By Dr Lindsay Judah, CFO, CTO

The National Fallen Firefighter Foundation (NFFF) mission is to honour America’s fallen fire heroes; support their families, colleagues, and organisations; and work to reduce preventable firefighter death and injury.

One recent method to help support this mission involved engaging the Everyone Goes Home program to help develop firefighter staff rides.

The concept of staff rides goes back to historical military battles, resulting in leadership training of military personnel.

They’re known to be an excellent opportunity to connect personnel to previous notable encounters, the climate, critical thinking, decision-making, and leadership.

While it can be difficult to replicate challenging circumstances often experienced at these incidents, it can prove invaluable to review lessons learned to reduce future injury and death.

Generally, staff rides are conducted with a group of individuals connected in some way, such as military platoons, wildland firefighters or other such teams.

The experience often results in cohesion, discovery, enhanced understanding, as well as personal and professional reflection and teambuilding.

Staff rides can elicit emotional responses, though they can also provide healing, as described by George Risko, on the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center webpage.

Omna International teamed with the wildland firefighting community for a national staff ride workshop.

Risko shared that subject matter experts assisted in gathering pertinent information for each incident and they were able to craft individual staff rides.

He stated that valuable information can now be communicated to current and future personnel, as well as honour those who died in the line of duty at the incident.

Another idea shared was that smaller-scale staff rides can be developed for annual training and can cover a variety of topics, such as large-scale incidents and weather events requiring deployment and response.

Staff rides: Gaining perspective

In Spring of 2022, a group of NFFF Everyone Goes Home Advocates attended a staff ride in Virginia, with Omna International.

JD Baker (ret.), former US Marine, was our guide and he provided insight at a variety of battlefield sites throughout Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania, Virginia.

The focus for this staff ride was Leadership and Operational Risk Management.

The experience was informative, and required discussion, introspection, and vulnerability.

Opportunities to consider bias and hubris, discuss innovative methods, evaluate sunk costs, reframe approaches as well as strategies and tactics were presented.

Omna provides staff rides at a variety of locations throughout the United States.

They also offer staff rides to discuss wildland fire incidents such as, Dude, South Canyon, Thirtymile and Yarnell Hill.

These staff rides allow participants to hike to specific locations which are significant to the incident; the immersive opportunity offers experiential learning.

Additionally, the National Wildfire Coordinating Group has a Staff Ride Library available with many resources for specific incidents, such as After-Action Reviews, Crew Cohesion Assessment, leadership curriculum, maps, and Self-Development Plan.

Following the NFFF groups’ attendance and participation at the Virigina staff ride, we debriefed and shared our findings and personal reflections.

We also spent a half-day session discussing three structural firefighter Line of Duty Death (LODD) incidents which occurred over the past decade in the United States.

This brainstorming session resulted in the inception and development of structural firefighter staff rides by identified agencies who’ve experienced an LODD, NFFF team, and subject matter experts.

The first NFFF sponsored staff ride occurred in Asheville, North Carolina in Summer 2023.

This staff ride highlighted the LODD of Captain Jeffrey Scott Bowen (2011).

We were provided pre-work to review prior to arriving in Asheville; which included a comprehensive report honouring Captain Bowen’s death, existing standard operating procedures, NIOSH report, a debrief provided by Dr Gasaway, as well as an actionable improvement plan.

A news article covering the 10-year anniversary ceremony hosted by Fire Chief Scott Burnette and the Asheville Fire Department (AFD) honouring Captain Bowen was also shared.

The article underlines AFD strides in advancement which have taken place since this tragic and untimely death of one of their dedicated personnel.

It also described the challenges they’ve faced and continue to confront as an organisation and community.

Attendees, from regions including California, Wisconsin, New York, and Texas, convened in Asheville over a weekend.

After introductions, they toured AFD Fire Station #1, learning about its history and the 2011 incident at 445 Biltmore Ave.

The group later visited the site of the Line of Duty Death (LODD) incident, hearing firsthand firefighter accounts.

Captain Bowen’s mother and AFD members showed remarkable vulnerability.

The profound experience culminated in reflections and discussions, highlighting AFD’s admirable leadership and its role as a model for other fire services.

Impact

One attendee shared that their takeaway from this event was the acknowledgement of ego and how it can negatively impact their ability to perform and lead on the fireground.

Another attendee shared that a similar facility compared to where Captain Bowen lost his life exists in many jurisdictions throughout the country.

This same incident could occur in a community near you.

This perspective aligns with a thought-provoking article a local company officer shared recently, “I fear this lack of familiarity breeds a sense of invincibility among us that it won’t happen here.

We must be careful not to “otherise” the fatal incidents that happen in our industry.

It is foolish to think such tragedies only happen to chaotic big city departments.”

We had the privilege of viewing Captain Bowen’s locker at AFD Fire Station #3 and I noticed he had a coffee mug in his locker “Safety Award 1996 San Bernardino National Forest.” He previously served as a hotshot for four seasons before joining the Asheville Fire Department and his mother shared that he lived with the philosophy of being better every day.

I think that is something we can all strive to live by, both in honour of Captain Bowen’s legacy, as well as meeting the objective that Everyone Goes Home®.

We can grow together; we can heal together, and we can learn together.

One effective way we can do this is through immersive learning opportunities such as structural firefighter staff rides.

This article was originally published in the November 2023 issue of International Fire & Safety Journal. To read your FREE digital copy, click here.