Command and Control for the First-Arriving Company Officer

[@jdvincler]

Very informative. Being a part of a large full-time department, with lots of resources coming in fast I personally have a problem with going interior if I have 2 FFs on the line if I am the initial IC, because for one, 9 out of 10 times the noise from the hand lines, stuff banging around, being masked up, ect... is making way too much noise for me to hear radio comms, and who is arriving. Not to mention the garbled mess that usually comes from a radio while someone is masked up and interior. Granted, that can be addressed with proper training and radios with noise cancelling. In addition to that, I can't assess changing exterior conditions from the inside. And we all know how fast conditions can change. So unless we have SOG's that state I can pre-assign companies before they arrive, or that the next arriving officer automatically takes command (which we don't) then we run the risk of FF's freelancing as they arrive and don't have an assignment. And I have seen a lot of freelancing on videos of fire scenes on KZbin, with sub-optimal results. I liked that you guys mentioned that it really is situational dependent. And I'm sure you veterans have done it so many times that you can spit out TLOs to arriving companies from the interior, based off of pure memory of what you saw during your initial scene size up and 360, but I don't know if Im quite there yet. I prefer to make those potentially life or death decisions based off of what Im seeing at the moment. So as an example, if I have only 1 FF on the line, or I'm not confident in the FF's abilities, AND it's serious IDLH, in a larger structure or multiple stories, and no suspected occupants I prefer to cool from the outside until the next company arrives, which again is right around the corner for us. Because in general, I don't like the idea of losing my situational awareness of the scene, at least until I can transfer command or get another officer to make entry with my team. So far this approach has worked well. But I have learned that an initial IC doesn't always assign everyone correctly anyway, and sometimes having to pull a line to an exposure, for example, even if you haven't been assigned to is necessary.