The incident commander may nominate another suitably qualified member(s) of personnel to carry out the task if it would be safer and more effective to do so, especially since, at some large incident sites, a full scene survey could be a prolonged activity. Details such as further life risk, fire development or alternative access routes must be relayed to the incident commander and all relevant personnel.
Fire and rescue service commanders may need to carry out a scene survey repeatedly during prolonged fire incidents to provide the most recent information from the incident ground for incident command personnel to adapt their plan as necessary.
Employing other resources to provide aerial survey could be considered, such as:
- Police helicopters or other aircraft
- Unmanned aerial vehicle or drones
- Aerial appliances
Refer to Incident command – Situational awareness