Drawing together his thoughts for this, his sixth article, in his ‘Giving Back – Life After the Fire and Rescue Service’ series, Bob Rea QFSM, MBA considered how emergency responders prepare to respond to ‘High Hazard’ Industry incidents.
I looked back on how we, in the UK, prepared to respond to the high hazard risks in the area we covered, which was quite diverse, covering Oil and Gas, Nuclear and Chemical Industries and storage. As a service we had looked at the risks presented by these different premises and ensured we had a competent, suitably provisioned response capability, covering the three levels of response, Operations, Tactical and Strategic.
The organisation had specialist appliances strategically located across our response area, which provided the equipment and they were crewed by trained personnel in the effective and efficient use of these appliances and the equipment carried on them.
To develop this competent response capability, a sequential approach in training was implemented for the crews, along with specialist training for officers in Hazardous Materials and Environmental Protection. I reflect on how I best learned and retained the knowledge, skills and understanding to apply safely and effectively to these incidents. There is a theory popularised by Malcolm Gladwell that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill, so how do we ensure that our responders are able to meet the challenges they will face in a diverse range of incidents? One of the ways that all responders (whether they are local authority/governmental or industry specialists) are aided in their knowledge, skills and understanding development, is by organisations developing Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) and for premises, Emergency Response Plans.
The SOP’s detail how personnel should manage an incident, providing guidance on how to approach challenges to mitigate them, prevent escalation and resolve them safely. An Emergency Response Plan is a document which is site-specific and built to provide guidance in the event of an emergency. Offering specific role-related operational guidance to assist individuals in the performance of actions which do not form part of their normal duties and to support any on-site emergency response personnel performing the actions to mitigate and resolve the event. An Emergency Response Plan will also identify and develop links with all the relevant stakeholders (including the emergency response services) should an event occur at a premises and detail how liaison and effective inter-agency working will take place.
It is fine to have these procedures and plans, but the only way that they will be effective is if they are trained and exercised as an organisation with stakeholders and supporting agencies. It is also essential that the responders are competent in the use and interpretation of the information provided by specialist equipment, right from the essential skill of donning Personal Protective Equipment correctly to ensure their own safety, to applying the appropriate technique to mitigate the incident. As a ‘High Hazard’ industry develops its procedures and plans, it is essential that they undertake a full risk-based analysis of their site, built environment, processes, raw and finished materials.
This needs to be undertaken by a ‘Competent Person’, someone who understand the impacts of an incident considering both onsite and off-site effects. From this the organisation can assess the response required and build an appropriate level to support their strategic aims and ensure business continuity. Building role-maps and performance criteria to focus the development, once this has been completed and suitable persons have been identified and appointed, the rounds of training need to be commenced and if we think about the development helix and the three essential components for competency: Acquisition Application Maintenance At all levels, it is essential that responders within an organisation become competent in the knowledge, skills and understanding of the risks and response requirements before an incident occurs.
As with the external responding agencies, organisations need to have the three response levels covered, Operations, Tactical and Strategic, which in my opinion is high priority for ‘High Hazard’ industries. As is the need for all persons to understand their role in an incident.
Part of the strategic response is to focus on the business continuity and restoration of normality, recognising the impact of the incident on the organisation reputation and the community they serve and operate within. As the failure of an organisation to recover from an incident can have catastrophic consequences on the local community. So, the big question is, how do you train responders for the ‘High Hazard’ industries? In my opinion, the sequential approach is a logical development pathway, where personnel are given increasingly challenging levels of information and skills, developing and demonstrating competence before moving on to the next levels.
Starting with the basics and building confidence and competence to take on the more complex, for example Donning, Doffing and caring for Personal Protective Equipment, through the understanding of the premises risks and procedures, the application of mitigation strategies, to the use of technology to survey, test and sample hazards to support effective incident resolution. One of the most effective learning tools for the application of skills is the ‘Experiential Learning’ offered during practical training evolutions and exercises, using realistic simulated environments.
These evaluate the learners and create an experience bank for the responder to fall back on in at a ‘Real’ Incident. These experiences assist in the decision-making process as identified by Gary Klein (1985), known as the Recognition Primed Decision-Making Model and discussed in detail in his book Sources of Power, How People Make Decisions, I found this a really interesting and helpful read and source of reference. One of the key issues for learners is they feel that the training ground is a completely ‘Safe Environment’, it has been risk assessed, the activity is being overseen by competent instructors and the venues have been constructed to support practical training and are regularly maintained and are in good condition. Simulation training aids have been developed and used extensively over the years, but again the learners recognise these as being ‘Safe’, so they can become complacent during the training/exercise. Radiation contamination and response training is one of these areas, often relying on instructors letting learners know they are entering a radiation field and the dose/activity rate to allow them to calculate their duration of activity.
They would then have preset dosimetry given to them to indicate the ‘Dose’ they had received to test the recording and health monitoring processes. Imagine how more focused the learner/responder would be if they were entering a ‘Live Radiation Field’? Where their Survey was vital to accurately map the ‘Radiation Field’. I can hear the exclamations now! What about the exposure risks, contamination and health of persons exposed. I have been very fortunate to work with a First Responder training and exercise venue, who has worked extensively with Radiation Experts to develop a fully risk assessed, capability to generate a Radiation Field, using sealed sources, contained within shields and only opened to create the ‘Shadow’ when required and closed when not required. The first time this was used, understandably all were very nervous as many do not fully understand Radiation and how it can be controlled.
Detailed risk assessments and control measures were developed, reviewed and finally accepted and to date no adverse incidents have occurred. Now imagine the extra vigilance of the learner as they progress on the survey of the area to establish if radiation has been released and if so where the extent of the ‘Radiation Field’ is. No longer relying on simulation or verbal command, they are responsible for their own actions. True Experiential Learning, in a controlled and supervised environment. This method has provided invaluable learning for a wide range of responders from many different agencies, both civilian and military.
This facility is licensed and able to use ‘Live Agents’ and has been designed to facilitate this realistic training, with the vision that for responders to be efficient and effective in their role, they need to train as they will operate. This maxim holds true in my opinion for all responders, governmental, local authority or industrial. During my training as a Hazardous Materials and Environmental Protection Officer (HMEPO) at the Fire Service College (UK)(FSC), all the theory we absorbed was then tested with realistic simulated exercises, where the knowledge was put into practice and evaluated by FSC tutors.
It is my experiences of these exercises that I found invaluable when operating in the specialist role of an HMEPO. However, it is not realistic to think that all ‘High Hazard’ industry sites are able to send learners to this type of establishment or build expensive training venues, so the creativity and imagination of the trainers is vital. Simple ideas can often be very successful in creating the realistic learning experience, the use of environmentally friendly dye in water, can create very realistic challenges for leak control method applications. I remember the Roundabout Exercise with leaking drums at the FSC, where a fluorescent dye was used to highlight the liquid, we applied the knowledge, skills and understanding learned. Checking the prevailing weather and wind direction, approaching safely, booming the area, but like many before and after, we did not immediately identify the gradient was against us.
A lesson learned and never forgotten, learned in safety and applied in reality. Multi-agency/Inter-agency training is a key element of site responses and this can be a logistical challenge, I have used Tactical Decision Making Exercises (TDX) to facilitate this training with great success. Building a scenario, using it to confirm SOP knowledge and application, establish the needs and approaches of each attending agency, ensuring cohesive working. This type of joint training will enhance collaboration and interoperability among different response agencies. TDXs can also be used effectively to test Emergency Response Plans for organisations, identifying points of failure in a controlled environment and allowing development of solutions before an incident occurs.
As in my previous article on Incident Command Training, technology advances will also help by creating challenging visuals of incidents for responders throughout an organisation to discuss their approaches and actions. The use of a skilled facilitator will encourage responders to interact and they can manipulate the image according to the effectiveness of the techniques applied. Future developments will likely see more use of Virtual Reality (VR) and this will allow multiple persons to interact on one scenario.
Honest debriefing training, exercises and incidents is essential in any organisations training and this will support a culture of continuous improvement and learning. This will facilitate an organisation improving their response capability and business sustainability. I can only stress the value I see in sequentially developing staff to meet the needs, providing them the invaluable experiential learning of realistic simulated scenarios, ensuring that the whole organisation is trained and co-ordinated to respond. Remember the Five Ps, Poor Preparation Produces Poor Performance. The effect of poor performance can be catastrophic for the organisation, community and environment.
