Best Safety Practice for Risk Assessment in Decision-Making

Chief Gary Morris drew up these guidelines, which he encourages other departments to adopt, to improve safety among his crews.

1. All members are responsible for their own safety and the safety of personnel working with them.
2. All members are responsible for continuously identifying unsafe conditions and are authorized to report such conditions.
3. If it looks unsafe, feels unsafe, don't do it. Communicate it up, down, and across.
4. Any member is authorized to say no to unsafe practices or conditions: stop, talk, and decide
5. All command organization officers are responsible for accepting, and appropriately acting upon, all safety-related information to make the incident site safer
6. Communication of safety-related information to officers in the command organization is critical - and is two-way.
7. Command organization officers must continually keep all personnel working for them well informed of changing conditions and safety matters.
8. Command organization officers shall not allow unsafe practices.
9. Safety assessment is continuous and must be part of all ongoing decision-making