ABSTRACT
My initiation to the incident command process started soon after I became a member of the Phoenix Fire Department in 1958. I was assigned to an engine company in downtown Phoenix for my first 12 years on the job. During that period I served as a firefighter, driver, and company officer. My initial occupational challenge involved developing an understanding of what was required to be a fire company team member. As a young firefighter I concentrated on learning the technical skills involved in doing the task level manual labour of firefighting. I recognised early in my career that effective firefighting operations contain an interesting contrast. While 59the basic work objectives are pretty simple (rescue/extinguish/conserve), the manipulative skills required for effective fire control are complicated and must be co-ordinated and performed quickly, many times by multiple work teams, in a sequential manner with lots of simultaneous activity going on all at once in different places. The point of this integrated firefighting effort is to create a directed, concentrated, operational response. The outcome of the response is also pretty simple - if the firefighting effort is bigger than the fire, the firefighters win. If the fire is bigger than the operational effort, the fire wins.
