Identifying Why Even Well-Trained Firefighters Make Unsafe Decisions: A Human Factors Interview Protocol

The primary cause of 80% of accidents and near misses in North American wildland firefighting has been attributed to human factors. Despite this overrepresentation of human factors in safety compromising situations, systematic research into such factors is scarce. In this paper we limit our consideration of “human factors” to those factors which influence how the human mind operates (i.e., “how people tick”). Such factors range from individual factors such as risk propensity to organisational factors such a perceived safety culture. In this paper, we introduce a post-incident interview protocol specifically designed to reveal the human factors causes of potentially unsafe decisions in the context of Australian wildland fires (i.e., bushfires). In post incident interviews, serious challenges to obtaining accurate and comprehensive information are posed by problems of human memory and the tendency to offer self-protective justifications. We outline a multi-stage interview procedure, and associated interview techniques that are likely to maximize the quality and quantity of information obtained. The techniques that we outline will provide a powerful tool with which to investigate the role that human factors play in fireground safety. We suggest that this interviewing technique may also be applied in reviewing training exercises and in confidential “no fault” near miss and accident investigations where agencies are able to implement such systems.