Building fire commander situational awareness from team shared mental models

Teams in high risk high pressure situations, such as military teams and emergency teams in high hazard industries, need a well-developed situational awareness if they are to successfully deal with the event. The most effective emergency teams, as well as being aware of the problem, seem to share their mental picture (or model) of the situation with other team members. Shared mental models help team members to anticipate the needs of others and this permits them to either provide assistance as it is required or to predict and pre-empt the need for assistance. The role of a senior fire service commander, i.e. at Assistant Divisional Officer level and above, who is called only to the largest incidents, makes the development of his situational awareness unusual. In a pilot study of the information used by fire commanders to make decisions on the fireground, the situation assessments in terms of the cues identified by two levels of commander were compared. The importance of commanders sharing their mental models to maximise the exchange of information and minimise the risk of miscommunication is emphasised