A very interesting report developed by Mark W. Smitherman Chief Fire Officer South Yorkshire (UK) Fire & Rescue Service on US-UK Command Decision-Making issues....
USA – UK Comparison
Very different forms of urban and rural domestic building construction, and the
significance of wildland firefighting activity, together with some fundamental differences in operational methodologies are examples of why it is difficult to compare directly the United States with the United Kingdom. But do the more obvious differences between our two national firefighting environments account for the fact that a fire fighter on average will die for every 44,000 fires in the U.S. compared with a fatality for every 316,000 fires reported in the U.K.? US fire fighters are more likely to die during firefighting activity by a factor of nearly 7 to 1. Why? (Based on average number of fire over ten year period 1989-1998: Operational Firefighting fatalities – [US 443: UK 13].) U.S. post-incident investigations have identified a number of factors that have contributed to the deaths. These include: communications, freelancing, building construction, fire fighter health, and risk/benefit analysis. There is considerable similarity between the issues identified as critical within the U.S. experience and those that have been historically identified in the U.K.

In the early 1990s the U.K. fire service embarked upon a crusade to introduce
effective systems of command, based upon a foundation of risk assessment and
evaluation. Unfortunately, the impetus was a number of firefighter fatalities, which
resulted in extensive investigations by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), a quasiautonomous government agency which has significant statutory powers in relation to the Health and Safety of the U.K. workforce. The level of scrutiny to which the HSE exposed the service was unprecedented in its history and resulted in a fundamental root and branch evaluation of operational safety and performance.