Rebekah Fox’s scientific contributions

The goal of this poster is to present preliminary findings from a research study sponsored by JFSP on radio communication practices in wildland firefighting. Our research team took an inductive approach and triangulated field observations, interviews, and analysis of organizational training materials to identify current practices, challenges, and creative solutions in radio communication and their implications for high reliability. Although we did not initially set out to study emotions, they emerged as a salient theme from interviews and field observations. We observed that while the wildland fire organization trains members that “good” communication is emotion-free, emotions continue to be relevant to participants in firefighting and are a component of the totality of information gleaned from radio interactions. Participants reported trying to speak without emotion or using a very narrow range of emotional expressivity in their tone of voice, but intently listening for emotion to get a fuller picture of the interaction context. We found that fear, anxiety, panic are the most highly censored emotions, because they are associated with loss of command presence, and might show to the firefighters listening that the speaker’s decision-making abilities are flawed resulting in a higher likelihood of a negative outcome. We also found that significant non-verbal information is transmitted via emotional communication. Our data shows that speaking competently on the radio involves a great deal of emotional labor or control of one’s emotions, as required by the organization. Occasionally, confusion may arise from the inability to communicate an appropriate sense of urgency, as when someone sounded “too calm” on the radio. The opposite was also reported – when firefighters “waste emotional bullets” on non-urgent situations. While more research needs to be conducted on the specific place of emotion in radio communication in wildland firefighting, potentially useful implications arise in regard to introducing conversations about emotions in training, studying how to prepare messages for the emotional impact on the listener, as well as practicing appropriate ways for expressing urgency over the radio.

The goal of this paper is to present findings from our Joint Fire Science grant funded project on radio communication. Our project sought to understand barriers and facilitators related to effective radio communication and how communication contributes to, or distracts from high reliability organizing mindfulness. In this paper we present findings from semi-structured interviews, textual analysis, and field observations concerning communication policies, practices, and training. We present data that reflect simplifications as they relate to communication training, the nature of communication, message framing, and communication technology. For example, current radio training in the S130/190 courses spends little time, if any, teaching firefighters how to prepare and organize messages that consider the constraints on the listener. Or, related to communication technology, there is conflict between how forest service policy discourages cell-phone use and the lived experience of those on the line who rely on it. Both of these examples represent an opportunity to rescue the complexity associated with communication instead of relying on simplifications. Our interviewees reported a perceived a lack of experiential learning in the classroom, a lack of practice opportunities while on the job but not on the fire or during a crisis, and a lack of recognition by fire overhead and trainers about communication anxiety related to using the radio. While these three themes were common among interviewees, some interviewees also provided creative work-arounds they have used to meet the demands of the complexity in the communication environment, such as both private and public practice techniques. We conclude by sharing a selection of these creative solutions.

Managing wildland fire is an exercise in risk perception, sensemaking and resilient performance. Risk perception begins with individual size up of a wildfire to determine a course of action, and then becomes collective as the fire management team builds and continuously updates their common perception of risk. Karl Weick has called this “sensemaking.” This act of communication, of collecting and selecting information, naming it, and passing it on, in various forms and stages of completeness, from one individual or team to another – determines how resilient and effective the team’s performance is. Because all subsequent actions rely on this, the sensemaking involved with risk perception is a critical activity. It is hard work and prone to error, as numerous accident reviews, in the U. S. and abroad, have found. Although advances are being made in the structure of current reviews – such as by including human factors analyses, which helpfully focus on psychological factors (attention, fatigue, etc.) - resilient performance also requires developing a collective perception of risk, and for this analysis of communication and interaction is needed. It is time to take a close, structured look at wildland fire incident communication and interaction processes. We sought to identify areas of communication competencies and constraints that affect the perception and communication of risk in wildland fire management. In doing so, we develop- for the first time - a comprehensive and coordinated perspective on communication, resulting in a set of insights into training, practice, and assessment to support continuous improvement in risk perception, sensemaking, and resilient performance.