Fatigue risk management by volunteer fire-fighters: Use of informal strategies to augment formal policy

Abstract

An increasing number and intensity of catastrophic fire events in Australia has led to increasing demands on a mainly volunteer fire-fighting workforce. Despite the increasing likelihood of fatigue in the emergency services environment, there is not yet a systematic, unified approach to fatigue management in fire agencies across Australia. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to identify informal strategies used in volunteer fire-fighting and examine how these strategies are transmitted across the workforce. Thirty experienced Australian volunteer fire-fighters were interviewed in August 2010. The study identified informal fatigue-management behaviours at the individual, team and brigade level that have evolved in fire-fighting environments and are regularly implemented. However, their purpose was not explicitly recognized as such. This apparent paradox - that fatigue proofing behaviours exist but that they are not openly understood as such - may well resolve a potential conflict between a culture of indefatigability in the emergency services sector and the frequent need to operate safely while fatigued. However, formal controls require fire-fighters and their organisations to acknowledge and accept their vulnerability. This suggests two important areas in which to improve formal fatigue risk management in the emergency services sector: (1) identifying and formalising tacit or informal fatigue coping strategies as legitimate elements of the fatigue risk management system; and (2) developing culturally appropriate techniques for systematically communicating fatigue levels to self and others.

Keywords: Emergency services; Fatigue; Fire-fighting; Informal controls; Risk management; Safety management systems.