Post-Incident Analysis

Your team goes on some pretty routine calls, and some pretty interesting ones.  Most of the time things go just right, but sometimes things go wrong, or at least things could have been done differently.  Sometimes firefighter injuries occur because of the way an incident was handled.  The only real way to know what you and your team are doing correctly or incorrectly, to make sure everyone is on the same page about these things, and to ensure everyone’s safety, is to do a Post-Incident Analysis.  This is not about pointing fingers or laying blame - It’s about learning and being better firefighters, and about reducing injuries & loss of life.  There are varying ideas about when to hold your Post-Incident Analysis, but everyone agrees that they should be done.  We recommend every department do a quick debriefing after every call, and then a full post-incident analysis within 48 hours of the incident.  If the calls are simple, the analyses do not have to be long and time consuming, but do take the time to sit down and talk out each call.  All firefighters, even those not at the incident, can learn from the experience of those who were present. 

This month we’ll focus the blog on Post-Incident Analyses - how they factor in to avoiding injuries, how they factor into the TCFP injury reporting system, and generally how to learn from others’ analyses. 

What to include in your analysis and how to do it right

• Hold the Post-Incident Analysis session within a few days of the incident. 
• Take notes at each meeting and put them together in an organized format, so that patterns or triggers can be identified later. 
• Make the Post-Incident Analysis process a part of your department’s SOPs.  (Contact our library if you need help obtaining examples of SOPs.) 
• Talk about what went right, what went wrong, what could have been done differently, and how you can improve. 
• Let everyone have their say about the incident, one at a time, without interruptions. 
• Don’t blame anyone for anything, just explain what happened, as you see it. 
• Include those at the incident, and invite those not at the incident, so everyone can learn.  If only those at the incident are present, distribute the notes to the entire department. 
• Include any pictures or video taken. 
• Talk about what the team did and did not do, not what individuals did or did not do. 
• Discuss department policies and procedures, and how they affected the incident and might be changed in the future. 
• If you’re an officer, talk about your possible missteps or faults first, so everyone else feels comfortable doing the same after you.

It’s not just about venting

Post-incident Analyses lead to great ideas for training.  Take what you’ve learned – what you could do better and where things went wrong – incorporate when you’ve learned into your SOPs and train, train, train until your team gets it right. 

Does your team perform Post-Incident Analyses?  Are they helpful?  Are they taken seriously?  Are they done constructively?

Have any of your Post-Incident Analyses lead to new training initiatives at your department?