A Preliminary Examination of Command and Control by Incident Commanders of Dutch Fire Services during Real Incidents

Abstract

In this paper, we attempt to get a better understanding of command and controlpractices of incident commanders from Dutch ?re services (battalion chiefs, BCs) byexamining the recordings made by helmet-mounted cameras during 55 real incidents.The aim is to examine the degree to which the BCs issued orders to front-line workersand the degree to which these orders were carried out appropriately.The results indicatethat incident commanders were able to in?uence the work at the front line, but weregenerally not in control of what happened at the front line.