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Findings from the Near-Miss Reporting System
Last year we reported on the newly created National Fire Fighter Near-Miss Reporting System. Response has been strong, and firefighters are showing that they don't take danger for granted when they're on the job, according to the first annual report from the National Near-Miss Reporting System.
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"We were surprised that about two-thirds of the firefighters who submitted reports stated that the loss potential could have been a life-threatening injury to themselves or to a colleague," says John Tippett, of the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), which led the development of the Near-Miss Reporting System. "Firefighters sometimes get a reputation for taking unnecessary risks," he explains. "But what they were telling us here is that these dangers should not be considered just another part of the job."
The annual report from the Near-Miss Reporting System, which was funded in part by a grant from Fireman's Fund, offers some valuable findings on reducing firefighter injuries and deaths. The report compiles and analyzes more than 1,000 near-miss reports submitted by firefighters, officers and chiefs since the system was launched in 2005.
Tippett, who is also a battalion chief with the Montgomery County, Md. Fire Department, says the annual report can serve as a teaching tool for fire service members. "We wanted to make sure that we made good use of the information that people spent so much time in giving us," says Tippett. "Even before we issued the report, we were getting a lot of inquiries from the fire service, asking what we were learning."
Of particular interest to the IAFC staff that prepared the report was the large number of chief officers who filed near-miss reports. (While reporting is confidential, fire service members who submit reports are encouraged to provide details about their roles.) "We found that very encouraging, because it showed confidence in the system," says Tippett. He and other project managers also believe that the high number of chiefs filing reports shows a growing commitment to improving fire fighter safety.
The fire service's Near-Miss Reporting System is based on the Aviation Safety Reporting System, launched more than 30 years ago by the Federal Aviation Administration and by NASA. For this annual report, the Fire Fighter Near-Miss Reporting System also borrowed from the Navy's Human Factors Analysis and Classification System to analyze the near-miss submissions. Analysts broke down the 1,000-plus reports into four categories: Unsafe Acts, Preconditions to Unsafe Acts, Unsafe Supervision, and Organizational Influences.
Analysts assume that a near-miss is the result of a causal chain and that studying many events can determine the behaviors and practices that contribute to accidents. Fire service officers and can then begin to offer recommendations for reducing the likelihood actual incidents.
Human error is the dominant contributing factor in near-miss reports at all levels, explains Tippet. "The upshot is that we need to develop strategies to reduce human error," he says. "One of our recommendations is to significantly increase risk/reward evaluations. Firefighters' first impulse is to rush in and make things better. We want them to start making decisions about what they're risking their lives for."
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