After Action Review

[bassracer24]

I was wondering if After Action Reviews are a part of other FD SOPs / SOGs. An After Action Review (AAR) is used in the Military all the time and helps us disscuse the action in order to better understand what happened right/wrong and how to better preform the action. AARs in the fire dept. could benefit stations as a whole. The concept of an AAR in the fire service is after a call everyone involved will sitdown and disscuse the what happened. This is a great oppertunty for every one to understand who did what and how everything played out as a whole instead of only knowing what your peice did. Firefighters can then understand the results of every individuals action. An AAR only takes about 30 min. and is also a great reasource for new firefighters to learn what happens on the fire ground and everyone learns how they could have done better to get a different result. This is a great way to build better officers and better firefighters and to help prevent tunnel vision. This is not used in my fire dept. and I would like to know if this is standard in other fire depts. And maybe inspire it to be used more often.

[Phantom]

I think AARs are under used in the fire service, the best companies I have been around are the ones who have a brutal after action process; examining everything in detail and accepting no less than the best. In the worst cases the after action process is used to place blame or cover up failures. In comes down to the culture of your organization or company, do they want and demand the best; or do they just want to look good.