On July 5, 2013, the Spokane Fire Department responded to a reported commercial building fire at the Mayfair Professional Building, located at 5901 North Mayfair. Within two minutes of the alarm, the first arriving company found light smoke coming from the area of the HVAC units in the side of the building. The structure was a Type 5 construction, two-story structure with a basement. The fire progressed quickly, nearly trapping crews on the first floor and in the basement.

Some takeaways from the interview include:

1. How rapidly changing fire conditions can unexpectedly over run crews.

2. You’re hear what you can learn when the fire does not behavior as expected (i.e., the puzzle pieces don’t fit).

3. You can become normalized to your environment and may not see the severity of the conditions.

4. How volumes of radio traffic on a single tactical channel can impact scene safety if at-risk crews cannot communicate via radio.

5. Time distortion impacted perception of speed of the incident.

6. How Spokane Fire is using the skills of a psychologist to help develop emotional intelligence, build incident scene situational awareness, and recover from traumatic incidents.

Show notes at: www.SAMatters.com/29/

Thank you to our sponsors:

Midwest Fire: MidwestFire.com Branding Iron Marketing: BrandingIron.com

Culture and Situational Awareness (article referenced in the podcast)http://www.samatters.com/culture-and-situational-awareness/

Guest Contact Information Assistant Chief Brian Schaeffer Spokane Fire Department [email protected]

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