The IRPG

Operational Leadership  

The most essential element of successful wildland firefighting is competent and confident leadership.

Leadership means providing purpose, direction, and motivation for wildland firefighters working to accomplish difficult tasks under dangerous, stressful circumstances.

In confusing and uncertain situations, a good leader will:

* TAKE CHARGE of assigned resources. 

* MOTIVATE firefighters with a "Can do safely" attitude.

* DEMONSTRATE INITIATIVE by taking action in the absence of orders.

* COMMUNICATE by giving specific instructions and asking for feedback.

* SUPERVISE at the scene of action.




                                                        v.

DUTY

Be proficient at your job, both technically and as a leader.

* Take charge when in charge.

* Adhere to professional standard operating procedures. 

* Develop a plan to accomplish given objectives.

Make sound and timely decisions.

* Maintain situation awareness to anticipate needed actions.

* Develop contingencies and consider consequences.

* Improvise within the leader's intent to handle a rapidly changing environment.

Ensure tasks are understood, supervised, and accomplished.

* Issue clear instructions.

* Observe and assess actions in progress without micro-managing.

* Use positive feedback to modify duties, tasks, and assignments when appropriate.

Develop your subordinates for the future.

* Clearly state expectations.

* Delegate tasks that you are not required to do personally.

* Consider individual skill levels and developmental needs when assigning tasks.




                                                          vi.

Call

Of

DUTY

Vs

Halo

RESPECT

Know your subordinates and look out for their well-being.

* Put the safety of your subordinates above all other objectives.

* Take care of your subordinates needs.

* Resolve conflicts between individuals on the team.

Keep your subordinates informed.

* Provide accurate and timely briefings.

* Give the reason (intent) for assignments and tasks.

* Make yourself available to answer questions at appropriate times.

Build the team.

* Consider frequent debriefings with the team to identify lessons learned.

* Recognize individual and team accomplishments and reward them appropriately.

* Apply disciplinary measures equally.

Employ your subordinates in accordance with their capabilities.

* Observe human behaviour as well as fire behaviour.

* Provide early warning to subordinates of tasks they will be responsible for.

* Consider team experience, fatigue, and physical limitations when accepting assignments.





                                                               vii.

INTEGRITY

Know yourself and seek improvement.

* Know the strengths/weaknesses in your character and skill level.

* Ask questions to peers and superiors.

* Actively listen to feedback from subordinates.

Seek responsibility and accept responsibility for your actions.

* Accept full responsibility for poor team performance.

* Credit subordinates for good performance.

* Keep your superiors informed of your actions.

Set the example.

* Share the hazards and hardships with your subordinates.

* Don't show discouragement when facing setbacks.

* Choose the difficult right over the easy wrong.










                                                                      viii.

Communication Responsibilities

All firefighters have five communication responsibilities.

* Brief others as needed.

* Debrief your actions.

* Communicate hazards to others.

* Aknowledge messages.

* Ask if you don't know.

Leader's Intent

In addition, all leaders of firefighters have the responsibility to provide complete briefings and ensure that their subordinates have a clear of their intent for the assignment:

* Task             =     What is to be done.

* Purpose        =     Why it is to be done.

* End State      =     How it should look when done.



 


                                                                       ix.

Human Factor Barriers to Situation Awareness


Low Experience Level with Local Factors

* Unfamiliar with the area or the organizational structure.


Distraction from Primary Task

* Radio traffic

* Conflict

* Previous errors

* Collateral duties

* Incident within and incident

Fatigue

* Carbon Monoxide

* Dehydration

* Heat stress

* Poor fitness level can reduce resistance to fatigue.

* 24-hours awake affects your decisionmaking capability like a .10 blood alcohol content.

Stress Reactions

* Communication deteriorates or grows tense.

* Habitual or repititive behaviours.

* Target fixation--Locking into a course of action, whether it makes sense or not, just try harder.

* Action tunneling--Focussing on small tasks but ignoring the big picture.

* Escalation of commitment--Accepting increased risk as completion of task gets near.


Hazardous Attitudes

* Invulnerable--That can't happen to us.

* Anti-authority--Disregard of the team effort.

* Impulsive--Do something even if it's wrong.

* Macho--Trying to impress or prove something.

* Complacent--Just another routine fire.

* Resigned--We can't make a difference.

* Group Think--Afraid to speak up or disagree.



                    


                                                                   xi.

After Action Review

The climate surrounding an AAR must be one which the participants openly and honestly discuss what transpired, in sufficient detail and clarit, so that everyone understands what did and did not occur and why.

Most importantly, participants should leave with a strong desire to improve their proficiency.

* An AAR is performed as immediately after the event as possible by the personnel involved.

* The leader's role is to ensure skilled facilitation of the AAR.

* Reinforce that respectful disagreement is OK. Keep focused on the what, not the who.

* Make sure everyone participates.

* End the AAR on a positive note.

What was planned?

What actually happened?
Why did it happen?

What can we do next time?
(Correct weaknesses/sustain strengths)






                                                                   xii.

Looks like whoever trained you did a thorough job

Oh yeah. They break you you to pieces (The Department of Forestry and the National WIldfire Coordinating Group, (the DOF and NWCG are the guys who trained me) and they make you over in their own image. Most of the training is mental; knowing how to read the clouds and weather and fire behaviour as well as being able to push yourself to keep going, your carrying several dozen pounds of gear and equipment 16 hours a day in the middle of nowhere on a wildfire swinging a pulaski and running all day or having to up and go to another fire and return; via helicopter. They try to make you quit and give up on yourself, they only want people who truly want to do this and are commited to it. If you don't give it all you have and then some you won't make it (or they'll stick you in charge of wearhousing or the shop; they won't send you into the field though. Even people who have done it a while get pretty tense towards the end of camping in such an environment for three weeks straight. Home sickness is probably the worst part, you're always trying to just get back home.

The Incident Response Pocket Guide (IRPG) is a mandatory pocket guide that has everything you need to know about how to survive the Fire Line. If I'm on a fire and I don't have my IRPG I can actually get into trouble for that, we're supposed to keep it with us like any other of our PPE (Personal Protective Equipment). Over the past summer I have tore the IRPG apart and have found that it can easily apply to many situations in day to day life, and can also be valuable for other RLSH and RLSH Teams, so I've decided to gradually add more and more to the thread until the entire IRPG is on here. It's a roughly 120 small note book sized pages devided into different colored sections for easier navigation in the field.

The IRPG is my Bible, haha.

Risk Management [Green]

Gather Information
    __Objective(s)          __Previous Fire Behaviour
    __Communication     __Weather Forecast
    __Who's in Charge    __Local Factors
Scout the Fire

Hazard Assessment

Estimate Potential Fire Behaviour Hazards
    __Look Up/Down/Around Indicators
Identify Tactical Hazards
   __Watch Outs
What other safety hazards exist?
Consider severity vs. probability?

Hazard Control
Firefighting Orders > LCES [Lookouts, Communications, Escape Routes, and Safety Zones]
  __Anchor Point
  __Downhill Checklist (if applicable)
What other controls are necessary?

Decision Point

Are controls in place for identified hazards?

NO - Reassess situation  YES - Next question

Are selected tactics based on expected fire behaviour?

NO - Reassess situation  YES - Next question

Have instructions been given and understood?

NO - Reassess situation  YES - Initiate action

Evaluate

Human Factors: Low experience level? Distracted from primary tasks? Fatigue or stress reaction? Hazardous attitude?

The Situation: What is changing? Are strategy and tactics working?





                                                                               1.

What if my subordinates brought an air soft, real looking gun while on patrol? This kid is really getting on my nerve and trying to overthrow my command, making me want to beat the crap out of him so he can wake up from his fantasies about kicking and scaring criminals I mean its not gonna work, right? Once we shot that guy, the guy would just be pissed off and chase us because of that kid. He even tends to kill somebody. I can't kick him since he knew the guys who have siege mentality. We will come across a police station on our next patrol or next two patrol since I'm expanding the patrol route. Now, I think we will be branded as gang definitely. Once that happens, I'm gonna behead this kid. Not literally. What am I gonna do?

Well, as a firefighter when I see someone on my team who has a Hazardous Attitude I bring it to the attention of my bosses and then they'll deal with it. Sometimes they are suspended for a set amount of time and a friend of mine who I love but is just not cut out for wildland work almost blasted my face off with a fire hose. He eventually got Blacklisted, which means he can never get a job with the Department of Forestry ever again. Sad day.

So you think talking like a leader to his subordinate would do? He'll change the topic I guess. What if I put little extra pressure and show him who's the boss?

In the field if any of us do something stupid it's fifty push ups for each stupid action. The result is hardly none on our teams ever do stupid things. Your team needs proper training and certification first before they can have any chance of operating effectively as a team unit without doing stupid things.

As a firefighter I first had to pass a a series of medical paper work, and additional paper work, then I had to do the Pack Test (Strap fifty pounds on your back and run three miles within forty five minutes, if you don't make it your not in. I didn't have immediate success my first Pack Test; it sounds much more difficult than it sounds. I went back and nipped it in the butt though. I don't fail. Failure is to accept your current state and give up on trying to pursue your goals. Lack of instant success does not mean failure. You need a team without weakness and failure. To get that you'll probably have to wait a few years until you can all go get proper training.

None of us are self-appointed. Even my bosses have bosses. The end Boss being the president of the United States; it's a long chain of command. I'm at the very bottom, haha, FFT@ (Fire Fighter Type 2). Next season I'll likely be moving up a rung so that I can work year round as a Technician.

My best piece of advise for you, for anyone wanting to be a superhero, is as follows. Be a real hero. Work hard to join the ranks of true real life superheroes. Cops, firefighters, EMTs, Soldiers, Doctors, Teachers. It's in those field where you will find the skills you need to lead effectively and set up very strong foundations ofr the future. I did not appoint myself a hero. I decided to go for it, and then much much more qaulified individuals trained and then appointed me. A group of kids can't become an effective team unit overnight; you guys should wait a few years (while spending that time traing and furthering your educations at school) and then you should all try out for wildland firefighting. It's probably the safest, funnest hero job a teenager could have. I started as young as they come, 18. You have three or four years, maximum, to wait. That's not long at all, even if it may feel like it now. And believe me, when you start racking up skills and officialized certifications from the government, you fell really good, and it is definitely worth it. Those papers also serve to get you better jobs down the line and open a lot of doors for you.

Showing them whose boss isn't part of being a good leader. If he's truly causing a detriment, you should get rid of him. I'm not supporting having your own anti crime group though. At all. Not because I don't want you to succeed, but because I'm scared for you. A group of kids going after criminals scares me, and I have a strong feeling if you do this someone will get hurt. Forget confronting criminals; you don't have to confront criminals to fight crime.

I fight crime on a regular basis, and not once have I ever had to look a criminal in the eyes or get in a fight. Be a rolemodel of virtue and charachter, especially for kids. That's the best way to fight crime.

If you could organize a lot of after school activities the juvenile delinquint population will plummet due to many kids now having something to do with all the time they have after school. And you don't even have to hurt anyone or get hurt. It's awesome. That's being a hero, if you ask me anyway.

I wanna join the army but my mother insist I should pursue law instead. I got series of plans on my list that probably the boss created (god) so I guess I should stick with the plan.


May I ask you a question? Do you have a fb?

I have a rare case of being traumatic when talking to somebody so I guess fighting crime would do but I'm not going to fight crime right now since I'm too lazy to do it and I don't want you to die of heart attack because of getting scared XD

You're mom is right; Law is a good area to get into. Lawyers defend the innocent and expose the guilty criminals; lawyers can be crime fighters too. I don't believe in God, I have trouble with believing something with no significant evidence to back it up. You're mom is your boss right now because your fourteen. When your eighteen you're more of your own boss, and when your over twenty one you are completely your own boss. We have bosses all throughout our lives but in the end the one calling the shots is us; only we can make the choice to go one way or the other. Every good you have done, and every evil you have done, is solely on you; you're responsible for your life. Not god, not the devil. You made those choices, and nobody else. Religion is largely for people who have difficulty accepting accountability for their own lives, not for people who form their own conclusions based on rational, logical thought; not what they were taught to believe or are told to believe. Don't be a sheep in your own life, be the sheperd.

Again, not telling you to not fight crime. Fight crime by all means. But don't engage criminals or even approach them; there is no need. You can fight crime safely and effectively without upsetting anyone, primarily bad guys. You put yourself and everyone you love at risk everytime you go into a dangerous situation. Don't take that risk with something that can easily be accomplished safely with other alternatives. Mask, no mask, secret identity or not. If you die there will be people who will miss you. It's selfish and irresponsible to put them in such a position for no valid reason. Did you become a superhero to help people or hurt people? Many join up because they want action and adventure and they want to fight and feel like it's justified because it's "bad guys". Every second you are missing opertunities to change the world around you. This is called Action Tunneling in the firefighting business; you're too focused on one small aspect; bad guys, but ignoring the big picture.

You're not operating at your full potential and capacity if you limit yourself to only one goal in your career, one goal that can be accomplished easier and more efficiently without beating yourself up; you're making things harder on yourself than they have to be and tend to overthink what it really means to be a hero. Read my signature. That is all it takes to be a hero. Be willing. Willing to do things that others won't. Most people like the idea of prowling the night and going after bad guys because of it's popularity in comics. In real life, being a hero isn't fun. It's hard. If your having a bunch of fun you're probably not actually changing anything or making a real difference. Grunt work sucks. Having to dig 16 hours a day for three weeks to save a small indian resevration. Shoveling a senior citizens yard, picking up garbage and litter; the best ways to be a hero are usually the least glamorous. Being a good hero is hard work and takes a lot of time and commitment. If your in it just to live your dreams and beat up bad guys, you're not in this for the right reasons. I don't pretend to know why you chose to become a superhero though.

Why did you decide to become a superhero? What is your goal? What do you seek to accomplish? Read the thread I created entitled "21 Ways to be a Hero Without Using Your Fists" and you will find thirty four different ways that you could be helping people.