Chainsaw Safety 2013 Closed Caption
Human Factors are universal in all groups, and they are subject to the same limitations.
But high reliability organizations consistently outperform others, even in hazardous, dynamic
environments.
They recognize and plan for Human Factors, in order to function safely and efficiently.
They focus on failure, which is another way of talking about Murphyís Law, that what
can go wrong, will go wrong, at the worst possible time.
There has always been a delicate balance between production, and safety.
We generally refer to this as risk management.
However, do the pressures to produce sometimes override considerations for safety?
In an intense and prideful ìcan doî culture such as firefighting, the influence of Human
Factors can disrupt this balance.
We need to accept this fact, and incorporate this limitation into the way we do business.
Ivan Puppilidy, is a Human Performance Specialist with the U.S. Forest Service, who has a background
as a lead plane pilot with accident investigation experience.
This goes back to pressures of effectiveness-thoroughness trade-off.
If we look at the 10 standard firefighting orders, for example, and we look at Number
10: ìfight fire aggressively, having provided for safety firstî.
This is a complete effectiveness/thoroughness trade-off, because if we want to be completely
effective at fighting the fire, we are going to be aggressive, but if we going to be completely
thorough, weíre going be completely safe.
How can you be both completely safe, and completely effective?
What weíre asking our people to do is use their judgment, to come to some middle ground
of application of this standard firefighting order, to understand that weíre to develop
a way of implementing this philosophy, that they have to make some sort of effectiveness-thoroughness
trade-off.
Now our desire is that they make that tradeoff on the basis of safety.
The pressure to produce is felt acutely among sawyers on a crew.
For a crew cutting line, the pace is set by those in front running chain saws.
Saw teams prepare helispots for crew shuttles; sawyers drop snags prior to firefighters mopping
an area up; sawyers cut saw line before the diggers.
Sawyers set the pace.
Recognizing the way Human Factors affect them is critical to achieving the balance of production
and safety.
Mike Krupski is the assistant superintendent for the Sawtooth Hotshots, who has a background
in smokejumping, hotshots, and engines.
As far as pressures from the overhead divisions, the management teams, they do put pressures
on that and they have timeframes, and they have a plan that will work if things were
completed within certain time parameters, so we do what we can to manage and complete
it, but realistically we can only go as fast as we can go, and weíre the ones out there
on the ground, weíre seeing the actual workload.
Itís still the safety of the guys; thatís what overrides everything else thereís only
so much that you can do, and if weíre not able to complete in that timeframe, then we
can either make adjustments internally to get more production, and if thatís not working
out, then you just need more resources to be able to complete it.
Andrew Addey is a senior firefighter with the Sawtooth hotshots, who has a background
in engines, and hotshots.
Absolutely, there are external pressures you know, when it comes to the dig essentially
being in what we call the saws kitchen.
Itís kind of that friendly competition that the two different organizations give to one
another.
The dig likes to compete and be right on the saws, and the saws like to try and pull away
from the dig, so itís just a matter of the maintaining the safety vs. the production,
but there is a good friendly competition that definitely drives one another to make good
headway.
Godot Apuzo is an equipment specialist with the Missoula Technology and Development Center,
who has a background in smokejumping, hotshots, timber inventory, and is a C certifier for
chain saws and crosscut saws.
I think thereís high expectation to get a lot of production done, and sometimes we tend
to take shortcuts, or just kind of power through it, and that will get you so far, and we see
tired and fatigued as being number one things that are causing people how to have these
chaps strikes.
If those chaps werenít there, I guarantee there would have been a hospital visit.
The recognition of deteriorating mental and physical ability is built into our system
in the form of work rest ratios and 14 day assignments, and the idea is we reached the
end of the day or assignment before we become unsafe to ourselves, or others.
Not everyone is the same though, and not all days or assignments are the same.
A short review of some common Human Factors will be helpful to illustrate how they might
look.
So letís just take every day work.
What is every day work for a firefighter?
Well we work in an environment that is far beyond what any Olympic athlete works in,
much longer duration, 14 to 16 hour days, in some of the most arduous conditions known
to mankind, in smoke, in dirt, in heat, and we work continuously; poor quality, high density
altitudes, operational considerations that are far beyond that of any other athlete that
you could possibly imagine, so the expectations that are placed on firefighters are extreme.
Distractions are a Human Factor, that will degrade decision making ability, and upset
the flow of information necessary to maintain a fine balance between safety, and production.
Fatigue is most likely the greatest contributor to poor decision making ability, and it can
be difficult to recognize in yourself but, there are signs that will tell you that fatigue
is affecting your decision making ability.
When weíre managing fatigue, number one we look at physical ability, thatís in selection
of who the sawyers are, number two is an empowerment of the people, and weíre observing them,
and weíre trying to see signs, but thereís something, the individual has to swallow their
pride I guess, and at some point recognize that they are tired, and they need a break,
and so we try to definitely emphasize that in our training, and just how we do things
daily that they can make that call.
Your attitude can have a big effect on your safety.
Have you ever said yourself ìahhh, itís just mop upî or, ìIíve done this 100 times
alreadyî.
That is the voice of complacency, who sits on your shoulder, and tells you these things,
and he hopes youíll be listening and buy it.
Another attitude type is doing something really hard, possibly outside of your skill level,
to draw attention to yourself, and gain some glory.
This is Macho talking to you, who is a close relative of Stupid, and they are often confused,
as they are very much alike.
Again, donít buy what theyíre selling.
External and internal pressures to accomplish a task are another Human Factor that will
always be with us.
Itís how we do with them, that allows us to maintain that fine balance between safety,
and productivity.
Safety can be the result of proactive action, to preserve options and keep at the fat end
of the options wedge.
It can also be a complete absence of accidents.
It can be successfully checking off all our go boxes on our ìgo, no goî check list.
Safety can certainly be all of these things, and the necessary thought process that needs
to happen to address these items, is a large part of keeping ourselves safe.
Measuring production is the easier of the two sides to measure.
Traditionally, we can use chains per hour; bucket drops; loads of retardant delivered;
sling loads delivered; or chains of line secured, to measure how much production has occurred.
The catch is, was a done safely?
Speed itself can be an element of safety.
Sawyers are taught that the less time you spend under the tree, the safer you are, which
is about minimizing time exposed to risk.
The Marines started a saying about speed, which has been adopted by many other organizations.
We have another saying weíve given to people, the ability to try to calm them down, and
take some factors out of the loud chainsaw: ìslow is smooth and smooth is fastî, so
you try to make people smooth, and if theyíre smooth, then itís more efficient.
High production is an element of initial attack to control fire, before it spreads and necessitates
bringing in more resources and exposing them to risk.
On large fires, pushing hard to punch a in a line is a way to keep our options open,
knowing that unforeseen events are likely to occur.
Balancing tradeoffs between safety and production requires a high degree of analytical thought.
This gets complicated by the presence of Human Factors, that work against this thought process
by degrading it.
Analytical thought is carried out in the forebrain, while the mid-brain is responsible for fight
or flight responses.
Under high stress, the mid-brain takes control, and your analytical abilities roll back to
that of a caveman.
Human Factors push you closer into the mid-brain.
After an accident when people ask the question: ìwhat could they have been thinking?î, it
is possible that under stress, the caveman made an appearance courtesy of the mid-brain.
What can we do to overcome the effects Human Factors have on us?
You can begin by identifying some personal trigger points that say: ìIím not performing
safely, and need to take a break, or hand off the sawî.
How fast was the saw running when you hit your chaps, to get a relationship to the chain
speed.
The saws designed to run at full throttle, why are you cutting your chaps at half throttle?
Thatís implying that youíre not cutting, youíre doing something else.
What are you doing?
And theyíre saying, ìwell, I was walking and the chain was still spinningî, or ìI
was tired and fatiguedî, or a mixture of all three.
ìI was tired, I rested the saw on my leg and it got my chapsî.
Here are a few ideas that can be implemented to deal with Human Factors at the crew level.
We try and foster that open, honest type environment to where they can come to us, that theyíre
tired, or theyíre having some issues.
Early in the season, trying to build up some mutual respect, and listen to them, the trust,
and I think with that that fosters the relationship that theyíre able to recognize that, and
stop, and put down the saw if they need to, if theyíre getting too fatigued.
Thatís kind of where are roving squad leader comes into play, heís kind of there to provide
those updates, keep the sawyerís informed on any type of change in weather, any updates
that come over the radio, a point of contact that we can make with the sawyerís, and then
theyíre still maintaining overall big picture of what the fire is doing, what the weatherís
doing, extended forecast, those kind of things.
However you put together your plan, make sure you share it with others on your crew to ensure
that when you are affected by Human Factors, others will recognize it for what it is, and
take action to help.
In closing, weíll hear a few words from Douglas Dent, about safety.
Itís absolutely imperative that you remember, that you have the option to back off at all
times.
And remember that you always have that option.
Always remember that your most important job is to make it home every night safely.