Essay On Situational Awareness

Situational awareness is necessary in order to maintain the highest degree of self and team safety, while also exercising the best course of action to take while on the fireground. The U.S. Coast Guard states that, “Situational awareness is the ability to identify, process, and comprehend the critical elements of information about what is happening to the team with regard to the mission.” The practice of situational awareness is relevant to many fields, but holds great use in fire fighting. Through firefighter tactics and training, high risk situations can be taken on with greater chance of success. Firefighting tactics can be set in place to ensure the best outcome while on the fireground. The team needs to be focused and know the game plan. The article compares NFL players to firefighters in the sense
Situational awareness is maintained through the effective training of firefighters. Training must be built upon a solid foundation in order to move forward in more difficult skills.The three types of training include formal, company, and individual. Each type is needed to increase fireground skills. Formal training involves the classes that lead to certification, company training is based upon the officers curriculum, and individual training deals with personal study. Each of these types of training is beneficial, but realistic training plays large portion into how a firefighter will respond to his/her first time at a fireground. Firefighters must be given the opportunity to face great fear and anxiety, in order to control these feelings. High anxiety levels can lead to disorientation and tunnel vision. Once a firefighter is disorientated he/she is put at risk for becoming lost or trapped. Disorientation while on the fireground is the root cause of LODD. Once a firefighter is disorientated he/she can no longer make clear cognitive decisions, which is necessary in order to maintain situational