Who Goes First on a 2 Pump Shout?

[Carl]

2 hours ago, Kinmel said:

When and why was that removed from the legislation ?

It was removed on the 10th September 2003, and replaced by the Fire Services Act 2004 as detailed here. The original, which you quote can be found here.

Here is the link to the full Fire Service Act 2004

[Noddy]

7 hours ago, TandA said:

We can get SMs come on in an operational support / monitoring role to jobs with a WM in charge.  The SM, as the most senior officer present, will have legal and organisational responsibility for the incident, but they won’t necessarily take over unless they decide the incident is clearly going to escalate or the situation demands a competence the WM won’t have.  Of course, if the job meets our criteria for an automatic L2 IC (eg >4 pumps) then a SM will be sent on to assume the IC role.

We have similar happen here mate but the clear distinction is that the oncoming higher rank does assume the role of IC but appoints the WM as the ops commander, therefore maintaining the appropriate hierarchy of command and responsibility but not necessarily changing tactics 

I am acutely aware that when I find myself at a job as the FI, I can sometimes be amongst a crew of CM’s and therefore legally responsible for everyone and everything. 

[TandA]

I am usually just acutely aware that I have someone with “monitoring officer” in his title breathing down my neck! 

[HB2016]

Since this has attracted some attention let me be clear...

The service policy is as (I suspect) all of yours. The most senior ranking officer has overall corporate responsibility (as it is outlined in the F&RS act 2004).

In practice all of our Initial commanders, Crew Managers and Watch managers do the same command assessment on a 2 yearly WA. The view is that (on paper) they are all of the same competency and are allowed to be in charge of an incident of up to 4 pumps (with a Tac ad mobilised at three pumps unless critical incident). These are not necessarily my views

If you respond as a two pump PDA from the same station and one truck is a CM and one a WM then the WM will be in charge. If it's two pumps from separate stations one with a CM and one with a WM the first in attendance will be the IC and that's how it will remain (unless the WM requests to take over or the IC wants to hand over - for whatever reason). All messages and ARA's will be by whomever the IC is.

Tac advisers will generally only take over when they are required to do so OR feel that the incident is of a complex enough nature for them to - and will then as mentioned make the previous IC the ops commander.

I was in fact IC acting up a few months ago - tumble dryer smoking, on arrival it was going through the roof of the utility room/garage. I made pumps three the second and third appliance both had CM's in charge and the SM was just behind them. I briefed everyone, set them to work and gave a situation handover to the Tac ad who opted not to take over and just remained as a mentor.

This is very much the norm here and although I was aware of the F&RS Act on senior officer etc. I just assumed that it was the norm for services to work the way I described? my GUESS is that the service view those more senior as expected to take over command should poor decision making be identified rather than just assume command on arrival.

I'm intrigued now and I'll be sending off an email to our L&D department to get their views on this.

[Carl]

Im intrigued at the role of the "Tac Adviser" Tac adviser in what exactly. Tac Advisers usually provide Tactical Advice, but do not usually assume any command roles. 

Apologies if I am missing the obvious here. 

[HB2016]

@Carl I think most services call it a mentoring officer... At 3 pumps (or two that is a critical incident such as RTC trapped) an intermediate manager is sent (SM or GM) and will be a Tac advisor until it goes above pumps 4 OR they deem it necessary to take over.

A while back we went from L1, L2, L3 etc to Initial commanders - FF acting up through to WM, Intermediate - SM & GM then Advanced - AM to BM.

Maybe I could PM you the chart as I might be bad at explaining? haha

[Carl]

I must admit, there is a lot of confusion within the thread. I think we seem to have deviated away from the topic a little too 🤔 😀

We have had a few years back a similar topic here