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SAFENET

Wildland Fire Safety & Health Reporting Network

SAFENET Event Information

Create Agency Response

SAFENET ID:

20180509-0001

Event Start Date:

01/01/2018 1200

Event Stop Date:

 

Incident Name:

Misc Communictaion

Fire Number:

 

State:

Colorado

Jurisdiction:

Unknown

Local Unit:

Incident Type:

Wildland

Incident Activity:

Line, Support, Readiness/Preparedness

Stage of Incident:

Initial Attack, Extended Attack, Demobe, Non-incident, Other

Position Title:

Center Manager 

Task:

Communications 

Management Level:

N/A

Resources Involved:

 

Contributing Factors

Contributing Factors:

Communications, Human Factors

Human Factors:

Decision Making, Leadership, Situational Awareness  

Other Factors:

 

Narrative

Describe in detail what happened including the concern or potential issue, the environment (weather, terrain, fire behavior, etc), and the resulting health issue.

Communication is key in the dispatch and fire world and lack of communication can lead to unintended consequences. Over recent years a trend has been emerging where it is becoming more common for resources to use blind transmissions in communicating to dispatch or other resources. A blind transmission, in telecommunications, is a transmission made without obtaining a receipt, or acknowledgment of reception, from the intended receiving station. Example "dispatch, engine 123 back in station and out of service". The resource then goes home assuming the dispatch copied their transmission and put them out of service. The resource should have called dispatch and waited for acknowledgement that the transmission is ready to be received before stating they are back in station and out of service. This has resulted in numerous occasions dispatch having to search for resources that have gone out of service for the day or not located where they were last acknowledged to be which can be crucial in an emergency. Blind transmissions are now being used by non-fire personnel who think it is okay to use as fire personnel are using this procedure.

Immediate Action Taken

Reporting Individual : please describe actions you took to correct or mitigate the unsafe/unhealthful event.

It has been mentioned many times to Duty Officers and resources in the field both in person and on conference calls to use proper radio protocol however the culture that has been created is difficult to correct. Leadership needs to acknowledge the lack of communication and inform their resources of proper communication protocol and what it is expected.

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