A day in the life of a volunteer incident commander: Errors, pressures and mitigating strategies

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BushfireTopic: 
Fire Management
Project Reference: 
Effective Incident Management Organising
TitleA day in the life of a volunteer incident commander: Errors, pressures and mitigating strategies
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2013
AuthorsBearman, C, Bremner, PA
JournalApplied Ergonomics
Volume44
Issue3
Pagination488 - 495
Date Published5/2013
ISSN00036870
AbstractTo meet an identified gap in the literature this paper investigates the tasks that a volunteer incident commander needs to carry out during an incident, the errors that can be made and the way that errors are managed. In addition, pressure from goal seduction and situation aversion were also examined. Volunteer incident commanders participated in a two-part interview consisting of a critical decision method interview and discussions about a hierarchical task analysis constructed by the authors. A SHERPA analysis was conducted to further identify potential errors. The results identified the key tasks, errors with extreme risk, pressures from strong situations and mitigating strategies for errors and pressures. The errors and pressures provide a basic set of issues that need to be managed by both volunteer incident commanders and fire agencies. The mitigating strategies identified here suggest some ways that this can be done.
DOI10.1016/j.apergo.2012.10.011
Short TitleApplied Ergonomics
Refereed DesignationRefereed