The start of football season
brings out the talking heads and sports commentators who spend an inordinate
amount of time talking about the mental skillset necessary to play the position
of quarterback at a high level; making it sound like the most difficult job on
earth. While admittedly I have no desire
to stand in front of a snarling 350 pound lineman trying to make my body
intimate friends with the grass, I do think that the situational awareness
necessary for rapid decision making under center presents some interesting
parallels to fire scene size-up. With a
pass play called, quarterbacks go to the line of scrimmage and see a defensive
formation that may give an accurate representation of the opposition’s
intentions or may be deceptive. At the
snap, he has a few short seconds to read the scene and hopefully be able to
locate and connect with his primary receiver.
If covered, he then has to check down and look for his secondary or
tertiary outlet. He has to avoid getting
tunnel vision as the defense converges and move, bob, and weave while
continuing to look down field; big picture and small, refining his tactics based
on what he sees.
The first arriving fire officer
on a residential structure fire faces similar challenges. What “formation” is the fire showing and is
it deceptive or obvious. In just a few
seconds, the officer needs to evaluate the construction, occupancy, exposures;
read the smoke and extent of the fire conditions present on all those. He can then audible his strategy and the
associated tactics. The firefighters
under him have a similar complex job to do looking at primary and secondary
escape routes and continually evaluating the effect that the fire is having on
the structural integrity of the building so they too can check down and adjust
their attack and team actions if necessary.
The similarities are obvious
although the salary levels are not. The
stakes on the correct decision making on the fire side are a little higher than
a sack, incomplete pass or interception.
