Standard failures
At a time when extreme fire behavior is becoming more and more common, the limitations of on-the-ground fire predictions become increasingly pronounced. There is growing evidence to suggest that in extreme conditions, firefighters can't reliably integrate information they receive as part of briefings or in their fulfillment of the standard orders, despite all their training and experience.
The experience of the Unaweep Fire-Use Module on the Little Venus Fire in 2006 provides an excellent example of how firefighters' predictions in extreme conditions can be unreliable. While hiking to the incident command post to transition with an existing fire-use team, a group of firefighters was overrun by the fire. A narrative detailing the incident noted that the actions taken by the Unaweep Fire-Use Module were consistent with their expectations of future fire behavior. The author writes, “Based on their years of experience, their training, the appearance of the smoke and the fire behavior forecast, all felt reasonably comfortable as they began their hike.” In the end, all members of the module deployed their fire shelters as the fire burned over their position.
Had this incident been officially investigated, it is very likely that investigators would have faulted members of the fire-use module with violations of one or more of the 10 Standard Orders, most notably:
- Keep informed on fire weather conditions and forecasts,
- Know what your fire is doing at all times, and
- Base all actions on current and expected behavior of the fire.
Arguably, the firefighters fulfilled the requirements of these orders. Their actions prior to the burnover were consistent with their expectations of what might happen in the future. Their expectations, however, were inconsistent with what actually happened. This event and others like it highlight a limitation in standard orders and the ability to predict fire behavior.
It has been 50 years since the U.S. Forest Service first recommended the use of the 10 Standard Orders as a mechanism to enhance wildland firefighter safety. Following the review of 20 tragic fires between 1937 and 1956, the report authors drafted a number of recommendations which have ultimately changed the way firefighters are trained, equipped and informed. The third recommendation of this task force resulted in the development of the 10 Standard Firefighting Orders.
Created around a first-letter mnemonic technique, the first version of the standard orders contained the following items, or FIRE SCALDS:
- Fire weather
Keep informed of fire weather conditions and predictions.
- Instructions
Know exactly what my instructions are and to follow them at all times.
- Right things first
Identify the key points of my assignment and take action in order of priority.
- Escape plan
Have an escape plan in mind and direct subordinates in event of blow-up.
- Scouting
Thoroughly scout the fire areas for which I am responsible.
- Communication
Establish and maintain regular communication with adjoining forces, subordinates, and superior officers.
- Alertness
Quickly recognize changed conditions and immediately revise plans to handle.
- Lookout
Post a lookout for every possibly dangerous situation.
- Discipline
Establish and maintain control of all men under my supervision and at all times know where they are and what they are doing.
- Supervision
Be sure men I commit to any fire job have clear instructions and adequate overhead.
Since their inception, the 10 Standard Orders have undergone several iterations, have been taught extensively in training, and have been printed on almost everything associated with wildland fire. In the latter portion of the 1990s, the standard orders were used as an incident investigation checklist. Following the Storm King Mountain fatalities in 1994, adherence to the orders was re-emphasized by federal wildland firefighting organizations. Today, the orders are accompanied by the statement, “We don't break them; we don't bend them.” In recent years, the standard orders were modified to be more consistent with an earlier version and are presented as four groups of information.
Overall many would agree that firefighter safety has improved in the last 50 years. Despite this success, it is difficult to ignore the regularity of fatalities caused by encroaching fire, entrapments and burnovers. The common denominators found in fatality fires pre-1950 look very similar to those found in more recent fire tragedies such as the Esperanza, Little Venus and Thirtymile fires. In the 1957 report that created the standard orders, the authors found that one factor was present in all fatality fire, unexpected fire behavior.
Authors also found that firefighter fatalities in burnovers were consistently associated with flashy fuels and periods of critical and unexpected fire behavior. A number of recommendations were given; among them was the need to bring “existing fire behavior knowledge to bear in planning control action of fast fires in bad fuels.” Although not specifically stated, this recommendation appears to address the need to better predict fire spread under extreme conditions. Recent fire tragedies echo this need.
The requirements of the standard orders reflect the need to keep informed about current and predicted fire weather and fire behavior. The need to keep informed is established in the first three current standard orders:
Keep informed on fire weather conditions and forecasts.
Know what your fire is doing at all times.
Base all actions on current and expected behavior of the fire.
The second group of standard orders directs firefighters on how current and predicted information should affect their actions.
Identify escape routes and make them known.
Post lookouts when there is possible danger.
Be alert. Keep calm. Think clearly. Act decisively.
Any shortcomings in firefighters' ability to integrate information about the current fuels, weather and topography will adversely impact their actions. For example, a crew might select an inappropriate or inadequate safety zone or escape route. They might not post lookouts when, in hindsight, they were needed. Ultimately, their actions will appear inconsistent with the fire environment. If an entrapment, burnover or fatality results, investigators likely will find that the firefighters violated these standard orders.
The sheer number of initial, extended and large-scale fires that are managed or suppressed suggest that firefighters either can reasonably predict fire behavior or prediction errors can be mitigated to avoid injuries and fatalities. Regardless of the apparent success observed on these fires, the regularity of incidents involving extreme fire behavior suggest that firefighters' are not sufficiently able to predict fire behavior in these conditions. In extreme conditions, firefighters can grossly underestimate fire behavior and fail to take appropriate precautionary behavior. Again, if this underestimation leads to a shelter deployment or other critical incident, investigators are likely to fault the firefighter for failing to “base all actions on current and expected behavior of the fire.” In reality, the firefighters' actions were consistent with their assessment of future fire behavior. The assessment, however, was wrong. Unfortunately, the extent to which the assessment was wrong is only known after the fact.
The task of predicting fire behavior with any certainty can't be accomplished by simply thinking about it. Although well-seasoned firefighters can make predictions based on experience, the less-seasoned firefighter is unable to meaningfully predict fire behavior, especially when extreme conditions are present. Fire can behave in ways incompatible with the way humans think. For example, the relationship between a fire's rate of spread as a function of slope can be exponential. Firefighters know that rates of spread increase as slope increases, but they may not appreciate that increase in spread can be exponential not linear. Researchers studying decision-making have shown that humans think in linear and not exponential growth. A firefighter looking down at a fire is likely to be surprised at how fast it burns upslope to his position. The fundamental problem is not one of being uninformed, rather it is of being unable to process and predict. Faulting firefighters for violations of one or more of the first three standard orders misses the true problem.
The nominal fallacy describes the tendency to believe that we know more about something because it has been named. For example, the term “depression” describes a group of symptoms including feelings of sadness, worthlessness and fatigue and thoughts of suicide or death, among other symptoms. It is easy to believe that we understand something about depression because it now has a name. Unfortunately, the term “depression” tells us nothing about why it occurs, how it can be prevented or how it should be treated. In some cases, the nominal fallacy can lead to a form of circular reasoning that appears to justify itself. Why is this person sad? Because he or she is depressed. The opposite also could be stated. In either case, the names of the symptoms tells us little about their causes.
The nominal fallacy appears in recent fire fatality reports. A term common among firefighters today is “situational awareness.” Like the word “depression,” situational awareness describes a constellation of firefighter actions that, if not accomplished appropriately, can lead to tragedy. But does the name convey any new understanding of the complexity in predicting fire behavior? Probably not as much as it should.
The standard orders regarding fire behavior can be viewed in a similar manner. The authors of the original standard orders noted that firefighters died when they were overrun by fire. Among other recommendations, death in this manner could be avoided by staying informed about weather and fire conditions. Their first standard order addressed this. Today's standard orders accomplish much the same thing, but the act of labeling this set of complex actions suggests that we understand more about them than we actually do. In fact, firefighter can be informed about weather conditions and still become entrapped or burned over.
Regrettably, warnings to keep informed might have less value than is commonly held. This, however, does not mean firefighters should not be informed. The standard orders were written in response to fatal fires that by 1957 standards displayed extreme fire behavior. The report did not consider the thousands of fires that had been suppressed that were not characterized by extreme fire behavior. The same is true today.
Consider the large number of initial attack fires that are suppressed annually in the United States. These fires have characteristics that are less likely to lead to fatalities caused by the fire. In the majority of these situations, the weather, terrain and fuels all were favorable for suppression. In situations like this, keeping informed is not as critical to safety. But what if the conditions can produce extreme fire behavior? Wouldn't being informed save lives when conditions are extreme? Keeping informed can be useful, but given the limitations in predicting fire in extreme conditions, that is no guarantee. It's likely that the expectations firefighters create from weather, fuel and terrain information will underestimate what the fire will do. Moreover, their actions will be based on this inaccurate assessment. In a situation like this, it is likely that a firefighter could comply with the orders to remain informed and still experience tragedy. What is critical to safety is to have a sufficiently accurate prediction of fire behavior. Information and fuels, terrain, and weather are all required to make the prediction, but by themselves do not provide the critical information needed.
In a time in history when firefighters and the public have been killed by area ignitions and other extreme fire phenomena, keeping informed is not enough. Imagine how the firefighters at the Little Venus or Esperanza fires would have behaved differently if they had a more reliable prediction of what their respective fires would do. There is no question that they would have behaved differently. The challenge of course is creating these predictions.
Given that fire predictions play a key role in firefighter safety, the need to train, certify and recertify firefighters in the skills of fire behavior cannot be over stated. Although firefighters are not likely to perform complex calculations in their heads, they should be very astute at detecting conditions that require more complex analyses and avoiding these situations. Moreover, efforts should be taken to show firefighters the limits of the predictive abilities. Much the same way the U.S. Air Force demonstrates to its pilots how their performance is affected by high Gs or low oxygen pressure, firefighters need to know the limits of their abilities. Finally, efforts should be taken to learn how seasoned firefighters enhance their predictive abilities and find ways of providing these opportunities to a larger portion of the wildland firefighting community.
Advances in technology might facilitate progress in this area. Currently, a variety of efforts are under way to make fire prediction tools more accessible to all levels of the wildland firefighting organization. These new systems are being built on the existing prediction technology and hold promise to provide another source of fire prediction information. As these systems become available, they should become part of the standard compliment of information firefighters receive. When conditions support extreme fire behavior, fires should not be engaged without this information.
It is likely that the anchors of tradition will make it difficult to change the standard orders. If change occurs, the first three standard orders could be summarized into a new order that reads, “Base all actions on reliable predictions of future fire behavior.” With reliable predictions in hand, orders 4, 5 and 6 take on greater clarity. Orders 7, 8 and 9 describe characteristics of a well-managed suppression or management effort.
The standard orders were one of several recommendations made in 1957. Today, changes to the orders would be one of several recommended changes. The infrastructure that supports wildland fire must address the critical need for reliable fire behavior predictions. As they are today, it is very likely that firefighters can comply with them and still place their safety in jeopardy.
Curt C. Braun, Ph.D. is the president, CEO and founder of Benchmark Research & Safety, where has brought psychological and human factors principles to a variety of industries including aviation, software development, public administration and research, and wildland management. Braun previously was a professor of psychology at the University of Idaho, where he taught courses in the design of complex systems, research methods, statistics and ergonomics.
