Title:

Identifying Why Even Well-trained Firefighters Make Unsafe Decisions: A human factors interview protocol

Date:

April 2005

Organisations

International Wildland Fire Safety Summit

Authors:

M. Omodei; J. McLennan; C. Reynolds

Location:

USA, United States of America

Overview

In Identifying Why Even Well-Trained Firefighters Make Unsafe Decisions: A Human Factors Interview Protocol, delivered at the Eighth International Wildland Fire Safety Summit, in Missoula, USA, Dr Mary Omodei, Dr Jim McLennan, and Mr Chris Reynolds have outlined an interview protocol to discover with as much accuracy as possible the psychological experiences and processes that underlie unsafe decision making and behaviour on the fireground.

The paper outlines a:

• Framework for classification of human factors involved in unsafe decision making
• Multi-stage interview sequence to create an interview climate conducive to detailed recollection

The paper contains some interesting initial findings that illustrate the sort of information that is likely to be elicited by the multi-stage interview protocol but cautions against interpreting such initial findings without further research.  

Some of these initial findings included:

• A lack of trust in information provided by firefighters they did not know personally
• Reluctance on the part of both outgoing and incoming shift personnel to engage in detailed and accurate briefings at shift changeover
• Persons in field command roles (particularly local incident command) experienced significant mental overload and were reluctant to recruit a dedicated support person or escalate the level of the incident to an Incident Management Team.
• The primary focus on getting the job done appears to override concerns of fatigue and dehydration

The conclusions of Dr Mary Omodei, Dr Jim McLennan, and Mr Chris Reynolds were:
“As the interview procedures differ from most that are currently in use in fire-agency mandated investigations, it should be emphasised that interviews conducted according to this protocol are quite different from, and therefore should not be seen as replacing, current hot debriefs, after action reviews, critical incident stress debriefings, or other post-incident reporting procedures. We do, however, suggest that this interviewing technique can also be applied in reviewing training exercises and in confidential “no fault” near miss and accident investigations where agencies are able to implement such systems.”


Related Documents
Bushfire CRC Program D 2.3 Safe Behaviour and Decision Making
Outline of the current research in this area being undertaken by the Bushfire CRC and this articles authors

Bushfire CRC Update - Decisions on the fireground
Research is looking into the human factors that effect decision making on the fireground.


Networked Fire Chief: 
A research and training tool that targets the human factors causes of unsafe decision making in wildfires.

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