Since 2006, CFBT-US, LLC has been bridging the gap between fire research and practice and providing world class training focused on fire dynamics, structural firefighting strategy, tactics, and incident command. In 2025, CFBT-US introduced Command Competence with an emphasis on developing the competence and expertise of incident commanders (ICs) based on current research on naturalistic decision-making and development of fireground specific cognitive skills.
Firefighters and fire officers depend depend on three types of knowledge: declarative (knowing what), procedural (knowing how), and tacit knowledge built from experience.
The challenge is developing sufficient expertise from limited experience. Firefighters and officers are unlikely to develop proficiency simply from responding to incidents. This is particularly true for the first arriving company officer (IC #1) and chief officers serving as strategic level incident commanders (IC #2).
The mission of Command Competence is to integrate research on fire in the built environment and naturalistic decision-making to help firefighters and fire officers develop and improve their competence as incident commanders.
Command Competence builds on the underlying mission of CFBT-US, LLC which for 18 years has been to bring science to the street and improve firefighters and fire officers understanding of practical fire dynamics.