When was the last time you said the word “mayday” out loud on a radio? Not in a classroom, not reading it off a slide, but keyed up, on air, with your heart pounding? For a lot of firefighters the honest answer is never, and that’s the last word we should be saying for the first time on a real fireground.

The hardest part is deciding to call it

Most firefighters know what a mayday is. Plenty of them can recite the acronym. That isn’t the problem. The problem is the gap between “I’m in trouble” and “I’m calling it.”

That gap fills up fast with all the wrong thoughts. Maybe I can find the door. Maybe the line will lead me out. I don’t want to pull everybody off the fire for nothing. I don’t want to be the one who called it. Every second spent in that conversation with yourself is a second of air, time and options you don’t get back.

Firefighters are problem solvers. That’s a good trait almost everywhere except here. The instinct to fix it yourself is exactly what keeps people from calling for help while help can still reach them. A mayday called early is a problem the crew can solve. A mayday called late can turn into a recovery.

So the decision has to be made before you ever get in trouble. Your crew should know the triggers cold. If you’re lost and can’t find your way out, if you’re trapped or entangled, if you’ve fallen through or your low-air alarm is going off and you’re not near an exit, you call it. No debate, no waiting to see if it gets better. The trigger makes the decision so you don’t have to.

What the call needs to say

A mayday has one job: get the right people to you as fast as possible. That means the message has to be short, clear and in an order the incident commander and the rescue team can act on. Many departments teach a version of LUNAR, and it works because it’s simple:

1. Location. Where you are, as best you know. Floor, side, room, what you can feel around you.
2. Unit. Your company or apparatus.
3. Name. Who you are.
4. Assignment. What you were doing when it went wrong.
5. Resources. What you need, and how much air you have left.

Start it with “Mayday, mayday, mayday” so nobody mistakes it for routine traffic. Hit your emergency button if your radio has one. Then, once it’s out, stop talking and start working on your own survival. Get low, control your breathing, turn on your PASS when you’re ready to be found and make noise.

Whatever version your department uses, use that one and drill it until nobody has to think about the order. If the incident commander has to pull the information out of you one question at a time, you’re burning time that belongs to the rescue team.

Practice it under stress, not at a desk

Saying LUNAR in a classroom proves you can remember five words. It doesn’t prove you can say them on air, in a mask, breathing hard, in the dark.

A good mayday drill puts the firefighter in a situation that feels real enough to matter. Wrap them up in a wire entanglement prop. Black out the facepiece. Get them turned around in a search maze. Then make them call it. Listen to what comes out. Most first attempts are too fast, too quiet and missing half the information. That’s fine. That’s why we practice.

Here’s what experienced crews do differently. They don’t just drill the person calling the mayday. They drill everyone else, too. The incident commander has to acknowledge the call, clear the channel and get a rescue team moving. The other crews have to go quiet on the radio and hold their positions. The rescue team has to deploy with a plan. A mayday is a whole-incident event, and if only one person has practiced their part, the system breaks down somewhere else.

Instructors, take away the stigma

Some crews still treat a mayday like an admission of failure. That attitude gets people hurt. If firefighters are worried about the ribbing they’ll take back at the station, they’ll wait longer than they should.

Instructors and officers can fix that. Call the mayday “early” on purpose in training and praise the firefighter who does it. Treat a mayday that turns out to be unnecessary as a success, not an embarrassment. Make it clear that nobody on your crew will ever be criticized for calling one. The only wrong mayday is the one that came too late.

The takeaway

Calling a mayday isn’t something you’ll rise to on your worst day. You’ll fall back on whatever you’ve practiced. Know the triggers, know what the message needs to say, and say it out loud, under stress, until it comes out without thinking. Then make sure the rest of the fireground knows its part when that call comes in. The goal is simple: when one of your people is in trouble, they make the call the moment they need to.

Stay safe, and train like it matters.

Eric Makowski