the unconscious
cognitive bias I described above, they already know and have good success with that
training path. If they're FBANs, using BEHAVE for strategic fire prediction,
they're especially vested in the curriculum and approach of the S series. Fire behavior
is their specialty. Thank goodness for that and for their service! However, recall that the S fire behavior series
historically began as S-190 and some upper S-x90 (with BEHAVE) and the
courses got created and filled in between to bridge the gap. This S
series is not about fairly novice groundpounders being able to make
tactical go/no-go decisions on the ground on the piece of fire
they're on. Even if it's not the intent, the courses in reality are about educating firefighters
in the academic FBAN path, from the perspective of those who are making generalized more strategic and
scientific computer predictions for planning about the larger fire.
Little aside: In science when we get to know new people
in our field, we often ask each other "Who's your academic grandparent?"
Who you trained under, who mentored you, who helped guide your
self-discovery and who trained your mentor has a profound effect on how
you approach a problem, what questions you ask, what you read, and how
you design new classes. We teach what we know usually from "within the
box". We're usually not even aware we do it.
Some FBANs recognize that moment-by-moment tactical
predictions on the ground are really different than computer modeling
they do in firecamp or in the office. Predictive models, BEHAVE in
particular, are very limited for making tactical decisions and require LOTS of tweaking. BEHAVE is multivariate regression, I can
give you a mini lecture on the inherent limitations of multivariate
regression - and especially how unlikely it is that it can be used to save lives in
a specific instance on a specific bit of fireline. Theoretically, it
seems like computer prediction is an easy fix. Info in, decision out.
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way yet, not by a long shot. The point
is, today there are
needs for BOTH of the following:
-
tactical fire prediction made by
groundpounders on a piece of fire who need to consider their own LCES,
in addition to
-
those planning more strategically using a computer program on the larger fire.
I
think the fire behavior training at beginning levels should fill the
NEED of groundpounders and should be taught most expeditiously based on
the NEED for them to evaluate their own safety. Times change, we have
new needs. Lots of inexperienced kids out there. It's too bad we don't
remember what our brains were like when we were novices and support
training that speaks to the novice's brain so it can more quickly approach
the master's brain. We also need to beef up the novice's fire experiences on
the ground, as in Rx burning, brush disposal fuel reduction or even
pileburning demonstrations to provide more experiential
"slides" in their RPG slidetray. But that's an issue for another day.
5) Terminology and teaching approach: There's a different terminology for evaluating
fire behavior tactically using Fire Signature Prediction so you can
better follow the 10 and 18 (or LCES). I've been told it's harder for experienced
firefighters to go back and learn a new terminology but very easy for
new folks because it makes sense. I'd say in the last 5 years more of
Doug's tactical terminology has crept into common usage anyway (trigger points, etc)
and it would be relatively easy to just accept and use the terms
universally for
tactical prediction. They're logical.
Doug uses a very effective dialectic teaching
approach going back to the Greeks, I think my dad told me once. With
this approach he asks participants questions about this or that fire
factor and its impact... and often he'll ask what do you think will
happen next? where? He draws you out. Some people find this offensive.
If people can get past feeling threatened and on the spot, it is very
effective in that it actively and verbally involves the participant in
their own learning process. My dad used it extensively with his Boy
Scouts and with us kids when he took us to the wilderness asked us
casually what are the differences between north/south slopes? what was
here 30 years ago? (rubble of a foundation with trees growing up thru
it) how do we expect this pond will look in 20 years... look
here's a pond over here that's in the process of doing that? Will it be
the same, different? If different, why? It's not about performance
expectations for the novice or competition between differing approaches
for looking at fire behavior, but engaging in the process of thinking
through what the fire's likely to do next on your piece of ground at the
head, flank, heel given what it's already done under similar conditions
in the past. This is tactical thinking and is critical for safety.
One additional note here: Doug Campbell uses solid terrain
models in some of his classes. Students relate them to topographic maps
and use both to "solve" classic burnover exercises. This also gives them a better handle on visualizing terrain and fire
factors from a map, a skill sorely needed as more of our firefighters
come from city environments.
6) Attitudes regarding retirees, policy and profit: There's some level of feeling in
the FS and in fire that when you retire you're out, gone, nevermore to
contribute or earn a profit off your knowledge. After all, you're
already getting retirement pay. It's true that once retired you're out
of the policy loop and things change quickly, but some of our retired
people have a wealth of wisdom and knowledge they now have time to
organize and offer. I wish there was some way we could fairly benefit
from their wisdom.
As for Doug and money, he's never made much - and
for many years was deep in the hole as he tried to develop and establish
his course for the good of his firefighters. The Loop Fire infected him
with a drive to help groundpounders put a structure on what they needed
to learn to avoid dangerous fire behavior situations. In my opinion,
Doug has fostered firefighter DEEP SURVIVAL in researching, developing
and persisting in teaching his logical tactical fire prediction method.
Novices are likely to more quickly become deep survivors and safer
firefighters if they're trained in a logical system that can 1) enhance
their situational awareness knowledgebase and 2) provide a logical
tactical method for avoiding reliance on a "runaway human brain" if/when
they're put in stressful fire situation that could have been recognized
a priori. As far as lifestyle,
Doug's always lived in a tiny
little house. He and his wife live frugally. There's somewhat of a myth
(started by some I believe in CDF who are greatly invested in BEHAVE and its
spin-offs) that he has aspirations to make it big financially. I've
never seen anything to support that in him in the 5 years I've known
him. That said, I do think he and other contributors should be fairly
compensated for their work. He's 70 and lives on a fixed income -- but
this is not about charity. This is about teaching a tactical method
whose time has come.
~~~~~
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the main tenant of Commander's Intent is to
train firefighters to a professional standard, communicate your
strategic intent clearly and have your trained professionals choose safe
and appropriate tactics to meet that intent. One critical thing that
should be in our firefighters' toolbox, in addition to leadership
skills, is how to evaluate fire behavior on their piece of ground. They
need to know whether they're able to meet LCES for current or changing
fire behavior. It's not enough to simply say "follow the 10 Fire Orders
or LCES", if there's no way to evaluate fire behavior that might change
and overrun you. Campbell's system provides critical logic for looking
at and organizing a lot of details. It lets the novice more quickly get
a handle on how a fire already burning is likely to change, why, where and when. It
provides the novice with a way to discuss it and a way for overhead to
reassure the novice when there is no or little danger. Campbell's system
potentially could be
taught and reinforced with computer simulation. People could demonstrate
proficiency and have to perform to a standard. Fire Signature Prediction
is basic stuff that makes sense and changes brain structure for novices,
accelerating the learning curve.
As we loose our experienced mentors to retirement, I think it's a must
that groundpounders have this training.
We live in dangerous times when people not trained in fire determine
fire policy, checklists, funding, etc and we have the fuels problems and
job overload we have today. I commend the R3 line officers for seeking
fire behavior training. I predict that when the line officers - who are
novices - take the training, many of them will have the same experience I did
when my brain reorganized. "The blinding glimpse of the obvious" might
be like a religious conversion for some of them. It will be interesting
to see if and how their attitude toward fire and firefighting changes
and how they evaluate and perform their "oversight" function then.
(For more info on chunking differences between "novices"
and "masters" see Simon and Chase, 1973.)
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