I am Michael Karl McNeil, a Former Fire Battalion Chief with twenty-five years in the fire service, and the thing I use most from that career is not a hose or a ladder. It is the incident command system. Every structure fire, wildland assignment and hazmat call I worked ran on the same four habits, and those habits are what separate a workplace safety program that works from one that sits in a binder.
Someone is in command, by name
The first radio report on any incident names the person in command. Nobody on the fireground wonders who makes the call. A safety program needs the same thing: one named person with the authority and responsibility to carry it out. California’s Injury and Illness Prevention Program rule, Title 8 Section 3203, starts in exactly that place, with the person or persons who have that authority. When I review a program, that line is the first thing I read, because if it names a job title nobody holds, nothing below it will be carried out.
Size-up before action
A fire officer arriving on scene does a size-up before committing a crew: what is burning, what is exposed, who is inside, what can go wrong next. A hazard assessment is the same discipline done before the work starts instead of after the injury. Walk the floor, look at the task as it is actually done, and write down what can hurt someone. A size-up done from the cab of the engine misses things, and so does a hazard assessment done from an office.
Span of control
Incident command keeps the number of people reporting to any one supervisor small enough that the supervisor can actually watch them. Workplaces break this rule constantly. One foreman with twenty workers across three areas cannot see what any of them are doing. When I find a recurring injury, the root cause is often a supervisor stretched too thin to catch the unsafe practice before it hurt someone.
The after-action review
Every significant incident in the fire service ends with a review of what went right, what went wrong and what changes. Nobody is there to assign blame. The goal is to fix the system before the next call. A workplace incident investigation should run the same way. If the only finding is that an employee was careless, the investigation stopped too early. The useful question is what allowed the careless act to cause an injury, and what will stop it next time.
Why this carries over
I came up through fire prevention before I ran incidents, and that path taught me that most emergencies are decided long before anyone calls 911. The same is true of workplace injuries. A clear command structure, an honest size-up, a manageable span of control and a real after-action review are not fire service jargon. They are how serious work gets done safely, on a fireground or on a production floor.
Michael Karl McNeil, REP, RIH, EPP, QSD, is a Former Fire Battalion Chief and the principal of McNeil Safety Consulting. More of his fire service record is on the biography page.
