Which tells you its the officers descission !! Nice one, still tells you nothing.
Tells you a lot actually.
At the strictly cynical level, it tells you this is a CYA policy where those
further up the food-chain CYA by pushing responsibility & culpability down the
food chain.
On a more realistic level, it tells you that HQ recognise that they cannot fight
all fires with pieces of paper from Waymouth St. It tells you that someone
understands that no two fires or circumstances are the same, and that within broad
guide-lines, much of the detail on how to do so rests with the OIC at the fire on
the day.
As for me, unless my Captain directs me otherwise, I intend to tell my people to
wear the most appropriate PPE for the job. And if possible, bring the other set
along a bag in case the nature of the job changes. 1st responding crew/s won't get
much opportunity to change. Deployment of subsequent crews is more likely to be a
matter of good (or bad) incident management. In the CFS, that now includes
possibility of some crew members re-kitting to meet a changed threat & role.
2.2c