During the difficult and long 2002 fire season, two handcrews were assigned to a firing operation on a large fire complex in the Pacific Northwest near the location where several firefighters had lost their lives in a burnover several years earlier.
The overhead was on edge about this incident, unnerved by its proximity to the fatality site. The accident investigation report had found fault with the leaders at the burnover for oversights and omissions that contributed to the deaths of the firefighters. Shadowed by criticism of his peers in the report, the Operations Branch Director was having trouble focusing on the firing operation at hand.
“Do you feel it?” the Branch Director asked one of the crew leaders.
Puzzled, the crew leader asked, “What? Did the wind change? The temperature? Humidity?”
“No,” the Branch Director said. “Can’t you feel ‘it’?”
Abruptly, stating that things didn’t feel right, the Branch Director ordered the firing operation shut down.
Up to that point, the burnout had been progressing normally with few problems. The crews were working at night under generally favorable conditions; a few spot fires along the road were discovered and quickly extinguished.
From the perspective of the two crew leaders overseeing the burnout, shutting it down was a decision made for the wrong reasons. The two reasoned with the Branch Director, citing the good progress already made, pointing out that the identified escape routes and safety zones were rock solid. Moreover, if not completed that night, the operation would be left for the day shift under vastly different conditions.
By focusing on the present and keeping the discussion about “what” was happening and not “who” had been criticized in the past, the two crew leaders successfully led upward that day. The Branch Director eventually saw the logic of their argument and allowed the firing operation to continue, and the crews successfully completed their mission.
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