Crew Resource Management - Firefighting Application

Firefighting Application

Following the successes experienced in the aviation community, Crew Resource Management (CRM) was identified as a potential safety improvement program for the fire services. Specifically, Ted Putnam, Ph.D., wrote a paper that applied CRM concepts to the tragic and violent deaths of 14 Wildland firefighters on the South Canyon Fire in Colorado.

From this paper a movement was sparked in the Wildland and Structural Fire Services to apply the Aviation CRM concepts to emergency response situations. Various programs have since been developed to train emergency responders in these concepts and to help track where breakdowns occur in these stressful environments.