This module explores how fire service personnel can make better, more effective decisions during the stress of fire, explosion, and rescue responses. Many factors influence decision-making, including patterns learned during training and previous responses, biological responses to stress, others’ opinions, situational awareness, available information, the impact of trauma, instinct, assumptions, and biases. A misjudged decision, failure to accurately interpret information, or lack of information are contributing factors in a significant number of instances where human error contributed to an unfavorable outcome. If we can reduce these human errors in the decision-making process, we can reduce firefighter deaths and injuries. We can better prepare firefighters to make decisions in life-threatening situations if we understand human behavior under stress and apply proven techniques to guide the decision-making process. This module offers a blueprint for revolutionizing decision making in the fire service by adopting a new risk assessment mindset and decision-making process.

The Fire Hero Learning Network gratefully acknowledges Dr. Sabrina Cohen-Hatton’s research at Cardiff University on decision-making in the fire and rescue service as the foundation of this module and thanks her for sharing her knowledge, insight, and decision controls process as a member of the subject matter expert group that developed this module.