In June of 2005 a group of firefighters met in Alta,
Utah to participate in the Pulaski Conference.
Their purpose was to draft a body of principles
that would guide our fire suppression activities
into what is now known as Fire Operations Doctrine.
To help us understand what doctrine is
and why we need it is Larry Sutton.
Larry is a Risk Management Specialist
for the U.S. Forest Service.
At this point you should have completed the first part
of the doctrine exercise in your Student Workbook.
Peanut, meet me at the truck, bring your tools.
Pass the word! [shouting]
[music playing] I just got a call from
the fire dispatcher; they've got a big fire
up on Black Mountain.
Well men, this is your opportunity
to show what we can do.
Now I expect everyone to show initiative and pay attention
to the job to be done.
I know you'll do your best.
Alright, let's load the tools on the truck and be on our way.
I think fundamentally doctrine is a belief system that's,
for us it's a belief system that's written down.
Um, it's not a, it's not like anything else we already have.
It's not policy.
It's not procedures.
It's its own thing and that is the best way to think about it
as something that is different from what we already have.
Lots of other types of organizations have doctrine;
there's religious doctrine, military doctrine, and so on.
So if you are looking around for an example of a doctrine, uh,
Shock and Awe is a great example of a specific kind
of military doctrine and it has to do with use
of overwhelming force.
For us, it's a belief system about how you should approach
wildland fire management.
The Doctrine is not as procedurally oriented as most
of our best practices like the Standard Orders, LCES, and um,
you know Down Hill Line Construction Guidelines
and all those sorts of things are much more
at the tactical level than Doctrine which is really more
of a strategic level, foundational thing
that describes how, how we think about our business;
how we approach it.
You have to go back and look at why, why did people want
to spend the effort to create fire suppression doctrine
in the first place.
And a lot of that goes back to 2003
and the southern California fire siege that occurred that year.
Uh, we had people operating in these really hazardous
environments working with all kinds of cooperators,
uh it was a serious fire fight and it became evident
there to a lot of people, kind of at the same time,
that this big set of rules that we had, was kind
of tying people's hands and not allowing enough decision
making at the point of friction, in other words, firefighters
need the ability to act independently and take
their own initiative and seize that initiative when
there is an opportunity.
And if we have rules that are getting in the way of that,
that's kind of what Doctrine needs to, needs to be there for,
is to address the fact that we don't have enough decision
making in the hands of firefighters.
Um, that was the intent behind it from the, from the beginning.
Uh, the traditional agency response to a tragedy is
to create more rules and that's how we've ended
up with such a big rule book.
But everybody recognizes that you could never have a rule
for every situation and even if you could,
firefighters would never be able to remember all that stuff
so what we need is to use the best tool we have
at our disposal which is the brain of the firefighter.
In these really complex situations that are so fluid
and dynamic that, that only their judgment
and decision making at the scene of action is what's going
to make the biggest difference.
And that's really the intent behind this whole effort towards
establishing these foundational principles and doctrine
in the first place is to provide that decision space
to firefighters because they're the ones
that are gonna use it the best.
Look, Jim, a lot of fires get away because crew
and sector bosses don't do enough on their own.
We seem to be too dependent on the boys above.
Now in our sector Jim, your judgment, at that moment,
is more important than anybody's; because you're there.
The doctrine is there when the leaders
who articulated it aren't there.
Um, it's always going to be there to provide some kind
of foundation for you to base your actions on
and that really is, I think helps with that unity of effort.
Most of us probably a lot of times
in our careers have said to ourselves
or to others, Why are we here?
What are we trying to, why are we even trying
to do what we're trying to do here?
I think Doctrine kind of helps answer some of those questions
or at least it should and it also gives you a framework
for asking those questions of others.
In a way, you could look at Doctrine as a way
for firefighters to hold management accountable.
We often seem to talk about accountability as ways,
methods of holding firefighters accountable for things they do
or don't do but perhaps Doctrine is a way
to have accountability for all.
Here's a typical layout of a chain-of-command
on a large campaign fire.
At the top is the fire boss.
Now, here's where we fit into this organization.
Here you are.
Fire moves quickly, it doesn't stand still.
So you have to move against it.
If you see something that needs doing, you do it.
Never assume or leave it to the next guy.
You'll be on your own a great deal.
And you are expected to show initiative and thinking.
When you first start thinking about these principles
you think, well it really should free us
in a lot of ways, and it does but it also, with freedom
comes responsibility, isn't that what your
parents always told you when you were a kid?
It's really true in this case because now you have
that initiative and judgment that's placed
on you, on your shoulders.
And so you can't just always defer to the rule book and say,
well, you know we did it this way
or that way based on this book.
Now you have to make decisions and then be able
to justify them, according to whatever your
rationale was at the time.
All of the safe firefighting practices that we've been taught
over the years are still incredibly important,
I mean there's nothing about Doctrine that's gonna
let you off the hook of needing to post a lookout in
the right situation, or maybe more than one.
But the point is that, you have that discretion,
you make those decisions and you,
so you have to bring you're A game every day to the fireline.
That's really what it's about.
I think maybe in the past we've lulled ourselves
into a false sense of security by having,
by giving people things like the 10 Standard Orders and saying,
You know if you just follow these, you'll be okay
and your people will be alright.
Well, that may not necessarily be true, you might follow those
and they might not be okay and you might not,
under the right circumstances.
So, use your brain, use the judgment that's there,
don't be preoccupied with figuring
out which checklist you're supposed to be following
at a given time, but use everything you've been taught
to achieve successful outcomes.
Hey, spot fire, over there!
Jake, Leroy, get out there!
Hurry up, move it out, don't be so slow!
Doctrine never was meant to be just another checklist.
I mean if that's all it was gonna be,
we were doomed before we even started.
That was the whole point of it, of having it
in the first place was to start paring down on the number
of rules and things that constrain people's
decision making abilities.
I think it is fair to say that these principles are an
acknowledgement and in a lot of ways of the fact that
there is ambiguity in our, in our operating environment,
that we often don't have enough time
to gather all the information we'd like to have
to make a decision but one has to be made anyway.
We're constantly under all different kinds of pressures.
We have objectives that compete with each other you know:
put out the fire, don't get anybody hurt,
and don't spend any money.
Try to reconcile all those together, uh, in a situation
where you have a lot of hazards, you have fatigue,
you have all different kinds of stress operating.
If you're at the scene where something is happening,
you are gonna, and you're the leader, all your training
and experience and everything that you bring
to bear is most useful right there at that scene
and there may not be a lot of value that any of us
that aren't there can add to that.
So, use it, that's what we're trying to empower.
And just the mindless following of rules is not anything
that makes us stronger or better.
We, we have to have some rules and I think Doctrine
helps us think through which rules we really
need to keep and how to kind of interact with those.
But maybe it's a better world to have fewer rules
that everybody knows and follows than more
that they couldn't possibly follow
because they can't know them all.
And then have the foundational principles
to really give you that, that underpinnings, that,
that foundation for: Why do we do this stuff?
How should we do it?
How should we think about the business that we're in?
I mean I, I hope most of us spend a lot of time thinking
about the business that we're in and this is meant
to be an aide to that.
[music] [laughter]
Well, I've got myself a team after all.
Yes sir, a real solid team with no cracks in it.
Now we're ready for any job.
[music] Now that you've read
the doctrine summary and watched the video, go
back to your Student Workbook and complete the third and
final column in the chart.