title: 'Life as a Coiled Spring': Hazard and Risk Perception in the Queensland Fire Service
Creators: name: Barnes, Paul H.
Publisher: name: Griffith University
Year: 1996
Subjects: subject: Firefighters
subject: Emergency Response Organisation
subject: Dangerous occupations
subject: Firefighting
subject: Emergency services

description: A fire service is an Emergency Response Organisation (ERO) an 'essential' service. Firefighters form part of the institutional safety net provided by government to protect people from harm and restore public safety following an emergency. In this role they are a key segment of both a regional and national emergency management infrastructure. Firefighting is a dangerous occupation. Occupational health and safety statistics for firefighters paint an alarming picture. Recent data on accidents within the Australian firefighting industry show injury rates at a level over twice that of the combined injury rate for all Australian industries. There is evidence of similar trends in injury data among a number of international fire services. The occupation offers the potential for a range of experiences that are in complete contrast to 'normality' of everyday life in that it is associated with emergent danger, uncertainty and unpredictability. Any of these factors may be seen as anathema to a stereotypically 'risk-averse' public. While the range and nature of hazards faced by firefighters is well established, little is known about their perception of the dangers in their work or the influence that these perceptions have on their occupational behaviour. This area of knowledge has been neglected in the occupational health &amp; safety literature. This study aims to redress this absence by examining hazard and risk perception among a group of professional, urban firefighters in the Queensland Fire service (QFS). This study examines the 'social context' of work as a firefighter and generates understanding of the beliefs that they hold about the dangers of their occupation. By investigating and analysing material derived from the day-to-day experience of their work, the study goes beyond cognitive approaches to risk perception that generally incorporated little appreciation of the 'social settings' in which people experience danger in the real world. In doing this, the study applies methods derived from interpretive sociology and anthropology and combines both quantitative and qualitative techniques. Use of such methods allows a description the 'lifeworld' of three operational ranks of professional, urban firefighters. Firefighters participating in this study believed that bureaucrats with little or no operational experience had too much influence on day-to-day management decisions that had an indirect yet often direct effect on operational safety. A further issue of concern was a belief that there is an absence of reliable information systems within the QFS. The result of these factors is that operational firefighters felt that they had little or no input into matters that directly affected their operational capacities and their safety. This lead to lower ranking firefighters feeling alienated not only from government officials, but their own senior officers. Working under such conditions contributed to low job satisfaction and morale. Operational firefighters believed that the stress of working in a dysfunctional organisation was more of a concern than the regular contact with the everyday hazards and traumas of their occupation. The firefighters believed that the stresses resulting from this dysfunction were unavoidable and were the only totally predictable factor in their working life. This study identifies the source of this stress as having its greatest influence during the periods of between emergency responses, where strict regimentation and rigid command structures operate. Associated with these organisational concerns were major problems with information flow within the QFS. The regular occupational hazards however, were seen as dangerous and totally unpredictable, but at least familiar. In addition to these findings, the study has also uncovered a number of indications suggesting that emergency response and critical incident stress have a strong combined influence on the incidence of and prevalence of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among firefighters. The use of light in the alarm signal conditions a hyper-vigilant reaction among firefighters that, when combined with sleep interruptions during nightshifts and exposure to accident trauma, sets a number of physio-chemical changes in motion. With ongoing exposure to trauma and repeated responses to emergency alarms, these changes may become 'conditioned' and be triggered by a range of work-related and non-work-related stimuli. The study demonstrates the importance and usefulness of examining workplace cultures, the social contexts of behaviour and organisational functioning for the study of operational safety in ERO's and fire services in particular. It also establishes the viability of studying risk perception using methodologies derived from sociology and anthropology and provides new insight about human reactions to danger and emergencies