Examining the Implications of National Doctrine for the Fire Service

Tom LaTourretteIAFC Leadership Summit

11-4-05

This briefing represents RAND research but has not undergone RAND quality assurance review

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Emergency Responder Research at RAND • New York City-RAND Fire Project

• Emergency responder safety and health (NIOSH)

– Terrorism lessons learned

– Responder community views

– Safety management

– Injury and fatality analysis

– R&D roadmap

• Emergency response performance requirements for terrorist attacks

• Gilmore Commission work assessing domestic response to WMD

• Crime fighting technology

• Approaches to reducing homicide/gun crimes

• Readiness of local emergency response agencies

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IAFC Approached RAND to Examine the Issue of National Guidance for the Fire Service

• Concern that the fire service faces a growing need for proactive, long term direction

• Federal government increasingly involved in creating fire service policy and expectations

• Desire for fire service to take charge of its own direction and develop new ideas for policy, procedures, and service unity

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The Role of the Fire Service Has Continually Evolved

• Originally "put the wet stuff on the red stuff"

• Role evolved as new responsibilities emerged– Fire prevention– Emergency medical service– Hazmat– General community safety

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The Fire Service Has Increasing Importance at the National Level

• Fire service generally leads disaster response– Range of operational capabilities– Incident command and coordination ability

• Need for disaster response growing– Increasing impact of natural disasters– Emerging significance of terrorist threat

• Fire service has heightened national responsibilities– Does this warrant further change?

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The Fire Service Has a Tradition of Local Response

• Fire service grew and evolved from local origins

• Operational and management policies and procedures largely developed locally

• Allows fire service to remain responsive to local needs and constraints

• Results in heterogeneous procedures and expectations, difficulty in defining resource requirements, and unnecessary duplication of effort

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Is There a Need For National Doctrine in the Fire Service?

• What is doctrine?– High-level principles and concepts (not rules)

that guide operational planning and decisionmaking

– Authoritative but not prescriptive

– Definitive enough to guide specific operation, but general enough to apply to diverse circumstances

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National Doctrine Could Influence Operations

• National doctrine could address command, operations, equipment, and safety & health

• Benefits could include improved interoperability (fire-fire, fire-other local, local-state-federal), better mutual aid planning, improved guidance for resource requirements

• Must remain flexible enough to accommodate local needs

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Example: Doctrine Could Address ICS

• Facilitate the development and implementation of mutual assistance agreements among collaborating emergency response agencies

• Help prepare local commanders to manage multi-service, multi-jurisdiction, multi-tier (local-state-federal) response efforts

• Emphasize span of control and scalability

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Example: Doctrine Could Address Risk Management

• Designate appropriate decisionmaking level (e.g., individual, company, department, national) for– Operational procedures– Deployment/dispatch practices– Communications protocols– Personal protection and safety

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Diversity of Fire Service Complicates Development of Doctrine

• Because it is locally based, fire service varies along several dimensions– Career vs. volunteer– Large vs. small departments– Urban vs. rural– Inclusion of EMS

• Fire service-wide doctrine must be appropriate for all

• Military does not have the same degree of diversity

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Assessing the Consequences of National Doctrine

• Link operational manifestation of potential doctrine options to fire service performance– Characterize fire service operations– Develop metrics– Develop simulation tools– Calibrate analysis with available data, e.g.,

• Existing department-level doctrine• Call statistics• Injury data

– Assess anticipated impact of doctrine options on local and national performance

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Impediments to Implementation

• Nominally attractive options may face impediments– Transition complexity or cost– Sustained costs– Governance/legal issues

• Look for ways to overcome impediments– Phased implementation– Research and development of new technologies

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Government Relations

• National fire service doctrine will require increased coordination and cooperation among fire agencies and between fire and other emergency services

• Not new to fire service, but may require more formal inter-agency relationships– Examine possible structural changes in fire

service/emergency response organization

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Contact

Tom LaTourretteRAND Corporationtoml@rand.org310-393-0411 x7185

Reports available atwww.rand.org