2008 2007 background front page archives Last Updated 20 June 2009 ________________________________ Manufactured Expertise I think I could posit a reasonable argument, one that says that any universal “expertise” in a low frequency high risk venture, such as fighting a fire, is by its very nature a manufactured expertise, of more use rhetorically than practically. An expertise in fighting house fires has no basis in credible science, as defined by hypothesis development and repeatability. This is true because even though the physics and chemistry of fire can be studied they can only be studied in controlled environments. An expertise in a controlled environment is not an expertise in the naturalistic setting of real world events. There is nothing repeatable about a house fire at 1234 Main St. Arguably, proclaimed experts in house fires do not claim to be experts in experimental fire behavior; they know they have no experimental background. These experts claim to be experts in the naturalistic setting, or better put, the real world. The real world is a world of infinite variables and does not lend itself to expertise at all. This is what makes me curious. The first question is, “what exactly is an expert in house fires?” What would such an expertise, if it existed, mean? It would mean that given a certain set of random circumstances with an infinite number of unknown or uncontrollable variables (a house fire), the expert would make better decisions on average than the non-expert. It means that the body of knowledge, the thought and decision-making processes and the ability to execute of the expert exceed that of the non-expert no matter the circumstances. This cannot be true. Given an average house fire and an average fire department any average firefighter could stretch a line and put the fire out without a Chief or other officer to tell them what to do. The range of possibilities is endless; the range of probabilities is not. What we really do on a daily basis is we keep doing stuff until the fire goes out. If the fire goes out and no one gets hurt we claim success and add the incident to our totem pole of expertise. This hardly seems like a valid methodology. It is pretty simple to keep squirting water until the problem goes away or we run out of water. Certainly there is a salty Captain somewhere who has been going to fires for 30 years making the same critical error over and over. At the kitchen table he is the expert, who can argue with 30 years of accumulated experience? I would argue that this Captain is not an expert in house fires but rather, at best, an expert in that range of house fires that he was exposed to over the past 30 years. And only then if the conclusions that form the base of his expertise are not founded in mistakes that have not been caught yet. Who knows? My argument does not suppose that our collective knowledge of fire behavior cannot be refined. It acknowledges that experience is a wonderful teacher. It accepts that there are “lessons,” “rules,” and “laws,” that govern fire behavior and how firefighters attack fires. But my argument does not accept that the simple memorization of those rules combined with ill-defined measurements of fire ground success is a reliable basis for expertise. To be true the laws must be true every time; there are no firefighting laws. To be an expert, you would have to have to carefully and objectively conduct multi-variate analysis of the past and have some ability to predict future states reliably. Neither of these conditions is met on the fire ground. The latent knowledge base of the organizations, whichever organization, from the biggest urban department to the three member rural department, is a knowledge base developed via trial and error. That cannot be paraded about as expertise. Such claims to expertise are again, manufactured things with an extremely limited capacity to guide real time action. This expertise is a rhetorical tool whose primary purpose is to reassure those committed to the action that there is some valid reason for why things are the way they are. Obviously, these statements have far reaching implications. I just undercut the claims to expertise of myself and all the other writers, Chiefs, and coffee table sycophants in fire houses across the world. There is a spurious set of actors parading about the national stage with convenient, well-packaged answers to unsolvable problems. These people are and should be upset by what I say. Because what I have said is that knowledge and experience alone are not teachers, that repetition is not expertise, that there is much work to be done in teaching people how to think not what to think. If you are reading critically, there are gaps in my logic ripe for exploration or exploitation; you decide. Perhaps of greater concern should be how to develop a series of behavioral standards for fire operations when fire situations are never standard and inherently unpredictable. How do we tell people what ought to be done when the real answer to what ought to be done is so many times, “…it depends.” I think that the answer does not lie in the static knowledge domains that we have come to conflate with expertise, it lies in developing the ability to evaluate and analysis quick snap shots, make guesses and prepare alternative courses of action should those guesses prove wrong. We should seek to become experts in a different way; the way of adaptability and flexibility supported by critical thought. We cannot continue to deny the basic primal and/or primitive aspects of why and how we act the way we do. The reason why firemen don’t like to wash their gear is simple if you consider it in the same context of a navy aviator marking his aircraft after each successful sortie or a Native American decorating themselves after success in battle. The firefighter is first and foremost a human, driven by things that they cannot explain or even recognize in a mirror. One of these primitive instincts is the manufacture of expertise, the illusion of the ability to control the uncontrollable. A rain dance will always work if you don’t stop dancing till it starts raining. Likewise, all fires eventually go out whether it the attack line is sized properly or not. There is not much expertise needed for such things. So it goes. _________________ May 20th 2009 A Qualified Defense of Lt. McCormack He should not have worn the uniform and he should have realized who his audience was. He should say I am sorry for wearing the uniform. I am not sure he should apologize for forgetting the audience. FDNY as an organization does have a right to control their message. And the argument is easily made that anyone wearing their uniform is presenting a message on their behalf, or at least can be reasonably assumed to be presenting them on behalf of the department. I never wear my uniform for just that reason. I am also going to remove the little note in my bio that says where I work so I can keep on speaking my mind. My statements in previous articles have offended some people at work; so it goes. I was not at FDIC and did not see the video before it got yanked off of the website. I am now sorry that I missed it. You see Lt. McCormack was not my biggest fan; we disagreed on some tactical issues. What I think we both agreed on is that on some level, the most basic level, firefighting is not about formulaic approaches and rote adherence to safety mantras. At its most gut level firefighting is an instinctive venture that requires two guys or gals with a piece of hose to crawl down a smoky hallway and put a fire out. The problem is that who you send that message to matters. Unfortunately there is no advanced school of firefighting theory. The Army has its War College, we don’t. There is no place where people of experience can discuss higher order matters. We suffer as a service because of that. Lt. McCormack’s second mistake is that he misjudged his audience. On the one hand he may had led the young down the wrong path, thinking that safety doesn’t matter. There were kids in that audience who were not capable of extracting the real message from the artifices he used to make them. All these kids know is that Lt. McCormack said all that safety stuff is bunk. That is not the Lt.’s fault alone because we are all responsible to ensure that our charges are critical listeners and readers. We should all share that blame; it’s only fair. On the second hand the leadership was offended. It was not just the leadership of the FDNY but the “leadership.” The leadership is an assortment of people who make a decent living going from conference to conference speaking on issues and creating via a unilateral dialogue a set of standards that really don’t exist, best practices of limited effectiveness, mantras, that only serve to sell magazines. Obviously they were offended because part of what makes them an expert is controlling the dialogue. Voices in opposition are sent off to netherworlds of desk jobs and virtual imprisonment. I stopped going to the conferences because how many times do I need to hear the same lecture? I know I should wear my seatbelt and slow down. I know I should do a risk/benefit analysis and a circle check. I heard you already. No need to hear it again. If this fire service is to grow it must find a way to allow speeches like the one made by Lt. McCormack to be heard. I love a good analogy and I offer this one. When a kid watches T.V. it is the job of the parent to qualify the message and sometimes to control what is watched. A good kid with good parents does not shop lift because he saw someone on T.V. do it. When a firefighter goes to a conference he should be well grounded in the rules and procedures of his organization and should not go jumping off of bridges just because Lt. McCormack said so. This is a qualified defense of Lt. McCormack. It is not that I am somehow uniquely qualified to right it, but I write it with some qualifications and some reservations. I am not saying what he said was right, especially since I never heard it, but I am saying that if he takes that uniform off he has a right to say whatever he wants. The organizers of the event picked him, at least in part because he could put on a show, and everyone loves a good show. Now that the show is over and the crowds have gone home and the magazines have been sold and the hit counters on the websites have gone bananas it ain’t fair to leave one guy out in the cold like he is some kind of jerk. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Over the past few months I have been trying to put on paper the why behind how the Branchville Vol. Fire Co., of which I am a long time member, operates. I finally finished the project and called it the Branchville Operational Manual. This book, paper back, is primarily geared to the newer members with little or no real fire ground experience. However, it is quite likely that someone else may get something from it. Like most things it is partially a work of opinion. Not everyone will agree with everything I say, even from my own company. I hope that it can at least provide a starting point for conservation. The book is available at lulu.com. I heard that this is the same place where another infamous work was published but so it goes. The link? click here. Update: 17 February 2009 Tinhelmet, despite the evidence to the contrary, is not dead. As you know it takes a considerable amount of time to generate new material. While my readership has been wonderful I am still taking the chance to reach larger and more varied audiences via FireRescue1.com http://www.firerescue1.com/Columnists/Charles-Bailey/, Thought for the Month February 2009 Everywhere you look there is a new website about firefighting. These sites offer tips on tactical approaches, training methods and other information. This month I would like to offer a word of caution, “KNOW WHO IT IS YOU ARE TAKING ADVICE FROM.” Anyone with a computer can sit at home and imagine a better world. They can take pictures, add a few words, post them in a few minutes and rally influence how some people are going to do their jobs. You have to be careful. How do you know that the guy who just offered you advice on attacking VPS systems actually knows what he is talking about? Frame everything you read against common sense and the standard operating procedures where you work or volunteer. What is a good idea in rural Idaho might be disastrous in Midtown Manhattan and vice-versa. Consider the FDNY. Few can argue that they don’t go to fires or that their methods are stupid. But look at their structure, look and the number of people they send on a reported house fire and ask yourself if you have the same structure and same resources, because if you don’t you should stop. Talk to your company, training, and command officers, figure out how or even if what you read applies to life in rural Kentucky. You may be able to adapt what the Philadelphia Fire Department does to your operation but remember they developed their system based on the risks and obstacles they face. If I were fighting fires in the alleys posing as streets in North Philadelphia, I think would also use their methods, but I am not fighting fire there. My final word of caution is to not rely on the salesman selling you the thermal imager to explain the limitations of the imager. You have to do some homework, read some articles from dependable sources, and be armed with information before the salesman opens his/her mouth. This advice obviously applies to apparatus, tools, and other items. The Branchville Vol. Fire Company and Rescue Squad Inc., in Prince George’s County, MD carries 4” hose because of the large industrial areas they serve. They carry a 400’ attack line because that is the longest hand line deployment they face on a regular basis. They carry 1.5” lightweight hose in their standpipe pack because they do fight fires in small, mostly concrete residential highrises. The College Park Vol. Fire Department utilizes 2.5” hose for the same structures because their manpower and training allow it to work. The Kentland Vol. Fire Department uses a modified Detroit load for reverse lays. They do what they do there because they have evaluated the area, they know what the hose lays are, and just in case they left some room for error. These companies are a good example to follow but only if their example fits your needs.

Last Updated 20 June 2009

________________________________

Manufactured Expertise

I think I could posit a reasonable argument, one that says that any universal “expertise” in a low frequency high risk venture, such as fighting a fire, is by its very nature a manufactured expertise, of more use rhetorically than practically.

An expertise in fighting house fires has no basis in credible science, as defined by hypothesis development and repeatability. This is true because even though the physics and chemistry of fire can be studied they can only be studied in controlled environments. An expertise in a controlled environment is not an expertise in the naturalistic setting of real world events. There is nothing repeatable about a house fire at 1234 Main St.

Arguably, proclaimed experts in house fires do not claim to be experts in experimental fire behavior; they know they have no experimental background. These experts claim to be experts in the naturalistic setting, or better put, the real world. The real world is a world of infinite variables and does not lend itself to expertise at all. This is what makes me curious.

The first question is, “what exactly is an expert in house fires?” What would such an expertise, if it existed, mean? It would mean that given a certain set of random circumstances with an infinite number of unknown or uncontrollable variables (a house fire), the expert would make better decisions on average than the non-expert. It means that the body of knowledge, the thought and decision-making processes and the ability to execute of the expert exceed that of the non-expert no matter the circumstances. This cannot be true.

Given an average house fire and an average fire department any average firefighter could stretch a line and put the fire out without a Chief or other officer to tell them what to do. The range of possibilities is endless; the range of probabilities is not. What we really do on a daily basis is we keep doing stuff until the fire goes out. If the fire goes out and no one gets hurt we claim success and add the incident to our totem pole of expertise. This hardly seems like a valid methodology. It is pretty simple to keep squirting water until the problem goes away or we run out of water.

Certainly there is a salty Captain somewhere who has been going to fires for 30 years making the same critical error over and over. At the kitchen table he is the expert, who can argue with 30 years of accumulated experience? I would argue that this Captain is not an expert in house fires but rather, at best, an expert in that range of house fires that he was exposed to over the past 30 years. And only then if the conclusions that form the base of his expertise are not founded in mistakes that have not been caught yet. Who knows?

My argument does not suppose that our collective knowledge of fire behavior cannot be refined. It acknowledges that experience is a wonderful teacher. It accepts that there are “lessons,” “rules,” and “laws,” that govern fire behavior and how firefighters attack fires. But my argument does not accept that the simple memorization of those rules combined with ill-defined measurements of fire ground success is a reliable basis for expertise.

To be true the laws must be true every time; there are no firefighting laws. To be an expert, you would have to have to carefully and objectively conduct multi-variate analysis of the past and have some ability to predict future states reliably. Neither of these conditions is met on the fire ground.

The latent knowledge base of the organizations, whichever organization, from the biggest urban department to the three member rural department, is a knowledge base developed via trial and error. That cannot be paraded about as expertise. Such claims to expertise are again, manufactured things with an extremely limited capacity to guide real time action. This expertise is a rhetorical tool whose primary purpose is to reassure those committed to the action that there is some valid reason for why things are the way they are.

Obviously, these statements have far reaching implications. I just undercut the claims to expertise of myself and all the other writers, Chiefs, and coffee table sycophants in fire houses across the world. There is a spurious set of actors parading about the national stage with convenient, well-packaged answers to unsolvable problems. These people are and should be upset by what I say. Because what I have said is that knowledge and experience alone are not teachers, that repetition is not expertise, that there is much work to be done in teaching people how to think not what to think. If you are reading critically, there are gaps in my logic ripe for exploration or exploitation; you decide.

Perhaps of greater concern should be how to develop a series of behavioral standards for fire operations when fire situations are never standard and inherently unpredictable. How do we tell people what ought to be done when the real answer to what ought to be done is so many times, “…it depends.” I think that the answer does not lie in the static knowledge domains that we have come to conflate with expertise, it lies in developing the ability to evaluate and analysis quick snap shots, make guesses and prepare alternative courses of action should those guesses prove wrong. We should seek to become experts in a different way; the way of adaptability and flexibility supported by critical thought.

We cannot continue to deny the basic primal and/or primitive aspects of why and how we act the way we do. The reason why firemen don’t like to wash their gear is simple if you consider it in the same context of a navy aviator marking his aircraft after each successful sortie or a Native American decorating themselves after success in battle. The firefighter is first and foremost a human, driven by things that they cannot explain or even recognize in a mirror. One of these primitive instincts is the manufacture of expertise, the illusion of the ability to control the uncontrollable.

A rain dance will always work if you don’t stop dancing till it starts raining. Likewise, all fires eventually go out whether it the attack line is sized properly or not. There is not much expertise needed for such things. So it goes.

_________________

May 20th 2009

A Qualified Defense of Lt. McCormack

He should not have worn the uniform and he should have realized who his audience was. He should say I am sorry for wearing the uniform. I am not sure he should apologize for forgetting the audience.

FDNY as an organization does have a right to control their message. And the argument is easily made that anyone wearing their uniform is presenting a message on their behalf, or at least can be reasonably assumed to be presenting them on behalf of the department. I never wear my uniform for just that reason. I am also going to remove the little note in my bio that says where I work so I can keep on speaking my mind.

My statements in previous articles have offended some people at work; so it goes.

I was not at FDIC and did not see the video before it got yanked off of the website. I am now sorry that I missed it. You see Lt. McCormack was not my biggest fan; we disagreed on some tactical issues. What I think we both agreed on is that on some level, the most basic level, firefighting is not about formulaic approaches and rote adherence to safety mantras. At its most gut level firefighting is an instinctive venture that requires two guys or gals with a piece of hose to crawl down a smoky hallway and put a fire out.

The problem is that who you send that message to matters. Unfortunately there is no advanced school of firefighting theory. The Army has its War College, we don’t. There is no place where people of experience can discuss higher order matters. We suffer as a service because of that. Lt. McCormack’s second mistake is that he misjudged his audience.

On the one hand he may had led the young down the wrong path, thinking that safety doesn’t matter. There were kids in that audience who were not capable of extracting the real message from the artifices he used to make them. All these kids know is that Lt. McCormack said all that safety stuff is bunk. That is not the Lt.’s fault alone because we are all responsible to ensure that our charges are critical listeners and readers. We should all share that blame; it’s only fair.

On the second hand the leadership was offended. It was not just the leadership of the FDNY but the “leadership.” The leadership is an assortment of people who make a decent living going from conference to conference speaking on issues and creating via a unilateral dialogue a set of standards that really don’t exist, best practices of limited effectiveness, mantras, that only serve to sell magazines. Obviously they were offended because part of what makes them an expert is controlling the dialogue. Voices in opposition are sent off to netherworlds of desk jobs and virtual imprisonment.

I stopped going to the conferences because how many times do I need to hear the same lecture? I know I should wear my seatbelt and slow down. I know I should do a risk/benefit analysis and a circle check. I heard you already. No need to hear it again.

If this fire service is to grow it must find a way to allow speeches like the one made by Lt. McCormack to be heard. I love a good analogy and I offer this one. When a kid watches T.V. it is the job of the parent to qualify the message and sometimes to control what is watched. A good kid with good parents does not shop lift because he saw someone on T.V. do it. When a firefighter goes to a conference he should be well grounded in the rules and procedures of his organization and should not go jumping off of bridges just because Lt. McCormack said so.

This is a qualified defense of Lt. McCormack. It is not that I am somehow uniquely qualified to right it, but I write it with some qualifications and some reservations. I am not saying what he said was right, especially since I never heard it, but I am saying that if he takes that uniform off he has a right to say whatever he wants. The organizers of the event picked him, at least in part because he could put on a show, and everyone loves a good show. Now that the show is over and the crowds have gone home and the magazines have been sold and the hit counters on the websites have gone bananas it ain’t fair to leave one guy out in the cold like he is some kind of jerk.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Over the past few months I have been trying to put on paper the why behind how the Branchville Vol. Fire Co., of which I am a long time member, operates. I finally finished the project and called it the Branchville Operational Manual. This book, paper back, is primarily geared to the newer members with little or no real fire ground experience. However, it is quite likely that someone else may get something from it.

Like most things it is partially a work of opinion. Not everyone will agree with everything I say, even from my own company. I hope that it can at least provide a starting point for conservation.

The book is available at lulu.com. I heard that this is the same place where another infamous work was published but so it goes. The link? click here.

Update: 17 February 2009

Tinhelmet, despite the evidence to the contrary, is not dead. As you know it takes a considerable amount of time to generate new material. While my readership has been wonderful I am still taking the chance to reach larger and more varied audiences via FireRescue1.com http://www.firerescue1.com/Columnists/Charles-Bailey/,

Thought for the Month February 2009

Everywhere you look there is a new website about firefighting. These sites offer tips on tactical approaches, training methods and other information. This month I would like to offer a word of caution, “KNOW WHO IT IS YOU ARE TAKING ADVICE FROM.”

Anyone with a computer can sit at home and imagine a better world. They can take pictures, add a few words, post them in a few minutes and rally influence how some people are going to do their jobs. You have to be careful. How do you know that the guy who just offered you advice on attacking VPS systems actually knows what he is talking about?

Frame everything you read against common sense and the standard operating procedures where you work or volunteer. What is a good idea in rural Idaho might be disastrous in Midtown Manhattan and vice-versa. Consider the FDNY. Few can argue that they don’t go to fires or that their methods are stupid. But look at their structure, look and the number of people they send on a reported house fire and ask yourself if you have the same structure and same resources, because if you don’t you should stop. Talk to your company, training, and command officers, figure out how or even if what you read applies to life in rural Kentucky.

You may be able to adapt what the Philadelphia Fire Department does to your operation but remember they developed their system based on the risks and obstacles they face. If I were fighting fires in the alleys posing as streets in North Philadelphia, I think would also use their methods, but I am not fighting fire there.

My final word of caution is to not rely on the salesman selling you the thermal imager to explain the limitations of the imager. You have to do some homework, read some articles from dependable sources, and be armed with information before the salesman opens his/her mouth. This advice obviously applies to apparatus, tools, and other items.

The Branchville Vol. Fire Company and Rescue Squad Inc., in Prince George’s County, MD carries 4” hose because of the large industrial areas they serve. They carry a 400’ attack line because that is the longest hand line deployment they face on a regular basis. They carry 1.5” lightweight hose in their standpipe pack because they do fight fires in small, mostly concrete residential highrises. The College Park Vol. Fire Department utilizes 2.5” hose for the same structures because their manpower and training allow it to work. The Kentland Vol. Fire Department uses a modified Detroit load for reverse lays. They do what they do there because they have evaluated the area, they know what the hose lays are, and just in case they left some room for error. These companies are a good example to follow but only if their example fits your needs.