Following the South Canyon fire in 1994, fire leaders gathered together for the Wildland
Firefighters Human Factors
Workshop. The workshop theme was "Improving Wildland Firefighter Performance
Under Stressful, Risky Conditions: Toward
Better Decisions on the Fireline and More
Resilient Organizations."
"The goal of the workshop was not to come up with quick solutions. Rather it was to explore the human issues of wildland firefighting and recommend to fire management corrective actions that would have lasting effects. As with all explorations of human behaviors, the complexity and variety of issues was apparent. But it became clear that a great deal of relevant knowledge already exists that other organizations have institutionalized to reduce risk and improve safety."
Over the course of five days, workshop attendees heard presentations from four well-known human factors speakers, including Kurt Braun, Gary Klien, Gary Hart, and Karl Weick, discussed human factors within the wildland fire service, and attended the Mann Gulch staff ride.
Workshop Background
These facts tell us that firefighting organizations, crews, and individuals need to be much more proficient at decisionmaking under stressful, risky conditions. Improving proficiency will require new training and attitude changes. And this in turn requires a thorough examination of the human dimensions of wildland firefighting. This examination is not limited to firefighting crews and teams (i.e., smokechasers, engines, helitack, incident management, type I, and type II) but extends to fire management officers, dispatchers, fire support, managers with fire and resource responsibilities, up to Agency heads. These people encompass a fire community. Fire community implies an awareness that we are interconnected and interdependent and should approach firefighting from the point of view that we are all in this together.
To begin to address some of the human factors questions, experts in psychology, sociology, organizations, fire safety, and wildland firefighting attended a 5-day workshop in June 1995 to discuss ways of improving firefighter safety.
Workshop participants explored firefighter psychology, interactions among firefighters and among fire crews, and better ways to organize. After several days of discussions, they developed a series of recommendations for beginning to implement changes that would improve the fire organization and firefighter safety.
This paper outlines the workshop’s findings and recommendations. The workshop represents a first step in what will be a long journey toward a better understanding of the human side of wildland firefighting.
Ted Putnam, Workshop Organizer
Workshop Output
Workshop output was grouped into three main areas:
- A broad vision of how to reorganize wildland firefighting based on insights from High Reliability Organizations (HROs).
- A specific reorganization of Incident Management Teams and fire crews along crew resource management (CRM) lines.
- Better assessment and feedback for all wildland firefighting activities.
Over the last 20 years, many of the findings in the workshop were successfully implemented and brought about desired change in the wildland firefighting culture.
(Joseph B. Sylvia’s marker cross on a steep Mann Gulch slope where 13 firefighters lost their lives on
August 5, 1949. Credit: workshop report, part 3) |
Final Thoughts from the Report
"The workshop findings and
recommendations are not meant
to be an end product but rather
the beginning of a continuing
assessment. It would be a mistake to
think that a one-time effort to develop
new training or a new organizational
structure is enough.
We hope to set in motion a process that
will lead to a fire organization that
reinvents itself as a high reliability
organization where:
- The capacity to learn and adapt are valued and encouraged for the organization and the individual.
- The people are committed to the principles of CRM on the fireground.
- Safety and firefighters are number one.
Wildland Fire Leadership Challenge - Digging a Little Deeper
- Read Findings from the Wildland Firefighters Human Factors Workshop.
- Read books/articles from Karl Weick and Gary Klein. Suggestions include:
- Managing the Unexpected by Karl E. Weick, and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe. Jossey-Bass. 2001
- "South Canyon Revisited: Lessons from High Reliability Organizations" by Karl E. Weick (found in Part 4)
- "Naturalistic Decision Making and Wildland Firefighting" Gary Klein (found in Part 4)
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