Page 45 - Oct Nov 2017

What The Fire Service Can Teach Us About The Use of Force,

and attack an emergency dard Operating Procedures and should help us under-

scene. As technology has or Post Orders are the two stand the use of force a
allowed firefighters to go most common names. In little better. Imagine it this
further into fires for longer almost all cases, our rules way, apply a lot of force to

periods of time, the fire of engagement for use of protect a lot, apply a little
service started noticing force are written for us in force to protect a little,

that firefighter injuries and the form of laws and stat- apply no force to protect
deaths were increasing. utes. nothing. Seems kind of
simple doesn’t it? We can

reasonably use a lot of
force to protect a lot, like

human life, especially our
own. However we can use
no force to protect noth-

ing, so if there is no life
to protect in a given situ-

ation, most if not all force
will probably be unreason-
able.

The key is going to be

evaluating not just the
presence of a threat, but
the level of that threat.

We don’t assign different
values to different human

lives, but we can begin
to quantify the situation
So it became necessary to We should all be familiar somewhat when think-

have some rules to guide with these rules before we ing of the amount of hu-
when and even if you go need to apply them. An man lives at risk. The

into that fire or rescue. important role in the fire difference between a lot
We should be used to the service is “risk a lot to and a little may be the
idea of rules of engage- save a lot, risk a little to number of potential vic-

ment, even if we call them save a little, risk nothing tims. Someone intent of
something different. Stan- to save nothing”. This can harming a lot of people in

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