Suggested Classroom Activity

• Watch the Standard Firefighting Orders (above), Watch Out Situations, and LCES videos.  As a class or in small groups, discuss the topics below. If discussed in groups, share with the class.

Discussion Points

• The Standard Firefighting Orders were first developed in 1957. The recommendation in the original report states that the Fire Orders “are to be committed to memory by all personnel with fire control responsibilities.” What do you and your crew/unit do to help each other remember and understand the 10 Standard Firefighting Orders and 18 Watch Out Situations?
• Originally, there were 13 Watch Out Situations, with the last 5 being added in 1987. If you could add one more Watch Out, what would it be and why?
• The Standard Firefighting Orders, Watch Out Situations, and LCES are just three of the many tools firefighters must use to manage risk and to aid in decision making. What other tools might you use, and where can you find them?
• Many of the official risk management and decision making tools firefighters use today were first developed by personnel in the field. Are there of these tools you use personally, within your crew, or on your local unit?

References

It is recommended that the facilitator and/or students refer to the following additional resources to support and guide discussion in the classroom:

• Origin of the 10 and 18’s
• LCES and Other Thoughts, by Paul Gleason
• The 10 Standard Firefighting Orders and 18 Watch Out Situations: We Don’t Bend Them, We Don’t Break Them…We Don’t Know Them

Additional Video Information

• This video is also available as a download (zip file, size 920 MB) .srt file for closed captioning (you may need to Right Click and Save As). For information on how to add closed captioning to a video, see this how to page.
• Note: For Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, right click the word download and select Save Link As; For IE, right click and select Save Target As.