The volatile and complex nature of the fire-fighting environment is such that firefighters are sometimes faced with novel and unpredictable situations that could challenge their expertise. In coping with these task constraints, experienced fire-ground commanders often employ a crucial cognitive operation known as dynamic risk assessment (DRA) which, as the name suggests, must be conducted rapidly and efficiently. DRA has therefore proved of worth as a useful concept in promoting the way experts make risk decisions in the fire service.
However, despite growing awareness amongst scholars and policy makers a few questions remain largely unanswered in relation to the application of DRA in practice. For instance, questions have been asked about the relationship between DRA and expertise, including the role that intuition plays when making risk decisions in time-pressured conditions.
In light of this, the current paper presents findings from a qualitative study involving thirty experienced firefighters across the UK and Nigeria. The study employed a retrospective knowledge elicitation tool known as the critical decision method (CDM) and the original cognitive probes developed by Klein et al. (1986) was adapted. Based on analysis of the incident reports, the study gave credence to existing claim that experts often make decisions about what is risky/not by drawing on their experiential knowledge gained over extensive years of deliberate practice. More specifically, the paper argues that decision making on the fire-ground does not follow a static or linear model as often postulated by classical theorists but is rather dependent on people’s ability to make sense of various informational cues in the task environment. Compelling evidence was found from the study to show that dynamic risk assessment is not simply about weighing the risks of a proposed course of action against its benefits, but rather an experiential and pattern recognition process. It therefore appears that the strength of the DRA model is evident from its descriptive, as opposed to prescriptive, nature which provides officers with the desired cognitive flexibility when solving difficult problems Finally, implications for training and curriculum design are discussed.