Firefighting is like a team sport. You need to work together to accomplish the goals. Think of the Incident Commander as like a coach. The Incident Commander needs to know who is doing what so that he can make his next tactical decision. This is why accountability, good radio communications, and not freelancing is vital.
You should have an accountability system in place with your department's SOPs. If you do, make sure you use it. If you don't, ask yourself why? Resources-wise, accountability systems are not that difficult to put together. Having an accountability system can also decrease freelancing, especially if accountability is used consistently. Hold your members to a standard. Additionally, mutual aid departments should be familiar with your system, and vice versa. Or, work with your mutual aid departments to create a system that all can use. Implement it during your training. Practice like you play, right?
Tag up. Keep to your teams, keep to your assignments. When the incident commander gives your crew an assignment, keep to it. It is being done for a reason. You might not always agree with the incident commander's decisions. But the relationship between incident commander and the crews is built on trust. Unless your assignment is putting yourself or your crew or a person in danger, you should trust your incident commander.
We have officers and crew assignments for a reason. Actually, we have them for many reasons. Responsibility, leadership, and accountability are just a few. Accountability is part of the emergency response. Everyone goes home. It is not just safe firefighting practices that bring people home. It's personal accountability. You owe it to your crew. If you aren't where you are supposed to be because you decided to go freelance and something goes wrong, now you made it more difficult for the rescuers to save YOU. Because you weren't doing your job and decided to freelance.
This is one reason why I like riding assignments in apparatus. I would think that the majority, if not all, paid departments implement them and I know that more volunteer departments are starting to. It's useful. It helps keep consistency and can allow for smoother operations. Again, practice like you play. Your officers can put together riding assignments, but ultimately, it becomes your responsibility to learn what they are and retain the information. Accountability. It extends to more than just fireground operations. If you know what you are supposed to be doing as per your riding assignments, that can also decrease freelancing. Personal accountability is important to the fire service as well. You don't prepare to fail, you fail to prepare.
This is kind of a cycle. You train. You learn the skills. You implement those skills during emergency response. However, within the cycle is a puzzle. You need to know the tactics. You have to be able to perform risk assessment. How can you keep yourself safe as you are involved in operations? Accountability is part of that puzzle. It is not hard to do; it's more or less tedious. But by keeping an accountability system in place and using it can be a valuable resource if an incident goes downhill fast. And if you practice it enough, using it will become second nature and automatic. For me, packing up is second nature. Breathing on air doesn't feel weird like it did the first time I ever put a mask on. I don't even need to think when I'm putting on my SCBA. Why is this? Because I practiced it enough.
We should always be using an accountability system on emergency responses. It doesn't hurt to practice it during your drill night. Even if it is just a quick review. Maybe you're practicing truck work, but you can ask your crews how you would set up accountability with what you have. You should have drills that are dedicated to accountability/communications, but you can also use it in other drills as well. Put the puzzle together.
Keep fire in your life. Stay safe.
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