All Hazards Contemplations

Training, Luck, and being a PUPIL

2011-12-21T21:04:00.000-08:00

I just read this excellent post on the nuances of terminology by Willie Wines of Iron Firemen.com

Willie was taken to task for his comments on some of the recent firefighter near-misses that have been reported nationally, specifically for stating that luck was one of the reasons that these incidents were not LODDs.

One of his readers replied that luck was not involved and that it was Training, Experience, and Heart, or alternatively Training, Experience, and Discipline that led to these firefighters survival, although with severe burn injuries.

Willie did some public soul-searching and then used the word "Fortunate" as a replacement for his previous use of "Lucky". I have to admit I don't really see the difference - those two terms are essentially the same thing, at least as I understand them.

More importantly though, Capt. Wines' post brings up the topic of just how much luck plays in things that happen on scene, particularly when it comes to surviving a close call. Obviously, Training, Experience, Heart, and Discipline are all involved. So are SOGs, staffing, protective equipment, teamwork, and being smart.

And yes, sometimes having the best Training, lots of Experience, good PPE, and all of those other things can let us down if something unexpected occurs. There's a chance that Training, Experience, and all the rest can get you out of the situation...and there's a chance that it won't. In fact, the unexpected occurrance might just be a factor of luck.

An old friend, Dr. Jerry DeVane and I spent a lot of time at large fires, complex rescues, and the occasional hazmat incident earlier in my career. Dr. DeVane wasn't one to stand around the command post - he usually could be found wearing turnout gear, treating patients, or even working the Jaws if that was what was needed. He taught me a very useful mneumonic for how to not only survive, but to thrive in stressful, dangerous situations. Jerry said "It's easy. You just have to be a PUPIL. He described PUPIL as follows:

P - Preparedess. This involves Training, Planning, Teamwork, SOGs, and everything else that makes individuals and teams ready to tackle the job and survive the unexpected.

U - Understanding. You must have the gut-level ability to know the job inside and out. You must know how your equipment works, its' capabilities, and its' limitations. You must also know your individual and team capabilities and limitations.

P - Practice, Practice, Practice. 'Nuff said on this one.

I - Intelligence. We must not only have the mental ability to learn the job and to find ways to improve it, we must be smart about how we operate. That means following the rule that sometimes the brave thing to do is to NOT go inside. It also means that we must call the MAYDAY as soon as it is indicated while avoiding a misplaced sense of courage, individual effort, or embarassment get in the way of personal survival.

L - LUCK. Yes, Willie, luck. Jerry's point is that we will have either good luck or bad luck both when we arrive on scene and during our operations. We cannot choose where incidents occur or how bad they may be. Sometimes we cannot intervene in time to prevent either a good luck or bad luck situation from occurring. Dr. DeVane didn't discuss whether or not luck is involved - he KNEW it was involved. His point was that we need to be able to recognize when a bad luck situation occurs and overcome it, and we need to also recognize when a good luck situation occurs and take advantage of it.

This made such an impression on me that I use it in training, especially driver/operator training. I sometimes ask driver/operators to describe the locations of certain tools on their rigs, usually like this; "So, in what compartment do you carry the pickhead axe?" I ask them the same question when it comes to luck: "In what compartment do you carry the good luck." So far, none of the drivers have been able to find good luck on their rig checklist.

The bottom line is that luck does play a part in what we do. The smart thing to do is to plan for bad luck and when we find good luck, make sure that we don't count on it lasting through the end of the incident. After all, Mr. Murphy likes to show up on our calls, and Mr. Murphy is a real SOB.

I'm very glad that we are talking about near-misses and not more LODDs in the cases Capt. Wines describes, whatever variables may have ultimately led to those firefighters' survival.

There is no better way to celebrate this joyous time of year than by knowing that the skeletal guy with the scythe lost his shot at a few of us...this time.

Oh, and Willie, thanks for making us think just how much luck may play a part in "Everyone Goes Home".

10 Years of Remembrance

2011-09-09T10:04:00.000-07:00

Sunday is the 10th anniversary of the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks - the worst terrorist attack in the history of our world. It is appropriate that we honor and remember the nearly 3,000 people who died.

We should remember those who died on the four hijacked aircraft. Some were traveling to take care of business or to visit family. Some were aircrew just doing their job. Some were members of the military working in the Pentagon or their support staff or business people simply going about their workday in Lower Manhattan. The loss of every one of those people is a tragedy.

We also should remember those who were injured in the attacks. In particular, several survivors from the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were terribly burned - a horror with which firefighters are all too familiar.

We should remember the NYPD and PAPD police officers and the civilian EMS personnel who died responding to the World Trade Center attack. Their heroism should never be forgotten.

As a firefighter, I especially cannot forget the 343 members of the FDNY who died on that terrible day. They truly exemplify one of the most honorable things about our profession - running into buildings from which everyone else runs out. FDNY's losses do not stop there. Along with NYPD officers, steelworkers, and others, many of them have been dying by inches from respiratory disease, cancer, or other health problems acquired.

Our losses do not stop there. Members of our military have died by the thousands in the subsequent military actions whose intent is to root out sources of terrorist activity whose motive is nothing more than to kill Americans and others who are targeted for no reason other than having different values. I have a very personal reminder of how important this is; my son is one of those military members fighting the group that sheltered and assisted Al Queda as they planned the dastardly 9/11 attack.

I wear a 9/11 memorial bracelet honoring Captain Terry Hatton of FDNY Rescue 1. It is an everyday reminder to Never Forget. Remembering our fallen every day is important, but with the Pentagon rebuilt, the Shanksville memorial in place, the Ground Zero memorial pools flowing water, and the new World Trade Center rising from the ashes of its former site, it can be tempting to simply get on with life. Life indeed goes on for the rest of us, but it is important to take the time to set aside our daily routine and to celebrate the lives of our fallen.

Never, never, NEVER Forget.

No Blood is Thicker

2011-08-06T04:35:00.000-07:00

I was devastated to learn of the death of Fire Captain Jeff Bowen of Asheville, NC's Rescue Company 3. He leaves a wife and three children without a husband and father.
Any LODD is a terrible tragedy, but this one hits - literally - close to home for me.

You see, Asheville is my home town. I was born in Memorial Mission Hospital, located less than a block down Biltmore Avenue from the fire that killed Captain Bowen. The funeral home that handled Captain Bowen's arrangements is virtually next door to the office that housed my father's physician practice before he retired. One of my earliest memories is a 3rd-grade field trip to the Asheville Fire Department's Pack Square headquarters station. I have many family and friends in Asheville, including members of the fire department.

My department and the AFD share information, promotional examination assessors, professional respect, and friendship.

I attended Captain Bowen's funeral last Tuesday. I was impressed by the strength shown by the Asheville firefighters and the regional solidarity shown by fire departments throughout North and South Carolina who were there to honor Jeff's memory. I was also impressed by the thousands of citizens who lined the processional route waving flags, hands placed over hearts, and many crying their eyes out. The citizens of Asheville "get it". They understand at a very basic level that the Asheville firefighters literally put their lives on the line for people that they don't even know. They understand how important the fire department is to protecting the public's lives, property, commerce, and the environment. They understand that even in a down economy that fire and rescue services are essential to us all. Most importantly, they understand that an Asheville firefighter gave his life so that others could live.

I did not know Captain Bowen personally, but Chief Burnette, Chaplain Baird, and especially Jeff's daughters made all of us at the funeral wish that we had known him. In addition to being the captain of Asheville's rescue company, he was an expert in technical rescue, a member of the department's hazardous materials team, and a member of the swiftwater rescue team. As I do, Jeff loved the water. He obviously had a great love for his family, too.

At the funeral service, one of Jeff's daughters described being adopted and how Jeff helped her handle some of the cruel things other kids said to her about not being his biological child. While comforting her, Jeff told her something that was not only a loving comfort, but that was truly profound; "Blood is no thicker than water, but no blood is thicker than blood you would shed for another."

Jeff not only shed his blood for another, he died while making sure that 200 patients and medical staff made it safely away from the fire. Many of those patients were very sick and mobility-impaired. Every one of them made it out of the building. Captain Bowen and sixty other Asheville firefighters made sure of it.

Two days after the funeral, I was stunned to learn that the fire cause was arson. The contrast could not be more stark; someone with callous disregard for human life set fire to a five-story office building packed with people during the middle of the day. Another gave his life to ensure that the arsonist only murdered one person instead of hundreds. Not only did that arsonist kill a firefighter, he injured several other fireighters, some seriously. If not for Capt. Bowen and the other Asheville firefighters, hundreds of doses of chemotherapy drugs in short supply would have been destroyed. Medical treatment for thousands of people has been disrupted, and over 20 million dollars of damage was done. There is truly evil in this world, personified by the arsonist. There is also much good in the world, personified by Captain Jeff Bowen.

Rescue 3's Oregon Avenue firehouse is a sadder place these days, but the rescue firefighters still show up every day. The heavy rescue rig that Jeff loved so much still rolls out the doors, staffed with firefighters who share his dedication to helping other people who are in need.

My department and I are proud to stand in the thin red line with the Asheville firefighters who gave so much to save the lives of so many.

The Memorial Mission Hospital Foundation has started a memorial fund to assist Captain Bowen's family. The hospital foundation will match contributions dollar-for-dollar up to $10,000. You can donate online by contacting the Fallen Firefighter Fund. I urge you to donate to help Jeff's family with the struggles that come with losing a husband, father, and provider.

Jeff Bowen is - simply put - an American hero. So is every other one of the Asheville firefighters who responded to 445 Biltmore Avenue on July 28, 2011.

Blood doesn't come any thicker.

You Probably Won't Die - No Matter What You Do

2011-03-15T19:06:00.000-07:00

Does it sound crazy for a firefighter to say that? Maybe it does, but statistics show that approximately 100 U.S. firefighters die in the line of duty each year, with a smaller number of annual non-firefighter EMS LODDs.

There are approximately 1.15 million firefighters in the USA. That results in a LODD rate of 8.69 to the power of -5...a fraction so tiny that I don't think I can count that far without help from a math professor, a computer, and a calculator with advanced math functions. Or, to put it the same way my basic calculator put it, that number is 8.6956521739130434782608695652174e-5

Adding the 20 or 30 annual non-fire EMS provider LODDs to that number doesn't change the fraction in any way that is meanigful either mathematically or statistically.

So, eat at McDonald's all you wish, smoke and dip tobacco, don't work out or do any cardio, pack in the sugar and the caffiene, drive way faster than the speed limit, don't stop at controlled intersections, don't wear your seat belt or SCBA, don't perform size-ups, run blindly into every building no matter how little - or how much fire or smoke issue from it, freelance, ignore orders, and you'll probably live to tell the rest of us how tough and cool you are...

...this year.

The Rule of 3's

2010-12-02T18:01:00.000-08:00

Actually, there are three different "Rule of 3's" and all three of them are important to anyone who works in Fire/Rescue or EMS.

The first one is espoused by survivalists. It goes something like this:

You can survive 3 minutes without air, 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food.

While not exact, that Rule is pretty close to reality for the average human. I know that I can hold my breath for a little more than 3 minutes, but it's pretty uncomfortable after about a minute, it's VERY uncomfortable after two minutes, and at three minutes, it's agony. I've never gone even one day without hydrating, nor more than about 30 hours without food. I hope I never have to do either one.

The second Rule of 3's is the Cave Diver's Rule, now adapted for firefighting as the Rule of Air Management. This Rule states that you use 1/3 of your air to enter the hazard area and do whatever task you planned to do, use 1/3 of your air to exit to a safe atmosphere, and 1/3 of your air for emergencies. It's a good rule and following it has saved the lives of divers, firefighters, and confined space rescuers.

The third Rule of 3's is my rule - "Waller's Rule of Leadership Change". When an organization has a leadership change at the top, there are generally three possible results for the organization including changes in organizational effectiveness, the training cycle, and morale. The three possibilities are that there will be no real change. In that case, the organizational effectiveness, training cycle, and morale tend to continue at the same levels, in the same manner, and with similar results as what took place prior to the leadership change.

The second option is that the new leader may demand big changes and that the changes are improvements. That typically means that the organization will become more effective - at some point. That may take time, and that is dependent upon the nature and complexity of the changes, the amount of training required to adapt to the changes, and how the changes and the training cycle affect morale.

The third - and worst - option is that the new leader may demand big changes and that the changes are bad ones, or even disasters. This change type can destroy organizational effectiveness, drive good people out of the organization, trash the training cycle by requiring constant basic training for new people rather than more advanced training for the more experienced employees, and concurrently ruining morale.

How leadership change is handled is primarily the responsibility of the new leader. The new leader will likely have some constraints. After all, everyone has a boss. If the leader has the power to throw off contraints, that can be either very good or very bad for the organization and for morale.

Hopefully, the next leadership change your organization has will be the kind that improves organizational effectiveness, takes the training cycle's requirement into account, and solidifies and improves morale.

After all, happy employees will work harder for the new leader. If the new leader has a vision, can sell it to his/her boss and the troops, gets everyone's buy-in, and uses it to improve both the organization and morale, he/she is likely to be successful. One caution for new leaders here; sometimes the organization is doing fine, and the best you can do is to be a caretaker for that success until an opportunity for improvement comes along. Don't force change on the organization simply for change's sake. If you do, you've eliminated 1/3 of the possible outcomes, and now you're down to a 50/50 chance for success. Those aren't good odds, and the troops may feel as if they've been without air for a lot longer than three minutes.

Never Forget

2010-09-10T19:05:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the 9th anniversary of the largest and worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. Almost 3,000 people died, including many fire, law enforcement, and EMS personnel.

Take a moment on 9/11/10 to remember the victims aboard all four of the aircraft, the victims at the World Trade Center, the victims at the Pentegon, and especially the firefighters, police officers, EMTs, paramedics, and other responders who gave their lives.

"Never forget" also means that we need to remember and support the responders, steel workers, and others who ruined their health working at Ground Zero.

"Never forget" means that we will not forget those who survived and who carry the physical and mental scars of that awful day.

"Never forget" means that we need to remember the enemy that conducted that attack, know who that enemy is, and vow to eradicate that enemy while not blaming innocent people who happen to share appearance, nationality, or religion with the terrorists who conducted this attack.

Never, Never, Never forget.

The Charleston 9 – A Different Perspective, Part 2

2010-07-03T14:39:00.001-07:00

On our way from the staging area to the Coliseum, one person in particular stood out from the crowd of people lining the streets. Once we exited I-526 and turned onto the city streets, I noticed a woman kneeling on the sidewalk. Her right hand was held over her heart and her left hand was held aloft giving the AMESLAN “I Love You” sign.

This woman was weeping – the tears were literally soaking her face. As each vehicle with the family members of the 9 passed, she bowed so low that her forehead pressed into the sidewalk. As far as I know, she was not a relative of any of the firefighters – she seemed to just be an average Charlestonian overcome by grief who had found a very personal way to show her support for the families of the 9 and for the firefighters of the CFD.

Once we reached the Coliseum, the family vehicles pulled up in the circle and stopped. The sidewalk into the Coliseum was lined with Honor Guard members from all over the U.S. and Canada. It was a hot day and quite humid. Most of the Honor Guard members were standing in the hot sun. It took quite a while for the long procession to pass. During this entire time, the Honor Guard members held a rigid salute. They were taking a serous beating from the heat and humidity, and I saw one of them get so shaky that he almost passed out. Members of the EMS standby crews quickly pulled him out of line, got him into the shade, and began rehydrating him. The other Honor Guard members closed ranks quickly and smoothly. I don’t think any of the families noticed that moment. The rest of the Honor Guard members didn’t twitch, despite the streams of sweat running down their faces and dripping onto the sidewalk.

The EMS standby crews were awesome on that day. I particularly noticed several of the Dorchester County, (SC) EMS crews in action giving out cold bottled water and assisting several people who were overcome by heat.

An arena-style Jumbotron was set up near the entrance to the Honor Guard walk. It showed the interior of the Coliseum and broadcast the sounds of the orchestral music from the interior for those who were unable to go inside.

As each family assembled for the walk into the Coliseum, they were led by a Charleston firefighter. These firefighters carried shiny new replacement helmets for the ones worn by the 9 at the Sofa Super Store fire. It was difficult to avoid thinking about the contrast between the likely condition of those helmets and the new red and black ones carried in the procession.

As we entered the blissful cool and dim Coliseum, it was obvious that the seats were filled nearly to the rafters with firefighters from almost anywhere you can imagine.

The lead escort for each family conducted the family members up front, and the rest of us stood beside the tunnel entrance to the Coliseum floor.
I remember the FDNY Emerald Society Pipes and Drums band playing. I’m of Scottish descent, so the pipes are doubly meaningful for me at any time, but never more so than during this service. The pipes and drums were shockingly loud after the earlier orchestral music, and I remember thinking “Just like every other firefighter – even our funerals are noisy.”

The service itself was a blur. I vaguely remember music, speeches, music, speeches, and more music.

A video of the June 22 memorial service can be found here.

Chief Thomas elicited some laughter when he told a personal story about each of the 9. It was obvious that their loss had shocked him very deeply. At that moment, I had very ambivalent feelings. On one hand, Chief Thomas was obviously crushed by what had happened. On the other hand, he bore the ultimate responsibility for what happened and it didn’t seem as if he was past the denial stage of what had occurred, despite the presence of the nine flag-draped coffins and the large portrait-type photos of the 9 at the foot of the podium.

I remember seeing several obviously-retired firefighters in their dress uniforms, sitting in wheelchairs on the first level of the stands. Many were from hundreds or thousands of miles away. I remember thinking “WOW. Despite their obvious physical handicaps, these disabled firefighters made a long trip to honor the 9.”

I remember seeing one of the Baltimore City firefighters dissolving into tears and being assisted out of the Coliseum by another Baltimore firefighter. I remember thinking about the two recent LODDs that Baltimore had experienced and wondering if this firefighter was a friend of one of their LODDs. I was also impressed that on this day, no firefighter was alone.

Most of all, I remember the overwhelming silence between the speakers and the musical presentation. I’m used to noise like the Tower of Babel if three or more firefighters are present. To see thousands upon thousands of firefighters in one building and being able to hear a pin drop was impressive. I remember thinking that I had never seen such respect earned or given.

I remember the recessional, with some of the Charleston firefighters so overcome with emotion that they were literally being carried by their brother firefighters.

Our family escort duties were complete, so we exited with the other firefighters. Rank upon rank of firefighters lined the sidewalk where the nine hearses were lined up.

Nine times a flag-draped coffin was loaded into a hearse. Nine times, the FDNY pipes skirled. Nine times we held a silent salute.

We remained until the hearses pulled away, destined for the individual funerals to be held later in the week. We then returned to our vehicles. Traffic wasn’t moving, so we took the time to remove the Kleenex from our vehicles. It took a few minutes.

As we were cleaning out our vehicles, I noticed an adult woman who was very pale and sweaty, and who had a very unsteady gait. She complained of dizziness. One of the other Hilton Head firefighters assisted me in moving her back inside and sitting her in a chair in the cool Coliseum interior. One of the other firefighters found one of the Dorchester County EMS crews. They rapidly responded and took over patient care. I remember thinking “Even at a memorial service, we’re still here taking care of people.” It was a small consolation that we had been able to do a small service to help someone in need even after our family escort duties were complete.

As we were finally able to mount up and leave. Traffic was still heavy and it was difficult to exit onto the street. A New Orleans ladder company saw what was happening. They dismounted their rig, blocked traffic, pulled their rig across the street and made sure that all of the family escorts could leave without a further wait. It was much appreciated.

It was midafternoon, and we were all getting hungry. We agreed to meet at a restaurant we all liked in the St. John’s area south of downtown. When we pulled into the restaurant, we noticed fire apparatus from Georgia and Florida in the parking lot. We greeted the firefighters from those rigs, and had a tasty but unmemorable meal.

After eating, we finished the two-hour drive back to Hilton Head in silence.
I had a lot of competing thoughts running through my head the entire time. In the emotions of the moment was difficult to avoid bitterness at the CFD chiefs who were at the fire, even though I didn't know any of them. I had to tell myself to overcome that emotion and to think rationally about it. I realized that they sincerely thought that the way they did things at the time was what they thought was the best way to do business. I also realized that none of them responded to the Sofa Super Store fire with any idea that they’d lose a single firefighter, let alone the 9. I had to remind myself that their department culture had as much to do with what happened as did any individual decision made at the scene.

In the intervening three years, I’ve had several of our firefighters ask me “Chief, could it happen here?” At first, my instinct was to say “Of course not.”, but then I realized that even though we did things much differently than Charleston did at the time, that there was no way that I could honestly make that kind of promise. I finally was able to answer that we are looking at everything we do to ensure that our firefighters stay safe.

We are not a large department, and we generally have at least two or three staff chiefs respond to every working incident.

Typically, the staff chiefs take the Safety, Division C, and any other assignment that Command needs, but in the past I’d heard a lot of “Too many chiefs and not enough Indians” comments from the troops after a fire.

The first time I actually felt that my department had benefitted from the painful lessons from the Sofa Super Store fire was at the first working commercial fire to which I responded a few months after the memorial service. This fire resulted in a quick knock, but a prolonged salvage and overhaul operation – the kind that we all hate. We had a few moments of confusion due to some unusual building features and a few communications problems, and I don’t think any of us was feeling particularly great, despite the nice stop. That changed for me as we were picking up and one of our firefighters approached me. This firefighter had been one of those who had attended the Charleston 9 memorial service. He had not exactly been the biggest fan of the staff chief responses to previous fires. When he approached me, I remember thinking “Great, here it comes.”

To my surprise, he quietly said “I owe you an apology.” I told him that I didn’t know of anything he should apologize for. He replied “I used to complain all the time about too many Chiefs and not enough Indians at our fires. Now, I know why you do it. Thank you for looking out for me at our fires.” I told him that he really didn’t need to apologize, but that I appreciated the apology.

I left the fire scene thinking that finally some good had come from the horrible tragedy that put the term "The Charleston 9" in our vernacular. It’s a shame that this incident ever occured, but I can't change that, so I have accepted it. It would be an even greater shame if that tragedy passed without the rest of us learning everything we can and doing everything within our power to ensure that it NEVER happens again.

In the past three years, I've also been fortunate to meet several Charleston firefighters that I did not previously know. I've met them in some of the South Carolina Fire Academy classes I've taught in my role as an adjunct faculty member, in Charleston firehouses, and socially. They are universally professional, friendly, and when in class, eager to learn. I am honored to be able to call them "brother". I'm also honored that a few of them spent an afternoon in my home, and that we were able to talk about the future and not the past.

Rest in Peace my nine brave brothers. Your sacrifice has indeed not been in vain.

The Charleston 9 – A Different Perspective, Part 1

2010-06-21T19:45:00.000-07:00

The evening of June 18, 2007 will be forever burned into my memory, but the day of June 22, 2007 was the date that really made this tragedy personal for me. To set the stage, on the evening of June 18, I was at home after a pretty good day at work. Training had gone well, the weather was pleasant, and I had just finished a nice dinner with my family. I decided to watch some TV, and started the typical flipping through the channels. I usually don’t watch regular broadcast TV, but happened to flip through Charleston’s Channel 5, WCSC.

I vaguely caught images of a large building on fire, but had my finger firmly on the channel advance button. I quickly flipped back, just in time to see the first images of the huge amount of hot, black, turbulent smoke boiling out of the storefront, and worse, several hoselines that had been advanced through the front door. I remember thinking “Oh, no, that’s bad news for the firefighters.” I then saw that the store was the Sofa Super Store. I often visit Charleston by way of this area, so I knew that this was a very large fire in a very large structure.

The images were horrifying. The apparent absence of organized incident command, the obvious high heat discoloration on the truss void-level siding, the questionable decision to vent the front windows, a couple of firefighters bailing out the front…then the horrors of the flashover and the collapse…with the hoselines - sadly - still laid through the front door.

I couldn’t tear myself away. I knew that the chances of no firefighter deaths in that scenario were nil, but there was no information other than the announcement that Charleston FD had “some firefighters missing” and that one civilian had been rescued. Shortly after this, it was announced that CFD had “six or seven” firefighters missing in the fire, the enormity of what I was watching sank in.

I immediately called our on-duty Battalion Chief, Cliff Steedley and asked if he was watching TV. He said that he wasn’t. I told him to turn on WCSC “right now”. He caught the unusual tone in my voice and turned on the TV. He said something like – that looks like a bad fire. I told him that Charleston had six or seven firefighters missing – that they really were not sure and I’ll never forget the shock and disbelief in his voice when he said “How many?”

I repeated myself, then suggested that we notify our senior staff. I also told Chief Steedley that this might generate USAR team response, and that we needed to notify then-Captain Mick Mayers of the incident. We agreed that he would notify our Fire Chief and that I would notify the Deputy Chief of Operations. We started the phone notifications. Many sleepless hours later, we were notified that Charleston was not going to request our assistance and to stand down.

Needless to say, I can’t remember much from the next couple of days other than to wonder who had died. When the names were announced, I was stunned to find that I knew two of them. Many of our members knew others of the 9, and we went about our duties largely in shocked silence.

On the 21st, I was asked to work with another of our Captains, Randy Lindstrom, to organize our department’s trip to the memorial service. Randy and I agreed that I would coordinate the family escort unit and that Randy would coordinate the members who would ride in the procession. If you’ve never done this, suffice it to say that there are a million details, and that it’s not easy even when everyone is not stressed out. The preparation included some retired FDNY members who reside on Hilton Head Island, and who wanted to ride with us. We were honored to have seats for the FDNY members to attend with us, as we sent our Rehab 1, a bus that can be reconfigured from a rehab unit to a crew transporter.

On the evening of June 21, four of us went to Charleston to spend the night, as family escort duty started early the next morning. The members of our group were Fire Chief Tom Fieldstead, Captain Chad McRorie of Engine 2, Senior Fire Inspector Sam Burnette, and me. We had a quiet dinner and went to bed early. The next morning, we got up very early, ate a quick breakfast, dressed in our Class A uniforms, and went to the staging area. The staging area was in a store parking lot just up the street from the fire location. There, we met with members of several other SC fire departments who had volunteered as family escorts. We met the group leader to which we were assigned, Columbia Fire Marshal Carmen Floyd, and the sixth member of our group, Colleton County Fire Chief Barry McRoy. We were also assigned a detective from the Charleston Police Department as a guide and city liaison.

After a cup of coffee, the family escort groups left. Several had quite a distance to travel, so they left early. Our group was assigned to a family that lived literally a few blocks from both the staging area and the fire scene. We convoyed to their home, met the family, and then stood quietly outside while the widow and children completed their final preparations. Several members of the deceased firefighter’s family were firefighters from North Carolina. They were very quiet and seemed as if they were uncertain about the days plans. Our group engaged them, described the day’s schedule to them, and generally asked if there was anything we could do for them. One of them asked if we could locate mourning bands for their badges, as they did not have any. Capt. McRorie and I both had several, so we were able to do this small thing for our brothers from NC.

We then met the family members that would ride in our vehicles. I was assigned the deceased firefighter’s sister and her three children, a boy and two girls. The boy rode up front with me and his mother and sisters rode in the back seat of my department SUV.

When the time came to go to the staging area at the Citadel Mall, we took a convoluted route through several side streets and neighborhoods, rather than the direct route, as we did not want to go past the fire scene. Once at the staging area, we waited until the apparatus procession from downtown arrived, then made preparations to go to the Coliseum for the memorial service. I unfortunately have attended the LODD funerals for several friends over the years, but this procession was incredible. As we entered Interstate 526, the Charleston PD had completely isolated the eastbound lanes for the procession. Several things about the trip stand out in my mind.

The billboards with Charleston 9 memorials were literally everywhere. I’ve never seen an outpouring of support for public safety in the way the citizens and businesses of Charleston did that week.

Traffic was initially moving westbound on I-526. That ended very quickly. Three truckers angled their rigs across the interstate, completely blocked traffic, and stood on the edge of the median with their hands over their hearts. Hundreds of motorists followed the truckers’ example. Virtually everyone parked in the westbound lanes exited their vehicles, placed their hands over their hearts, and stood quietly while the huge procession filed past.

One of the overpasses was staffed with an engine company that displayed a huge U.S. flag from the guardrail. They wore their work uniforms and helmets, flanked their rig, and saluted. The bridge was blocked with parked vehicles whose occupants also stood, waved flags, or stood quietly with their hands over their hearts.
When we exited the Interstate to approach the Coliseum, the sidewalks were lined with people. Many of them – men and women – were openly weeping.

The only comfort that I could give the family was to remind them that what we were watching was an entire city pouring out their love and respect for their fallen firefighter and his comrades. I was glad that we had the foresight to put several large boxes of Kleenex in our vehicles for the family members. When we arrived at the Coliseum and escorted the family inside, not a single unused Kleenex remained in the boxes. Some of the used ones were stuffed in my driver’s door pocket. I’ve driven apparatus in thick fog, heavy rain, ice and snow, and high winds, but despite the beautiful weather, this was the toughest drive I’ve ever made in an emergency vehicle.

Part 2 will describe my memories of the June 22 Memorial Service.

Household Hazmat - Not In My Back Yard

2010-04-04T15:34:00.000-07:00

In the world of preventing the occurance of harmful incidents, the fire-rescue community has few peers and often excels. Innovative ways to prevent and reduce harm have included smoke detector programs, fire inspection programs, injury prevention programs like Risk Watch, and especially fire prevention education programs. My department is fortunate to have a very active Public Education Officer who coordinates and often instructs a variety of injury prevention and fire prevention education programs. The public education programs are well-received, and often receive good reviews in the local news media.

A few years ago, we developed and implemented our first-ever Household Hazardous Materials Round-Up. This is a one-day event where our entire department - firefighters, Hazmat Team members, the command staff, communications personnel, support services personnel, and the emergency management staff work conduct a drive-up hazmat collection point. A pollution control contractor licensed in hazardous waste recycling supports the effort with chemists, hazmat personnel, and logistics personnel. Last year, we added a new service - electronic waste collection - with another contractor that specializes in recycling old electronic components. The Hazmat Round-Up became an annnual event, and is now usually held twice per year.

The Hazmat Round-Up has several objectives. It removes literally tons of hazardous materials that would otherwise pollute our sensitive environment, reduces toxins and other hazards in our residents' homes, and reduces the number of hazmat spills, leaks, and fires to which we would otherwise have to respond.

The spring 2010 Hazmat Round-Up was held yesterday, and was a spectacular sucess. We set up the collection point at our new Training Center, which includes a 1/4 mile driving course. Local homeowners dropping off household hazmat items simply drove through the Training Center, where firefighters and hazmat technicians offloaded, sorted, classified, and overpacked the materials for the residents. As shown in the photo above, we removed tons of hazardous materials from our first-due, including virtually every class of hazardous materials. The hazmat total included three tractor-trailers and two other trucks filled to capacity with overpacked hazardous materials and an additional tractor-trailer filled with electronic waste (e-waste).

The variety of hazmat removed from the environment included batteries, paint, old fuel and lubricants, pesticides, old compressed gas cylinders, mercury-containing flourescent lights and thermostats, fertilizer, flares, and other items with the words "Caution", "Warning", or "Danger" in the labeling.

The e-waste included old computers, TVs, stereos, appliances, and anything else containing circuit boards, cathode-ray tubes, or other electronic components.

The inevitible questions about programs of this type involve NIMBY - Not In My Back Yard. That acronym has been used to include taking waste from one place and dumping it in another. I'm happy to say that this isn't a big problem with our Hazmat Round-Up. Most of the materials collected are recycled by the hazmat and e-waste contractors. In fact, the ability to recycle these materials contributes substantially to their business model, so they have an incentive to maximize the recycling of the materials they collect. We're glad to have developed a program that not only removes hazmat from our first-due, but that doesn't just take it and dump it somewhere else.

We rotate the on-duty engine, medic, and truck companies through the event, maintain a reserve engine, medic, and the hazmat rig on-site, and provide two meals, rehab, energy snacks, and hydration for everyone who works the event.

It takes a lot of planning, a lot of public service announcements (PSAs), a lot of coordination, and a lot of work to make this even successful. I can state without any hesitation that this event - again - was a resounding success. I appreciate our local residents who brought their household hazmat and dropped it off in a safe manner. That is a much-preferred alternative to finding it leaking, spilled, or on fire in our environmentally-sensitive environment here on the Rock, or worse, spilled into our marine and salt marsh environments, groundwater, and food chain.

It was a long, but rewarding day, and well worth it.

I'm with STUPID

2010-03-21T11:42:00.001-07:00

We’ve all heard the stories about firefighters doing stupid things on duty or off. Firefighters committing arson, breaking and entering, driving intoxicated, failing work-related random drug screening tests, abusing their domestic partners…the list goes on and on. As one of the replies to the Cumberland Valley Volunteer Fireman’s Association’s recent White Paper on Ethics in the Fire Service says, the report is a “litany of the obvious”. The ethical problems that plague the fire service include “Cheating, arson, theft, alcohol and substance abuse, harassment, discrimination, and misuse of departmental and personal information technology… “

It makes one wonder if the Fire Chief's uniform should include this shirt;

Here are a few examples of less-than-smart and ethically-impaired firefighter behavior I found in a Bing search that took about 10 minutes:

Firefighter investigated for arson at his own home.

Firefighter investigated for arson at his own home (another one)

Firefighter sets fire to another firefighter’s home

Firefighters involved in two separate break-ins

Firefighter DUI case

Firefighter arrested for DUI, spits in police officer’s face

Still another firefighter DUI

Firefighters charged with assault in bar brawl

Firefighter charged with child sexual assault

Another fire station noose incident

Here’s another twist – noose planted in fake firehouse racism incident

Firefighter charged with arson and convicted of bomb threat

Firefighter hospitalized after firehouse prank goes wrong

Ex firefighter gets prison for firehouse arson

Junior firefighter shot in leg during firehouse hazing

Peeping Tom firefighter arrested, peered from ceiling at female paramedic as she showered

Firefighters fired for obscene and harassing prank phone calls to female lieutenant

Female firefighter sexual harassment lawsuit settled

Female firefighter harassed

Son of late fire chief guilty of embezzlement

FireGeezer has several other stories about embezzlement from fire companies here

How do we reconcile this with the recent public opinion polls that rate firefighters as the most trusted profession in the U.S. and Great Britain?

How do we, as a profession, reduce or eliminate the ethical problems that will inevitably knock us from the position of high trust we hold? Whose responsibility is it? Is it the fire chief’s responsibility? Does the responsibility lie with the officers, senior firefighters, or with instructors at the fire academy? Does it lie with a new fire recruit’s parents and family? Does the school system that has spent the last three decades teaching “value-neutral” education share the responsibility? Does a pop culture that downplays the role of religion share in the blame? Does the switch to playing computer games and baring our inner thoughts via social networking sites instead of learning a trade and the value of productive work contribute?

Without designing a multi-year sociological study, the short answer is that all of the above share in the responsibility and the blame. More importantly, what do we do about the problem?

When we accept a new fire recruit, we have to understand them for what they are. We can’t give them a two-parent home, send them to church, or give them a meaningful job outside the fire service. We can’t help them re-live their formative years. We can’t eradicate the computer gaming and social networking culture from the new firefighters – those are here to stay.

Potential Solutions

We can make our expectations clear.

We can provide supervision, leadership, mentoring, and Big Brother/Big Sister-type programs for our new members.

We can assign a reliable veteran to mentor every new firefighter not only in fire/rescue and EMS skills, but in ethics and the role of good behavior and public trust as essential to our mission.

We can institute smart business solutions including internal and external audits of department funds and business practices, frequent reports to the membership, and a fully-transparent annual report.

We can set firm rules for firefighter conduct and behavior.

We can make it clear that serious rules violations will result in termination and if appropriate, a referral to law enforcement for prosecution.

We can enforce the rules equally, regardless of rank or position.

We can lead by example.

We can limit or eliminate alcohol at fire department and related events. Alcohol doesn't make you smarter, funnier, better behaved, or more trustworthy.

We can develop an Organization and Discipline training course and require that every new member complete it prior to granting full membership in the organization.

We can develop a Fire Service Ethics training course and require that every new member complete it prior to granting full membership in the organization. (The CVVFA’s program is a good start.)

We can develop a program to review case studies involving the financial, criminal, family, and personal costs of firefighter misbehavior with new members, and periodically, with the more seasoned veterans.

The candidate pool is what it is. We can’t go back in time to better prepare our new members, we have to work with what we get. We can ensure that candidates are screened, supervised, and mentored to reduce the impact of bad firefighter behavior on the profession and upon individual departments. We can also make it clear that bad behavior will not be tolerated, and that if the new firefighter wants to become a veteran firefighter, good choices and ethical behavior are not just expectations – they are essentials.

I don't know how to say this any more strongly - If you're going to engage in unethical, racist, sexist, criminal, or stupid behavior, particularly while representing your Fire/Rescue or EMS department, GET OUT OF THE PROFESSION! The CVVFA White Paper shows the way to ethical firefighter behavior. It is a road map for maintaining the strong position of public trust we enjoy. This job is supposed to be the province of the people who can best do the job, who are the most trustworthy, and who demonstrate responsible behavior. Let's all commit to helping prevent a few bad apples from screwing it up for the rest of us.

The Bathtub Collapse, Part 2

2010-03-08T18:19:00.000-08:00

Part 1 of this series was an introduction to Bathtub Collapse problem identification, exterior size-up, strategy considerations and development, and safety considerations. Part 2 discusses tactical considerations, interior size-up, victim recovery, investigations, and incident termination.

Tactics

In order to make a bathtub collapse rescue safe and efficient, the operation must follow a logical sequence. The first step in this sequence is to support the sides of the bathtub. If the bathtub is formed by structural walls or columns, start by shoring them. Raker shoring systems are a good way to support exterior walls.(1) For masonry or wooden walls, traditional raker shore types are appropriate. Modified split sole rakers may be used to provide columns with lateral support. Visibly stressed walls or columns should be shored first. If the wall or column is leaning or cracked, it’s stressed.

Extrication Strut as a temporary door shore

The next step is to support natural entry points, then open them. Door and window openings can be shored as in any other structural collapse. You may need to frame the edges of the opening with a raker system prior to shoring the actual opening. Once the door opening is supported, additional bathtub components such as metal Q-decking, rebar grids, and other metal components may be cut away to clear the opening for access and egress. Cutting operations create sparks, open flames, or both. Ensure that the building’s gas supplies are shut off and that the area is well-ventilated prior to using cutting tools that create ignition sources. Also ensure that both water and dry chemical extinguishers or a charged hoseline are nearby curing cutting operations.

Cutting Q-decking and rebar obstructions with a rotary saw

Once the interior of the bathtub is accessed, it may be necessary to use strongbacks and tiebacks to support inward-leaning walls. Picket systems or large, well-secured anchors should be used to anchor the exterior tiebacks. Place towels, blankets, etc. over the tieback cables to reduce whipping in the event of cable failure. Once the tieback system is complete, keep everyone out of the immediate area.

Widowmakers

Once the bathtub walls are secure, it’s time to take care of overhead hazards. Identify all widowmakers and eliminate falling object hazards by using one of the following methods;

1. Secure the widowmaker by tying it to solid structural components with cables, chains, come-alongs, etc.
2. Remove the widowmaker by bolting it, then tensioning it with a crane, and cutting it loose from the structure.
3. Avoid the widowmaker by marking and enforcing a collapse zone beneath the widowmaker. This may not be possible, as the victims may be trapped directly below the widowmaker.

Search Tactics

Once the surrounding structure is secured, the interior search can begin. Start by searching voids and by manually removing selected debris.(2) Voids may be searched visually with flashlights, thermal imaging cameras (TICs), USAR or fiber optic search cameras, and by probing voids with pike poles. It is important to note that wet concrete produces heat, and this heat may mask the heat signature of a human body when searching with TICs. Remember that TICs cannot “see” through solid materials such as structural components.

Simultaneously with the void search and light debris removal, other crews may start searching through the wet concrete in the bathtub. You may manually search for gaps in the horizontal Q-deck by simply using gloved hands to probe through the wet concrete and any gaps in the edges of the Q-decking.

Victim Search in a Bathtub Collapse

It is also important to create horizontal openings in the vertical Q-decking parts of the bathtub. This allows horizontal removal of some of the concrete while it is still wet. Hoselines can be used to keep the concrete wet and dilute as long as the water will not run into voids and drown the victim or cause hypothermia. Scoop shovels and even stiff-bristled push brooms can be used to move wet concrete through the bathtub openings.

Hose Stream dilutes and moves wet concrete

Bathtub Collapses into Basements

If it is necessary to lift wet concrete out of a basement, simple bucket-and-rope systems may be used, but they are manpower-intensive. Vacuum trucks may be useful, but the concrete may be too heavy for the vacuum to lift it very far. Large amounts of water will probably be required to dilute the concrete enough for a vacuum truck to lift it, and that much water may drown the victim prior to completing the rescue. Water also adds weight to an already-damaged structure, which may cause additional collapse. It may be necessary to move large volumes of wet concrete in order to locate the victim. It also may be possible to use a trash/solids pump to move dilute concrete out of a basement if the aggregate size is small enough to make it through the pump without clogging it. A bathtub collapse into a crawl space is generally similar to a collapse into a basement, but may allow grade-level access to one or more sides of the bathtub.

Victim Extrication

Once the victim is located, determine the body position and attempt to expose the airway. If the victim is alive, follow local blunt trauma and crush/compartment syndrome protocols. If the victim is deceased, ensure that all other potential victims are accounted for. If other victims are not accounted for, it will likely be necessary to continue in Rescue mode. If all victims are accounted for and have been determined to have died, then shifting to Recovery mode is more appropriate.
It is likely that rebar will be submerged or semi-submerged in the concrete. Large sections of the rebar grid may be cut away with minimal effort by locating the rebar and cutting it around the outside edge of the area you desire to expose. Cut rebar grid away with hydraulic cutter or large bolt cutters if it is submerged in the wet concrete. Rebar cutters, reciprocating saws, and/or torches may be used to cut any exposed rebar, particularly if only one hydraulic cutter is present.

Hydraulic cutters being used to cut rebar

Removal of rebar grid section

To extricate the victim, it is useful to locate the Q-decking edge closest to the victim. Once this edge is located, it can be used as a purchase point to move concrete and steel away from the victim. A variety of tools and techniques may be successful. Once the Q-deck edge has been located, start moving wet concrete away from it. A good rule of thumb is to move wet concrete away from the hole at least three times the depth of the remaining concrete. This will help prevent wet concrete from running through the hole in the Q-decking and burying the now-exposed victim.

Once adequate amounts of wet concrete and rebar have been removed, it is time to attack the Q-decking. You can start by using the exposed Q-deck edge as a purchase point and lifting the edge with hydraulic rescue spreaders. As you open the spreaders, the Q-decking will start peeling back. You can extend the cuts with hydraulic spreaders or reciprocating saws. If power tools are not available, even hacksaws can be used to cut the Q-decking. Small rescue air bags may be used to lift the Q-deck, but remember that sharp rebar ends or Q-decking edges may cut or puncture the air bags. If using air bags, pad them with sections of rubber matting such as old tractor-trailer mud flap material or short sections of old large-diameter fire hose. Bottle jacks or small scissor jacks can also be used to lift the Q-decking.

Hydraulic spreader used to roll up exposed Q-decking edge

It is not necessary to remove all of the concrete from the Q-decking prior to cutting it. Additional personnel can be used to continue moving concrete away from the victim with scoop shovels. As with any other heavy lifting operation, cribbing must be installed to support the lift. Use the “Lift an inch, crib an inch” cribbing method. It may be possible to use a come-along to support rebar grid sections that are too large for complete removal.

If it is becomes necessary to remove very large sections of Q-decking or other metal components, several cutting methods may be employed simultaneously. These can include alternating hydraulic spreader lifts with hydraulic cutter relief cuts, lifting with a spreader while extending the cut with reciprocating saws, or by removing concrete and steel in an area away from the victim in order to create an intermediate location in which to move materials away from the victim. If using torches, make sure that you do not burn the victim. If using torches remotely from the victim, use an atmospheric monitor near the victim to ensure that torch byproducts are not compromising the victim’s clean air supply.

If it is possible to quickly move a large amount of wet concrete out of the bathtub, consider making purchase points with a hole saw or core drill, inserting short sections of heavy-duty rebar or pickets, and attaching cables in order to lift a large section of steel away.

Prior to removing most of the wet concrete, air chisels and reciprocating saws will be of very little use, since they are designed to use in open air. Pneumatics may have limited utility, but electric tools will quickly burn out and become useless when submerged in wet concrete, due to the saw’s inability to radiate heat into the air.

If the victim is pinned over a secondary void, install supplemental shoring beneath the victim if possible. It may be necessary to install an improvised lifting harness on the victim if a secondary fall possibility is created by the extrication process. If the secondary void is very deep, it may be necessary to have rescuers shore beneath the extrication operation. This is highly dangerous, and is recommended ONLY as a last resort and with IC and Safety Officer approval.

Patient Care

As with any other extrication, provide medical care during the extrication if the victim is alive. If the extrication is prolonged, it will be necessary to provide protection from ambient temperature, extremes of weather, and to provide specialized crush syndrome care. USAR Medical Specialists and paramedics and physicians specializing in cave or mine rescue may be very useful in this situation. USAR medicine may require medications and medical protocols outside of normal EMS procedures. USAR medicine protocols should be approved by local and/or state EMS authorities in advance. It may be necessary to conduct a field amputation in order to save the victim’s life. If possible, a field-qualified physician should make the amputation, as amputations require training and equipment outside the normal paramedic scope of practice.

Once the victim is completely disentangled, package the victim, take any required steps to move the victim outside the structure, and turn the victim over to the transporting unit. All rescuers working near the victim should wear any necessary body substance isolation (BSI) personal protective clothing. If advanced life support (ALS) procedures are in use, EMS personnel should have a sharps container at the patient’s side for IV needles other contaminated sharps disposal.

Third-Party Investigations

If one or more victims are deceased, a scene investigation will be necessary prior to moving the body. The coroner, medical examiner, and/or law enforcement agencies will want to photograph and diagram the scene, interview witnesses, and determine whether any foul play is suspected. If the coroner or medical examiner staff is not trained to enter collapse zones, they may ask that rescuers take scene photos and/or measurements for them. If possible, put the coroner in a location where he/she can direct the rescuers as they take photos and measurements, but do not compromise responder safety to investigate a death.

OSHA investigators may also be on the scene. It is important to note that OSHA investigators do not generally have the authority to interfere with body recoveries, and they do not have the authority to interfere with the rescue of live patients. Fire-rescue and EMS personnel should document any actions they take on behalf of an investigating authority.

It is also important to inform coroner, medical examiner, law enforcement, and OSHA investigators that time is of the essence due to concrete curing. If the concrete hardens with the victim’s body still entrapped, a one or two-hour recovery may become a multi-hour or multi-day recovery operation. Once the body is removed, place it in a body bag, secure it in a Stokes basket, SKED, or other rescue litter, and remove the body from the collapse zone.

Decontamination and Clean-Up

USAR decontamination considerations generally involve cleaning equipment and PPE that may have been exposed to biohazardous wastes and cleaning concrete dust, powdered glass, or other building components from personnel and equipment. Bathtub collapses require an immediate additional step.

Several charged hoselines should be present to remove concrete from responders and equipment while it is still wet. This is particularly true for exposed skin and any tool that was submerged in the wet concrete. Exposed skin is vulnerable to thermal burns from the warm concrete, chemical burns from concrete components, and traumatic injury from rough aggregate or sharp metal edges encountered during the rescue. Concrete will find every nook and cranny in hydraulic rescue tools, bottle jacks, pneumatic hose couplings, pneumatic strut feet, or any other equipment that may have been placed in the concrete. Two or three engine companies assigned exclusively to decon will enable responders and gear to be cleaned quickly, efficiently, and thoroughly.

Termination

As with any other incident, all tools, equipment, and apparatus will need to be returned to service, cleaned, and inspected. Any equipment damaged, destroyed, or contaminated beyond salvage will need to be reported and replaced. Powered equipment will need to be serviced and fueled. It may be necessary to replace large quantities of cribbing and shoring materials, contaminated life safety rope, or other materials that it is unsafe to recover. Do not risk personnel to recover a few pieces of wood that can be easily and cheaply replaced.
Any personnel injury or exposure will need to be treated, reported, and receive any necessary follow-up care. An accurate incident report should be completed, anticipating third-party investigations and possibly criminal or civil actions due to the collapse. An after-action review should be held as soon as all the incident facts can be determined. The critique should involve all personnel and units that participated in the response.

Conclusion

Bathtub collapses have not been previously identified and traditional USAR training does not specifically address collapses involving wet concrete. Wet concrete is not easy to shore or support. Wet concrete adds a new degree of difficulty to USAR searches, as you can’t just drill a hole and look through it with a search camera or fiber optic scope. Wet concrete flows to the lowest point and collects, which can concentrate structural weight in a small portion of the supporting structure. Bathtub collapses add an entirely new set of challenges, even for well-trained and experienced USAR teams. One of the most critical elements is time – the concrete won’t stop hardening while we call resources, shore the structure, or search for the victims.

Concrete buildings may be constructed virtually anywhere. All concrete structures are vulnerable to collapse while under construction. With the increasing demand for structures to house people, businesses, and to repair our country’s aging infrastructure, it is anticipated that bathtub collapses will become more common. Any fire-rescue and EMS agency may be faced with a bathtub collapse. Preparation, safety, equipment, training, and above all, anticipation are important to keep responders safe and to successfully conclude the response to complex and dangerous bathtub collapses.

References

(1) U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
US&R Structures Specialist Field Operations Guide, 3rd Ed.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Readiness Support Center, 2001, pp IV-42 – IV-48
(2) Goodson, Carl, et al
IFSTA Essentials of Firefighting, 5th Ed.
IFSTA, Stillwater, OK, p 364

All photos courtesy of Hilton Head Island Fire & Rescue

About the Authors
Ben Waller is a Battalion Chief with Hilton Head Island Fire & Rescue, currently assigned as the Training Chief. Ben is a paramedic, a hazardous materials technician, and a USAR rescue specialist. He is Safety Officer for South Carolina USAR Regional Response Team 4 and is an adjunct faculty instructor in the fire, rescue, and incident command programs at the South Carolina Fire Academy. He is a member of the South Carolina Fire Academy’s Rope Rescue and Water Rescue Technical Development Committees. Ben’s education includes a Master’s of Public Administration degree and undergraduate Fire Administration and Paramedic/Allied Health degrees.

Jason Walters is a Lieutenant with Hilton Head Island Fire & Rescue, currently assigned to an engine/medic company. He is a Rescue Manager with South Carolina USAR SCTF-1 and is the Team Coordinator for South Carolina USAR Regional Response Team 4. He is an EMT-B, a hazardous materials technician, and a USAR rescue specialist. Jason is an adjunct faculty instructor in the fire and rescue programs at the South Carolina Fire Academy. His education includes an Associate of Fire Science Degree from Luzerne County College. Jason has 18 years of experience in fire-rescue, EMS, and hazardous materials response. He has 34 years of experience in fire-rescue, EMS, and hazardous materials response.

The Bathtub Collapse: Part 1

2010-03-06T04:32:00.000-08:00

This article is co-authored by my friend and colleague Jason Walters. Jason is the Team Leader for USAR SC-Regional Response Team 4.

Introduction

FEMA’s USAR system, basic firefighting texts, and other fire-rescue references describe how to recognize and respond to a variety of structural collapse situations. These collapse types are specific to structures with rigid components. Freshly-poured concrete isn’t rigid, and collapses involving wet concrete create a unique set of circumstances not described in typical structural collapse references.

Collapses have traditionally been classified in four categories. These are the Lean-To Collapse, the V - Collapse, the Pancake Collapse and the Cantilever Collapse.(1) Some USAR documents now describe an additional collapse type – the A-Frame Collapse.(2, 3) The A-Frame Collapse is also known as a Tent Collapse. An A-Frame Collapse is essentially two back-to-back Lean-To collapses that share a common wall or other upright structural component.

There is another collapse type that has recently been identified. This collapse type involves concrete that is still wet. We call it the Bathtub Collapse. Unlike cured concrete, wet concrete does is not solid and when freshly poured, it does not form slabs and or give off dust. Wet concrete runs to the lowest point available, then collects like water in a bathtub. Bathtub collapses have some things in common with other collapse types, but there are several significant differences. The most important are the difficulty in stabilizing a collapse involving wet concrete, handling concrete that does not stay in one place, and the relatively short time it takes for the wet concrete to harden.

Typical Bathtub Collapse

Concrete Weight

Wet concrete is slightly heavier than a corresponding volume of dry concrete. When concrete cures, some of the water evaporates, but much of the water stays in the concrete. Water binds chemically to the solids in the concrete, and thus concrete retains much of the water weight when it cures. Concrete loses some weight as it cures, but surprisingly, that weight loss is relatively small.

The rule of thumb for the weight of a cubic foot of wet concrete with aggregate mix is 4000 lbs/yard3, or approximately 162 lbs/ft.3. The rule of thumb for the weight of a cubic foot of dry concrete with aggregate mix is 3700 lbs/yard3 or 150 lbs/ ft3. (4) The bottom line is that all concrete is heavy. Remember, the primary difference between wet concrete and dry concrete – wet concrete flows to the lowest point and then collects there.

A factor that construction personnel may not take into account is that once a concrete slab is poured, water, wet burlap, or other wet material is often left on the concrete surface to assist in insulating and hydrating the concrete as it cures. This water adds additional weight that may not be considered in the design of the shoring system that supports the pour. If that additional water weight is not accounted for in the shoring system, then a collapse is more likely.

Building Construction Factors

Virtually any type of building construction may be involved in a bathtub collapse. Bathtub collapses usually occur when construction personnel pour a concrete floor at an elevation above the lowest structural level. Bathtub collapses occur in one of three basic configurations. The first is when the collapse rests on the ground or on a slab at grade level. The second bathtub collapse type involves collapses above grade level. The third type is a bathtub collapse into a basement or other below-grade area. Bathtub collapses will most commonly occur at or below grade. Bathtub collapses that begin above the second floor are rare, as the collapse of an upper floor often causes a progressive pancake collapse that destroys the entire structure.
Basic bathtub collapse strategies are based on grade-level collapses. Above-grade and below-grade bathtub collapses involve the same basic strategy as a grade-level collapse, with a few additional considerations.

Construction Process Factors

The collapse of a concrete floor during or immediately after a pour may be due to one or more of the following factors:

• Inadequate shoring beneath the pour
• Wall-floor structural connector failure
• Shoring material failure
• Excessive amount of concrete poured
• Excessive pour concentration
• Failure of walls, beams, or other supporting structural materials

The Bathtub Collapse Sequence

Steel span drops with the outside edges supported, forming a rough bathtub shapeWet concrete runs to the center of the bathtub
Wet concrete runs out of small openings in the edges of the bathtub. These may be quickly blocked due to the heavy concrete viscosity or obstructions outside the bathtub. If small openings are blocked, the concrete in the bathtub will form a larger and deeper pool. This will make size up and extrication more difficult.
Concrete forms a thicker but smaller diameter puddle than the original pour
Rebar, Q-decking or other steel sheeting, and shoring materials are twisted and mixed into the wet concrete

Supporting beams and damaged overhead structural materials may create widowmakers
Supporting beams may fall into the bathtub prior to or during the rescue operation

Size-Up and Strategy

Size-up should be completed in accordance with standard structural collapse protocols. This should include the situation, potential entrapment problems, specific hazards, and a 360-degree look at the structure. When possible, include an elevated look at the collapse. An aerial ladder or nearby building may be used as an elevated observation post. When size-up is complete, Command should develop the Incident Action Plan (IAP) goals, communicate the IAP to all responders, make tactical assignments, and ensure that the personnel accountability system is fully implemented.

Important strategy considerations include:

Define the building factors including construction type
Identify the most likely victim locations
Develop and communicate the IAP
Safety considerations
Shoring
Remove easily accessible victims
Make the rescue vs. recovery decision
Estimate the concrete cure time
Wet concrete removal methods

Bathtub Collapse Incident Management

Command should consider appointing at least a Safety Officer, a Liaison Officer, and a Rescue Group Supervisor for even a small bathtub collapse.(5) The Safety Officer can help isolate the scene and identify the primary hazards. The Liaison Officer can work with the construction company to determine how many workers are missing or known to be entrapped. The Liaison Officer should communicate with the construction supervisor, gather information, and keep construction personnel available to assist if needed. The Rescue Group Supervisor can concentrate on rescue tactics and needs and allow the Incident Commander to keep his/her attention focused on the overall incident strategy and safety.

Resources

Structural collapses typically require more resources than may seem likely during the early incident stages. It is important to have at least one engine company for water supply, one truck company for tools and an aerial device, a heavy rescue or USAR unit for tools and shoring materials, and additional manpower. A large law enforcement presence may be required to keep bystanders, construction personnel, or distraught relatives out of the collapsed structure. Additional construction personnel and heavy equipment such as cranes, front-end loaders, and other machinery may be useful in the rescue effort. If in doubt, call for additional resources early and often. Structural collapse rescue is hard work, and personnel may quickly become exhausted, especially in extremes of temperature and/or
precipitation.

Safety Considerations

One of the first priorities is to assign an Incident Safety Officer. This should be an officer who has a good basic knowledge of building construction, collapse types, USAR strategy and tactics, and common USAR safety problems. The Safety Officer should ensure that a safety zone is established. Collapse zones should be established to exclude responders from areas exposed to potential secondary collapse, particularly in areas beneath widowmakers. The Safety Officer should ensure that building utilities are shut down. Construction company generators and other power supplies should be shut down to reduce electrical hazards and atmospheric contaminants. Construction personnel should be kept on standby, as their generators may be useful power sources later in the incident.

Assessing the outside of the bathtub

The Safety Officer

A Safety Officer should be appointed early in the response. The Safety Officer should don the appropriate PPE and the Safety command vest. Once search and rescue operations begin, the Safety Officer should be located at an elevated observation point, if possible. Observing from an elevation gives the Safety Officer the ability to observe conditions in the bathtub as well as the condition of supporting walls, columns, and the stability of the surrounding structure. Most importantly, an elevated observation point gives the Safety Officer a better perspective on how rescue operations may change structural and personnel safety. For example, if wet concrete piles up against the base of a column that is already leaning, it may topple that pillar and cause an additional collapse. A properly-positioned Safety Officer will be able to anticipate this problem, advise Command, and ensure that the concrete flow is diverted prior to impinging on the damaged column.

Safety Officer’s view into the bathtub from an elevated observation point

Personal Protective Clothing

Standard USAR PPE is usually adequate for bathtub collapse operations. Lace-up safety boots are the most appropriate footwear. Wet concrete has a consistency very much like quicksand, and fire boots may be pulled off of firefighters who walk in it. Leather construction gloves, mechanics gloves, or extrication gloves are adequate for most hand protection, but medical exam gloves will be required for patient care.

Modified Turnout Gear Ensemble used for heavy cutting PPE

This concludes Part 1. Part 2 will discuss discusses tactical considerations, interior size-up, victim recovery, investigations, and incident termination.

References
(1) Goodson, Carl, et al
IFSTA Essentials of Firefighting, 5th Ed.
IFSTA, Stillwater, OK, pp 362-364

(2) English, Leslie, et al
NFPA 1670, Standard on Operations and Training for Technical Search and
Rescue, 2004 Ed.
NFPA, Batterymarch Park, MA, pp 25-27

(3) U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
US&R Structures Specialist Field Operations Guide, 3rd Ed.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Readiness Support Center, 2001, p VI-3

(4) http://corlissconcrete.com/Q&A.htm#4

(5) Jones, Jeff
NIMS Field Operations Guide, 1st Ed.
InforMed, Tigard, OR, pp 14-20

All photos courtesy of Hilton Head Island Fire & Rescue

What kind of foam are you?

2010-01-30T12:04:00.000-08:00

Firefighting foam has been around for a long time. The Navy, ARFF firefighters, and the petrochemical industry have used Class B foams for decades. When used properly, foam does a good job of extinguishing fire types for which water is not an efficient extinguishing media. Foam can be used on Class A fires, Class B fires, and for hazmat vapor suppression.

Different foams have different characteristics, are applied differently, and do different things. It may surprise you, but fire officers share several of those same features and characteristics. So, let’s think about the characteristics of different foams and apply them to fire officers.

Class A Foam

Class A foams are designed for one thing – fighting structural or woodland fires where the fuels are solid and have no special hazards. Class A foam does an excellent job of sealing air away from fuels and often result in less fire damage to a structure. Class A foams are very efficient at one thing, but they are a one-trick pony. Class A foams are useful as wildland fire barricades or for direct structural fire attack. However, Class A foams don’t produce much steam, so they are very ineffective when indirect fire attack is required, as in an attic fire.

Are you a Class A fire officer? Are you very good at one thing, but very ineffective at the other dimensions that make up your job? Do you perceive your job duties as “We just fight fires”? Are you uncomfortable with any emergency that doesn’t have smoke and flame showing?

CAFS

CAFS is Class A foam that has air bubbles mechanically added at the pump so that the hoseline is pumping finished foam rather than foam solution. It makes the hoselines lightweight and easy to handle. It also makes the hoselines much easier to kink and completely shut off the foam flow than either water or Class A foam lines. Class A foam is high maintenance – it requires a compressed air pump in addition to the water pump.

Are you a CAFS officer? Are you light and frothy, without much substance? Do you seek the easy way to do things without considering that by making some things easier, you may be keeping the job from getting done at all some of the time? Do you require twice the motivation to work as other fire officers? Do you make others chase your “kinks” or otherwise add to others work because of how you do your work?

Protein-Based Foam

Protein Foams are designed for Class B liquid fires. They are old school, having been around since World War II. Protein foams are made from either animal blood and byproducts, from soybeans, or from a combination of both. They may have fluorine added to increase shelf life, but the fluorine adds environmental toxicity to the foam.

Are you a Protein-Based fire officer? Are you old school? Does something have to die to get you to work properly? Do you, like soybeans, create a lot of gas? Like flourine, are you toxic to the work environment? Do you have a long shelf life? Have you changed how you do things, but not enough despite getting the job done?

AFFF Foam

AFFF is a Class B foam that creates a vapor suppressing film between the foam bubbles and the fuel surface. It is very effective on spill fires. It is good to great at sealing flammable vapors into liquid fuel spills. The AFFF film is slick and oily. Applying other Class B foams atop AFFF usually results in the other foam sliding away due to the slickness in the AFFF. AFFF is good for suppressing polar solvent (alcohol) fires, but it requires twice as much concentration (6%) for this application as the normal (3%) application rate needed for hydrocarbon spill fires.

Are you an AFFF officer? Do you suppress anything that rises from below you? Do you do a good job, but have a slick and oily finish? Do other fire officers not mix well with you?

AR-AFFF Foam

AR-AFFF is a new foam type that is similar to the older AFFF, but with several important differences. AR-AFFF is around 50% more expensive than standard AFFF. However, it is applied at 1% to hydrocarbon spill fires and 3% to polar solvent fires, so a given quantity of AR-AFFF will suppress three times as much fire as an equal quantity of standard AFFF. This results in an actual decrease in cost-per-gallon of the foam concentrate. Typical AR-AFFF is completely biodegradable, and is manufactured without the fluorine additives common to AFFF and protein foams. That makes it a much better choice for fighting both hydrocarbon and polar solvent fires. Additionally, AR-AFFF can be mixed at 0.5% and used as Class A foam for both wildland and structural firefighting applications, making it the most flexible foam currently available?

Are you an AR-AFFF officer? Are you flexible? Can you adjust your approach to adapt to different problems and challenges? Are you friendly to your work environment instead of using effective short-term solutions that leave long-term toxicity in your environment? Are you effective in handling a variety of emergencies rather than just being good at one thing? Can you adjust your intensity and concentration to fit with changes in your work environment?

High Expansion Foam

High Expansion Foam is designed to fill up confined spaces and exclude fire. It does not perform well in exposed positions, because its high expansion ratio makes it light, fluffy, and easy to blow away in a light wind. High expansion foam applications are so limited that most public fire departments don’t even carry it. High expansion foams require special application devices. They also require a lot more effort than conventional foams in order to be effective.

Are you a High Expansion officer? Do you require special treatment to be effective? Does it require additional effort by someone else to make you get the job done? Are you light and fluffy, without substance, and easily blown away by the winds of change? Are you comfortable only within narrowly-defined limits?

Hazmat Foam (vapor suppression foams)

Hazmat Foams are designed to suppress vapors from liquid hazmat spills. They are usually not effective for firefighting in Class A, Class B, or polar solvent fires. They are very, very good for one thing – preventing vapors from rising up from below. In this respect, hazmat foams are even more specialized and limited than is traditional AFFF. Hazmat foams are very effective not only at keeping vapors from entering the environment, but they are effective at keeping the environment out of the hazmat spill.

Are you a Hazmat Foam officer? Are you useless at firefighting? Do you suppress the idea vapors rising from your subordinates into the general environment? Do you work harder at keeping the environment out of your firehouse than you work at being an effective leader?

In conclusion, all firefighting and hazmat foams have their place. Good fire departments have access to all kinds of foam in order to handle a variety of fire and hazmat incidents with the best possible solution. However, not all “Foam Officer” types are good for either the fire department or for the firefighters. The best fire officers have AR-AFFF characteristics; they are flexible, they are good for several different problem types, they can suppress problems when needed, they are cost-effective, and while seeming more expensive on the surface, they actually save the department time, money, and effort in the long run.

And remember, even good fire officers, like good foam blankets are not perfect. Sometimes problems break through the fire officer's ability to handle them, just as the fire can break through the foam blanket.

Last Thoughts from 2009 and Hopes for 2010

2009-12-29T08:58:00.000-08:00

It is traditional to spend the last week of the year reflecting upon the past year's events and in anticipating the new year. It has indeed been an eventful year. Major fires, mass casualty incidents, new EMS standards, and political changes that affect Fire-Rescue and EMS services have all been in the news. The tragic loss of fellow firefighters and medics has once again been in the headlines. The 800-pound gorilla in the news has been the continuing problems with the national economy, diminished local tax revenues, and the reduction in services that have been forced upon many cities, towns, and counties.

No fire chief or EMS director wants to close stations, disband companies, furlough firefighters or medics, cut staff and/or benefits, or conduct unit brownouts. All of these have been forced on unwilling leaders, generally under protest. In some cases, companies with over a century of tradition have been disbanded.

Cutbacks of this magnitude have only occurred two other times in the past century. The event that caused the first set of cutbacks was the transition from horsedrawn apparatus to motorized apparatus in the early 1900s. Prior to that time, the edges of a company's first-due area was set by the stamina of the horses that pulled the appratus. With equine stamina no longer being a factor, firehouses could be located farther apart, so many companies were disbanded.

The second time this occurred was in the "War Years" that coincided with economic downturn from the late 1960's through the 1970's. Despite urban fire companies running calls in record numbers, fire companies were disbanded, stations closed, and firefighters were laid off. This was the first time that many fire departments realized that they had to position themselves to withstand downturns in the economy. Some responded with innovation, master planning, and other proactive solutions, but many departments remained reactive.

Beginning in the 1970's, the fire service began going through paradigm changes with each paradigm change taking roughly a decade to become widely accepted. The 1970's were the decade of EMS. EMS was a new concept back then, but many fire departments welcomed and embraced it. The Los Angeles area was notable in this respect, as anyone who ever watched an episode of Emergency! will remember. A new job description - that of Paramedic - became part of our vocabulary.

The 1980's were the decade of Hazardous Materials response. Based on several high-profile hazmat incidents in the late 1970's, Hazmat became a key issue for both fire departments and the communities they served. Another new job description - that of Hazardous Materials Technician entered our vocabulary.

The 1990's were the decade of Technical Rescue. Standardized, innovative extrication practices were invented by firefighters who became famous by the way they taught others how to rapidly and safely cut patients free from the wreckage of their vehicles. The Urban Search and Rescue system was expanded and received its first major domestic test at the Oklahoma City bombing incident. Rescue training became a major focus. Other new job descriptions, those of Extrication Technican and Technical Rescue Technician became common.

The first decade of the new century, unfortunately, became the decade of Terrorism. Although the U.S was hit with several terrorist attacks in the 1990s, and foreign terrorism had been common for many years, the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks were a watershed event in our lives, much as the Pearl Harbor attack on 12/07/41 was the watershed event in our parents' lives. Other than the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the other terrorist incidents were conducted by only four domestic terrorists - the Unabomber, the Murrah Building bomber and one accomplice, and the mislabeled Army of God bomber. The 9/11 attacks led to widespread training for response to terrorist events. Firefighters and medics had to start considering terrorism as a potential cause for otherwise innocuous incidents, and learned terms like "nerve agent", "WMD", "WMD Technician", and "USAR Rescue Specialist" entered our vocabulary.

2009 was a momentous year for my department. After over a decade of planning, budgeting, and lobbying, we were able to build a training center. That may not sound like a big deal to some of you, but when your department covers a barrier island surrounded by water, having a place to train is indeed big news. The training center allows us to conduct training in ways that are impossible to replicate in a parking lot or at a fire station. I lived the dual blessing and curse of being the project manager for the training center construction while simultaneously maintaining all of the other Chief of Training responsibilities. That was stressful and challenging, but it also allowed me to add features that might not have otherwise made it into the design. It also allowed me to work closely with other division heads and to strenghten working relationships with my colleagues.

Local revenue downturns led to a year with no pay raises for any of our municipal employees. My department was regretfully and regretably forced to return a SAFER grant award of almost a million dollars to FEMA and to forgo the truck company start-up for which the grant was awarded. Our municipality simply could not raise the required matching funds without cutting other essential services, so we chose to maintain what we had as the least of a range of bad choices.

There was more good news, for us, though. We were able to purchase a standardized pumper fleet for the first time in department history. We also standardized hose loads, nozzles, and initial company operations for all of our engine companies for the first time in our history. We were also able to standardize our nozzle complements and pump operations, also for the first time. Our capital improvements budget was scheduled for two fire station replacements. One of these was delayed, but we have a badly-needed station replacement under construction. Our department became the first in our state to join the CARES registry that tracks cardiac arrest survival to hospital discharge. We also began a STEMI program with local hospitals and two neighboring EMS systems, with two of our officers coordinating these programs and implemented a department-wide electronic patient care reporting system. We also implemented an new SOG and policy system, obtained new turnout gear, and implemented new extrication tools.

2009 was a year of milestones for several of our members. Five of our officers serve on state and national fire service committees. Battalion Chief Mick Mayers became the latest of several of our past and current chief officers to complete the prestigious Executive Fire Officer program at the National fire academy. Four of our officers authored or co-authored fire service training books, field guides, and blogs. Despite some setbacks, 2009 was a successful year for us by any standard.

What will 2010 hold? For my department, we now have to operate the new training center, complete the new fire station project, and hopefully manage the construction of the station that was delayed from 2009. We will be receiving two new quints and training all of our personnel to operate them. The training center will be a busy place.

Nationally, the next decade will be the decade of Interoperability. We are used to "doing our own thing", but with the increasing needs for EMS involvement in fireground and hazmat rehab, the increasing involvement of police departments in force protection and Unified Command, and the continuing ways in which MCI and disaster management continue to involve, interoperability will become increasingly important. This involves the planning and technology necessary to complete the nationwide radio rebanding project, the ability to involve fire, EMS, and law enforcement in joint operations and training, and losing the attitude that we operate in a vacuum, because we don't.

We need to continue to preach - and practice the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives.

We need to continue to make training and operations safer.

We need to focus on getting safely to the scene - every time.

We need to focus on being healthy and fit to do the job.

We need to focus on planning and innovation to survive a continued sluggish economy.

We need to take care of our own and work to maintain what we have.

We need to be honest with our elected officials and citizens - cutbacks can and do hurt our ability to provide services.

We need to realize that operating "the way we've always done it" will result in Russian Roulette at best, and suicide at worst.

We need to be smart enough to stay out of Born Losers.

We need to conduct realistic Master Planning.

We need to educate the public - CPR classes, First Aid classes, car seat installations, Risk Watch programs, and Fire Prevention classes can and do save lives.

Last, but not least, we need to get make our departments missionaries for residential sprinkler programs and the new building code that requires their installation on new construction. It's past time that we use our influence at the state and national level to overcome the contruction industry's misperception that saving a few cents per square foot on new home construction is worth someone's life.

The departments that plan, adapt, innovate, and market themselves will flourish. The ones that do not will become anachronisms, consigned to a never-ending vicious cycle of manpower cuts, station closures, brownouts, and budget cuts.

After all, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Have a Happy and Safe 2010, everyone.

7-Sided Searches and UCAN

2009-11-25T15:37:00.000-08:00

Some recent calls, drills, and follow-up conversations in which I was a participant have brought out how well a couple of basic tactics can be adapted for multiple purposes.

The first is the 7-Sided Search.

7-Sided Searches should be conducted on every incident in which we have a potential victim.
The seven sides to be searched are:

Structures

1. Side A/Division A
2. Side B/Division B
3. Side C/Division C
4. Side D/Division D
5. Roof
6. Basement/Crawl Space
7. the Inside (including the Inside of each interior compartment)

Vehicles

1. Front
2. Driver's Side
3. Passenger Side
4. Rear
5. Top
6. Underneath the Vehicle
7. the Inside, including the passenger compartment, trunk, and hatchback areas

The rule for searching these is:

7-Sided Search

Every Vehicle

Every Structure

Every Time

The other helpful tactic is the UCAN mneumonic. Originally developed for MAYDAY applications, UCAN has applications to basic search tactics. UCAN was designed for a firefighter giving a MAYDAY report to COMMAND the following information;

Unit

Conditions

Actions

Needs

The MAYDAY firefighter should tell COMMAND the unit to which he/she is assigned, the conditions that required calling a MAYDAY, what actions the lost/trapped/disoriented firefighter is taking, and what the lost/trapped/disoriented firefighter needs.

These same four considerations work well when a search team moves through a building, particuarly when moving vertically.

For example, Truck 3 is assigned to conduct a primary search of Divisions 3 and 4 of an apartment building with a fire on Division 2. Truck 3 should give COMMAND a UCAN update each time they move one vertical floor upwards. An example:

"COMMAND, Truck 3"

"Truck 3"

"COMMAND, Truck 3 is on Division 3, we have a heavy smoke condition with moderate heat, no fire visible, we are starting our primary search, and we need ventilation support and secondary egress."

"Truck 3, COMMAND recieves that you are on Division 3, you have a heavy smoke condition with moderate heat and no visible fire, and that you need ventilation support and secondary egress. Repeat your Actions report."

"COMMAND, Truck 3, we are starting our primary search of Division 3."

"Truck 3, recieved, you are starting your primary search of Division 3."

There are five distinct advantages to using UCAN reports for reporting tactical movement through a fire building in the absence of a MAYDAY.

Firefighters become familiar with the UCAN methodology in routine situations and will not struggle to remember the mneumonic in the event they need to call a MAYDAY in the future

Firefighters become practiced at using the UCAN terminology and reporting location changes to COMMAND

COMMAND knows where the units are and what they are doing

Status changes are reported in a standard forma

Status reports are transmitted in a standard format. If one part is missed, COMMAND can just ask for the missing piece of information without wasting the air time for a complete UCAN rehash from the unit giving the report

The "A" step can be modified to include "AIR" levels. If a company has a member that is low on air, the company can give a UCAN report that includes the air reading for the member with the lowest air level, particularly in big-box structures where the company needs to exit with 2/3 of their air available.

Candlemoth Syndrome

2009-11-01T14:45:00.001-08:00

How many firefighters have ever experienced Candlemoth Syndrome? I know I have, particularly when I was younger and less experienced. Candlemoth Syndrome is a firefighting cousin of Target Fixation, where firefighters are drawn closely to the fire in disregard for proper firefighting tactics and for firefighter safety.

The definition of "Moth to a Flame" is to be "Irresistibly and dangerously attracted to something or someone." The term relates to moth behavior around open candle flames at night. Moths are drawn to the light given off by the flame, but they often get too close, resulting in badly burned or dead moths. Firefighters can indeed be irresistably and dangerously attracted to be in close proximity to a fire. Candlemoth Syndrome is dangerous, it can easily result in firefighter injury or death, and it is all-too-common. Candlemoth Syndrome is generally avoidable if you recognize the symptoms.

Candlemoth Syndrome includes the following:

1) Waiting to attack interior fires until the hose team is very close to the fire in situations where the water stream could be used to safely and effectively attack the fire from farther away.

An example is using a direct attack with a solid stream or straight stream from very close to the fire instead of extinguishing the base of the fire from farther away where the firefighters are less exposed to the heat. This also gives the firefighters more direct access to their escape route if something goes wrong during the attack.

2) Conducting Defensive attacks in structures where Offensive attacks are indicated.

There are two examples of this. The most common is Horizontal Candlemoth Syndrome; the nozzleman who runs directly to a window venting fire and attacks the fire head-on from close range from the exterior. This will usually drive the fire into uninvolved parts of the building, cut off escape routes for the occupants, and increase the amount of unnecessary fire damage to the structure. The other example is Vertical Candlemoth Syndrome, where ladder pipe streams are directed into vertical ventilation openings. This results in the fire being driven downward into uninvolved parts of the structure, with the same potential bad outcomes as the horizontal example.

3) Defensive Candlemoth Syndrome is a variation of Horizontal Candlemoth Syndrome. This occurs when a fire has been declared Defensive and firefighters push too close to a building that is either in danger of collapsing or that is a No Value building, or both.

Focusing strategy and tactics on the RECEO-VS system, maintaining personnel accountability, and having Division C and Incident Safety Officers on scene to maintain a 360 view of the fireground help prevent Candlemoth Syndrome.

Good company officers who practice organizational discipline, who monitor their personnel closely during firefights, and who are not afraid to use firefighting best practices can prevent Candlemoth Syndrome, keep their firefighters safer, and reduce the amount of antacids ingested by chief officers.

Brotherhood versus Enemies

2009-10-17T05:26:00.000-07:00

If there are concepts that are polar opposites, Brothers and Enemies are great examples.Brotherhood means treating the people whom you call "brother" as if they were indeed blood relatives.Practicing the concept can sometimes be a little tricker, as brothers sometimes engage in family fights.

I have three brothers, and when growing up, I often lost fights to both the two older ones, who were bigger and more powerful, and a younger one, who was sneakier and not afraid to fight dirty. Let someone else pick on me though, and my brothers would turn on them in a split second.

Firefighting brotherhood is supposed to be like that, even when we disagree. Usually it is, but some firefighters bandy the word "brotherhood" about without having the slightest idea of how to practice the concept. When firefighters have a disagreement and one proclaims the others are his "enemies" over a disagreement, that firefighter intentionally sets himself outside of the brotherhood.

When I made mistakes, my two older brothers tried to straighten me out by discussing the situation and suggesting ways that I could improve upon my actions. A lot of the time, I listened to reason and found that my older, more experienced brothers were indeed right. Sometimes I didn't listen, and found that my brothers became more pointed in their advice; sometimes to the point of directly intervening if my actions would result in harm to myself or to others. Sometimes even that wasn't enough, and I ended up in the hospital getting sutures or other medical care.

The cuts and bruises were sometimes the only way I learned my lesson, but my brothers never let me do anything that would cause really serious injury to me or to anyone else.On the other hand, I wasn't stupid enough to declare myself as an "enemy" to my brothers, because my brothers simply meant too much to me.

My firefighting brothers and sisters are like that. Sometimes we disagree, and sometimes the more senior members give counsel to the younger, less experienced members as well as having discussions among ourselves as to which ways are the best to do things. We don't run around calling each other "enemies" if we expect our brothers to treat us like family, or if we plan to be accepted as a brother or sister, or if we engage in behavior characteristic more like a declared enemy than like a brother.

And...if we declare war against our brothers and sisters, we no longer can claim to be a part of the "brotherhood". If we declare that other firefighters are "the enemy" or "the problem" in a public place, then retract it and run away, we don't have the right to claim "brotherhood" with other firefighters. Part of being a brother is to share common danger with each other's help. That action is not chacteristic of enemies.

Running away in the face of danger or disagreement isn't brotherhood. It's symptomatic of feeling guilty about something."And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth..." Leviticus 26:37

One of the best things about the firefighting brotherhood is the strong bonds of friendship that results from sticking together in the face of danger; we unite against a common enemy. Friends are important in this business. "Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate." Al Brunacini

Brotherhood means being careful of what you say about each other. Enemies are under no such compunction. "An enemy generally says what he wishes." Thomas Jefferson

It's good to have a lot of friends, and few - or no - enemies.

"He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, and he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Friends are most important, particularly in the face of someone who declares himself to be an enemy, then conducts attack after attack. Friends help defeat those attacks, and eventually the one who has declared himself to be an enemy will turn tail and run...often becoming anonymous and hiding in an attempt to deflect further attention. I'm proud to be called an enemy by someone who doesn't understand brotherhood and I'm proud of my brothers and sisters who stood by me in an attempt to show someone who labeled me an enemy the error of his ways.

As Winston Churchill once said "You have enemies; Good, that means that you have stood up for something..." I try to stand up for firefighter safety, being smart about firefighting and fire training, and for speaking out when I see things that I don't think are right. I'm extremely appreciative of those firefighters who understand brotherhood and who practice it rather than a vain attempt to grasp it by talking about it without understanding it.

I'm also very appreciative of a senior member of my department who is a member of the NFPA 1403 Committee, and who is not bashful about practicing brotherhood by dispensing good advice when I need it, whether or not I ask for it.

As for declared enemies, they fall into a special category; a category defined by Saul Alinsky when he said "Last guys don't finish nice."

Ramp Strikes, Mom's Name, and Survival

2009-08-30T16:54:00.000-07:00

Although I love to read, I haven't had much reading time lately. Work and completing the edits of my chapter in Jones & Bartlett's new Fundamentals of Technical Rescue has taken up most of my spare time. I have been able to complete a book I have wanted to read for a long time recently, Deep Survival by Laurance Gonzales.

Gonzales' work is an excellent study in what it takes to survive extreme situations. He discusses several high-profile and not-so-high-profile incidents in which some people lived, some died, and the reasons for each. His research also includes an astonishing view into brain chemistry, how our brains are wired, and why people make some of the decisions we do under stress.

Some of his research led him to the pilot's ready room on a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier where pilots were preparing for night landings. In case you're not familiar, night carrier landings are so dangerous and stressful that physiological studies show that the pilots are actually more stressed during the carrier landings than in combat. In the pre-flight briefing, the squadron commander tells the pilots "If you're a quarter of a mile out and I ask you your mother's name, YOU DON'T KNOW!" He went on to say that the pilots are so focused that they effectively lose 1/2 of their IQ...the half that's not necessary to land the plane.

The commander later told Gonazlez that one of the primary loss-of-focus accidents in carrier landings is the "Ramp Strike". These are devastating accidents where the pilot focuses so strongly on getting to a safe place - the flight deck - that he loses focus on the steps it takes to get to safety - actually flying the plane in the correct pattern. Ramp strikes generally kill the pilot and other carrier crew members, destroy planes worth several million dollars per copy, and cause major damage to one of our most expensive strategic weapons systems. That's a bad outcome from an event that - although dangerous - our Navy pilots perform safely dozens of times per day.

Gonzales also relates the Mt. Hood climbing accident where one team fell into another and both teams ended up with dead team members and others seriously injured. The second team was involved because they looked up at the team climbing a ridge above them and didn't realize that they were directly in that team's fall line. Gonzales illustrated this by making the same climb himself. When the guide asked him "Which way is down", Gonzales pointed down the ridge to the starting point at the lodge, even though a dropped ice axe - or falling climber - would fall off the side of the ridge, not down the edge of the ridge toward the lodge. He then realized that he'd made a basic orientation mistake - pointing toward percieved safety instead of really assessing his surroundings.

The message - staying oriented is important. When starting search rope training, I've had firefighters tell me "That's so old school. Groping around in smoke is silly - just use a Thermal Imager."

My response is that "The Thermal Imager gets you in to the seat of the fire or to the victim, but it doesn't get you out." The search rope system helps prevent disorientation and it helps you re-orient if you become disoriented. If you don't have a hoseline, anchor a search rope and stay hooked up to it. If you get disoriented, you have two choices - either spend air, effort, and time in a self-rescue or staying put, calling a Mayday, and hoping that RIT gets you before the fire and smoke do. Staying oriented and maintaining a positive connection to the exterior gives you a much better chance of self-rescuing.

A large component of personal survival is mental - both pre-event and during it. The pre-event decision is about doing a thorough, focused size-up and risk-benefit analysis, and taking only calculated risks. The during-event mental focus is to trust the survival system you put in place during the event. Being able to synthesize survival techniques from other professions can help us analyze our mistakes and avoid making them again. As my friend Mick Mayers says, "There are a lot of lessons we can learn from the military". I'd add that there are also lessons to be learned from mountain and river guides, airline pilots, wilderness survival experts, and others who are in the daily business -as we are - of surviving in dangerous places.

The lesson here is to assess your surroundings, have pre-event survival systems in place, control your emotions, and avoid erroneous perceptions of exactly how to get to a safe place.

And...if you call a Mayday, and I ask you your mother's name, YOU DON'T KNOW!

Getting Familiar with Unfamiliar Dirt

2009-07-26T17:59:00.001-07:00

I recently spent a week on vacation that included a lot of reading on the beach. I was able to complete a six-book series, the Corean Chronicles by L.E. Modsitt, Jr... an excellent read if you're into the genre. In one of the books, a group of soldiers is deployed to an area with which none of them are familiar. They're tired from traveling and just want to set up camp and relax, but their officer immediately sends out patrols. They complain, but the officer tells the soldiers that they need to "Get familiar with the unfamiliar dirt" where they're operating in order to prevent any nasty surprises from the enemy. Frank Brannigan always told firefighters that buildings were our enemy, and "Know Your Enemy". Driving around a beachfront town that I hadn't visited in several years reminded me that there was a lot of unfamiliar dirt there, and that the unfamiliar dirt had a lot of unfamiliar buildings on it.

How will getting familiar with unfamiliar dirt help firefighters? It helps us learn how to gain access to places we may never have been, it helps us learn occupancy-specific hazards, and it helps us plan firefights in places that aren't directly conntected to the dirt.

Some firefighters don't like to spend time on the dirt at the Training Center.
The places you train are built on some very important dirt.
I spent four hours on this dirt yesterday (Sunday) with several companies of very dedicated firefighters. So did two other chief officers, one of whom was off duty at the time.

Some of your dirt has structures containing bad things like hazardous materials containers...

...or hazardous materials processing.

The dirt may be open and inviting on Side A.
No matter how familiar you are with Side A, if you have to bail out the Side C door of this occupancy, you're in trouble.

How about this dirt? Which Side C door connects to which strip mall occupancy?
How well will the cantilivered awning hold up if fire attacks the interior anchors?
If you need to force entry on Side C, will basic engine tools get you through the fortified doors, or will you need the additional power carried by a ladder or rescue company?

Is some of the structure built a long way above the dirt?
How will you access the upper floors of this structure...especially if the 1st due is a single-station volunteer fire department? Are there fire protection systems to help you keep this building from becoming part of the dirt?

Does the structure extend horizontally away from the dirt?
Do you have a way to handle emergencies in places that are not readily accessible from the dirt?

Are some of the structures on the dirt crammed tightly together?
Can you safely walk between the fire building and an adjacent exposure, or is there a chance that you'll be trapped or burned if part of the fire structure collapses or autovents while you're walking the 4-foot wide dirt between the buildings?

Does the dirt include an antique building modified into apartments over an industrial occupancy with no fire protection systems?

The officer in the Corean Chronicles had an important teaching point for the fire service...learn the unfamiliar dirt to which you're first due...

..so that you don't get familiar with this kind of unfamiliar dirt.

Mutual Dependence on Independence Day

2009-07-03T03:45:00.000-07:00

Independence Day - July 4 - is a uniquely American holiday. Many of us treat it like just another summer holiday - a barbecue, swimming or boating, relaxing with friends, and concluding with an evening of fireworks. This year, I ask you to take a few minutes to do something a little different. The American Revolution was the brain child of a few people who resolved to risk their businesses, their fortunes, and their very lives to gain independence from Great Britain. After a war that destroyed lives and property, they achieved their aim. How did they achieve independence? They achieved it by working and fighting - together - to overcome a common enemy. They were not willing to give up, to back down, or to compromise on the essentials of what they believed to be right. When he said "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately", Benjamin Franklin understood the dichotomy that in order for America to become independent, the people fighting for that independence had to be mutually dependent by "hanging together". Benjamin Franklin was a firefighter, and he understood the community's mutual dependence upon the fire department as the protector of lives, property, and commerce, too.

Patrick Henry, another early American patriot, advised constant vigilance when being faced with the loss of freedom and mutual happiness and prosperity. He also understood the value of being able to jointly determine our common fate. His comment..."The battle, Sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, Sir, we have no election."

In 2009, the American Fire-Rescue and EMS services are under attack, in a different way from how our country was in 1776, but under attack no less. We are under attack from the global economy that steals revenue from our cities and counties. We are under attack from increasing call volumes while under pressure to reduce staffinug and to make that old apparatus last "just one more year". We are under attack from citizens that want us to be there in their hour of need, but who don't understand the realities of making the services available in a rapid and safe manner. Our funding is under attack from politicians and administrators that see the economic meltdown as a way to permenently reduce the costs of providing fire, rescue, and EMS services.

So, how do we "hang together" to overcome these problems?

An example is the Boston firefighters who - on their own time - staffed firehouses that would have otherwise been browned out. Columbia and Irmo, SC firefighters recently worked together to fight a house fire near both city's boundaries. Sylvania Township, OH firefighters set up a live burn for some of their elected officials - officials that had previously opposed a 1.5 mil fire tax increase. My department jointly operates three special teams (Hazmat, COBRA/WMD, and USAR) with our good friends from Bluffton Township Fire & Rescue. These are just a few examples of creative ways to work together to maintain and improve Fire/Rescue and EMS services when we can no longer just throw money at every problem.

Like it or not, we're mutually dependent on our neighboring Fire/Rescue and EMS departments, our elected officials, and our public administrators. We need to foster creative ways to use that mutual dependence to our mutual benefit. If you don't like running mutual aid or automatic aid with a neighboring department, get together, work out the problems, and start helping each other. If your services are being cut due to the economy, do your homework, get the facts, and enlist community support to help minimize the cuts. If you are at odds with your public administrators and/or elected officials, invite them to participate in a live burn, extrication demonstration, or a CPR class to find out just how physically demanding our jobs really are...and why it takes that expensive manpower to do the job safely.

Once you determine the best way to foster the mutual dependence with the other stakeholders, follow Benjamin Franklin's advice and "Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve."

Tomorrow is Independence Day in the United States. Remember the people who fought to make it so, and in the words of our most famous early firefighter "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." Let's foster our mutual dependence to provide the people whom we serve Liberty - Liberty from fire, entrapment, and the loss of loved ones and livelihood. Pointing out our mutual dependence can go a long way toward improving bad relationships. Remember Great Britain, our enemy in 1776 and again in 1812? They're now our closest ally, sharing mutual dependence.

Don't save Safety for the Critique

2009-06-21T09:46:00.000-07:00

At the end of the 2009 Safety, Health, and Survival week, I'm sitting here sadly shaking my head. June has been a bad month for the U.S. Fire and EMS services. This month there have already been 10 reported LODDs involving 9 firefighters and a rescue squad member. One of the LODDs was from my state, South Carolina. Since Safety Week started, a random sampling of fire and EMS news includes an Ohio firefighter that was originally reported as a LODD that is on life support following a line-of-duty event, three San Antonio firefighters burned when a fire unexpectedly breached a wall during an interior attack, and four Baltimore firefighter injured in an engine vs. structure crash. This morning, I woke up to see this bad news about a St. Paul FD ambulance being involved in an accident that resulted in a civilian fatality. I've had a very busy week, with focusing on the punch list for our nearly-completed training center, but I've still tried to find time to promote Safety Week and to ensure that our firefighters had easy access to Safety Week activities and information.

A couple of evenings ago, I had the chance to stop by one of our busier stations. The crew was taking advantage of a little lull in the action to engage in a little team-building discussion. The discussion was pretty interesting. It centered on chief officers - one of the four areas of concentration for this year's Safety Week. The comments were, in typical firehouse fashion, blunt and to the point. One of the firefighters commented that chief officers need to understand the difference between thinking tactically and thinking like a safety officer when they act as the Incident Safety Officer. I asked what he meant. He went on to say that some chiefs focus on how to extinguish the fire regardless of what vest they're wearing, while others understand the Safety Officer's role and how to carry it out without interfering with a properly-run operation. The other firefighters commented on the other extreme, when the Safety Officer attempts to start the post-incident critique while the battle against the fire is still being waged.

So where does the Safety Officer draw the line?

The Safety Officer is charged with recognizing unsafe acts and conditions, informing Command, and can take direct action to stop unsafe acts or remediate unsafe conditions. How do you do that without inappropriate interference with the tactical situation? My rule is that if the issue is minor, if I'm the Safety Officer, I correct it and move on. For example, if the pump operator forgot to don his safety vest, I tell him to don it and keep moving. If a firefighter wants to start a mid-fire conversation about the unsafe acts of a different company, I tell him "Save the critique for the critique." On the other hand, if I see a company starting to make entry into a building with collapse potential, not only do I stop the entry, I immediately notify Command that we need to evacuate the building and I start establishing and marking a collapse zone. The trick is to know when to make a big deal out of the problem, when to simply communicate conditions to Command, and when to directly correct a minor problem.

As my good friend and colleague Mick Mayers says..."Don’t try to take shortcuts because you think it is easier. Shortcuts are cheating and cheating ultimately results in a catastrophic failure when someone gets caught." If you're in the Safety Officer role and you see someone taking a dangerous shortcut, stop it!

There are some common sense things that we can all do to make life safer and easier for all of us. If the drivers don't routinely don full gear, then they should have their traffic vest on their seat and don it prior to responding. It won't delay the comany's turnout time, trust me. If you use the Passport accountability system or a similar system that uses helmet identifiers, then the officer should ensure that every company member has their name tags in the system and has helmet identifiers properly attached as soon as they enter quarters to start the shift. In other words, Don't let the little things become big things.

When you get to the critique, if some of us are a little peeved because the Safety Officer made us wear eye protection to operate extrication tools, made us stop to put on a traffic vest, or stopped us from entering that marginal structure fire that we just "knew" we could hit offensively and "get away with it", then remember that you're alive and well to be peeved. After all, we can work out critique points at the critique. We can't, however, go back and unbury a LODD brother or sister at the critique.

In closing, even though this year's Safety Week is over, don't act as if it is. Drive safely, condition, wear incident-appropriate PPE, stay hydrated, get help when you need it, and look out for each other. Rehab as if your life depends on it, especially in the tropical heat wave we're having in the south right now. Make every week Safety Week.

The Monkey Parable, Safety, and Resistance to Change

2009-06-13T06:17:00.000-07:00

The 2009 Fire and EMS Safety, Health, and Survival Week begins tomorrow. My department is using these resources to help our firefighters develop healthy lifestyles, and maintain a safer work environment. In honor of Safety Week, I offer the following - The Monkey Parable.

Once upon a time, some researchers conducted an experiment. They obtained five monkeys and placed them into a single cage. In the center of the cage was a stairway that terminated in thin air. After a hungry night in the cage, the monkeys saw a researcher lowering a bunch of bananas through the bars above the stairs. The monkeys immediately charged up the stairs toward the food. Other researchers immediately blasted the monkeys with ice cold water from fire hoses, played tapes of loud, discordant music, and turned on strobe lights. They repeated these actions every time they lowered the bananas into the cage. It didn't take the monkeys long to refuse to set foot on the stairs, no matter how hungry they were.

Once this conditioning had taken effect, the researchers removed one of the monkeys from the cage and replaced him with a 2nd-generation monkey. Down came the bananas. The new monkey raced for the stairs. Before he could set foot on the bottom step, the other four monkeys grabbed him and beat him down, not wanting to experience a repeat of the previous few days' unpleasantness. No icy bath, strobe lights, or discordant music resulted. This was repeated until all of the 1st generation monkeys had been replaced by 2nd generation monkeys, none of which had experied the unpleasantness through which the 1st generation had lived.

Once the 2nd generation monkeys were completely conditioned, one of them was removed from the cage and replaced with a 3rd generation monkey. Down came the bananas. The newest monkey dashed for the food, was caught at the bottom of the stairs, and beaten down, just as the 2nd generation monkeys were beaten down by the 1st generation monkeys. During the beat-down, the new monkey cried out"Why are you guys beating me?" The beat down stopped and the four 2nd-generation monkeys looked around at each other. Finally, one of them replied..."I don't know, it's just that we've always done it that way." Hopefully, fire-rescue and EMS personnel aren't so conditioned to "We've always done it that way" that we act like the monkeys in the story. We're supposed to be smarter than monkeys.

Chief Officers share in the responsibility to help keep our firefighters safe. Safety Week activities include resources to help the chiefs take care of the firefighters and paramedics for whom they are responsible.

How many firefighters will continue to die unnecessarily because we run into Born Losers...because we've always done it that way? How many of us will refuse to use new tactics and tools because we like the old ones...because we've always done it that way? How many fire and EMS personnel will die because we are too busy donning SCBA or performing patient care to ensure our own safety...because we've always done it that way?

Let's commit to safer, healthier firefighters and emergency operations. If we don't, then we're really not any smarter than the monkeys.

Good Luck, Bad Luck, and SOGs

2009-05-25T09:02:00.001-07:00

It never ceases to amaze me how many times I hear or see really bad ideas espoused as the way to do things. Examples abound;

1) Refusing to wear seat belts in the rig "So we can go right to work at the scene".

2) Putting a vent crew on the roof of a structure that is an obvious defensive fire that has already autovented.

3) Putting engine crews in the collapse zone on a defensive fire.

4) Forcing crews to wear structural firefighitng PPE for situations where it actually creates hazards from heat stress, lack of mobility, or negative buoyancy such as remote wildland fires, USAR calls, and water rescues.

5) Advocating rescue procedures based on how easy they are to perform even if they create excessive risk to the patient.

My responses to the above are;

1) If your rig only makes it halfway to the scene and you are ejected from the rig, how did the few seconds you "saved" on this call make it worth the end of your career and maybe your life?

Those few seconds pale in comparison.

2) If the fire is through the roof, the fire has already been vertically ventilated. It's the fire's way of telling you to put the truckies to work somewhere else.

3) If your hose stream can't reach the interior of a defensive fire from a safe location, either get a bigger stream in play or just protect exposures with the one you have. You don't need to see how close you can get to the fire when it can drop a wall or an overhang on your head.

4) If you fight wildland fires, do USAR work, or do water rescue, dress for the sport you're playing. Wearing structural PPE to wildland fires can kill you from heat stress and will greatly reduce your mobility. Mobility is a big deal when you're hiking 100 yards - or 5 miles - in a wildland firefight. Mobility is a big deal in confined spaces, trenches, or structural collapse. Structural PPE doesn't help you float, so don't wear it to water rescues.

5) We need to follow best practices because they're the best thing to do, not because they're the easiest thing to do. Rescue procedures need to be evaluated on what we might do TO the patient as well as what we can do FOR the patient.

The photo above shows a best practice - placing a barrier board between rescue tools and the patients. That provides fragment and impact protection for the patients just in case something goes wrong. The rescuers in the photo are demonstrating a best practice instead of just hoping that they get lucky.

If you do something dangerous or stupid and get away with it once, you're lucky.

If you get away with it twice, you're VERY lucky. If you get away with it three times, it's now your SOG.

If you count on good luck as an SOG, sooner or later you'll be attending a LODD funeral for someone that was killed by "We've always done it that way."

Be smart, and don't count on good luck as a SOG. Eventually, your good luck will run out.

I don't want "Unlucky" on my tombstone. How about you?

1st Due Arithmetic

2009-05-16T11:20:00.000-07:00

How do you know when you have enough firefighters to complete all of the jobs required for a 1st-due assignment? It's not always easy to tell, because the equation of firefighters vs. fire is weighted differently at almost every fire. NFPA 1710 provides a baseline number, but some of us don't have even that small number of firefighters available. That number isn't sufficient to deal with a high-rise fire, a big box fire, a pier fire, or just about anything bigger than a duplex or small, single commercial occupancy if you want to accomplish all of the necessary tasks simultaneously.

With the budget crunches, brownouts, station closures, and disbanding of fire companies that we hear about every day, it makes you wonder when the "fuzzy math" is going to stop.

1st-Due Arithmetic is simply about numbers...numbers of firefighters, apparatus, and command personnel. If you don't have enough firefighters to stretch a line, then the fire is going to exceed the capability of that line by the time the water arrives at the combustion. If you don't have enough firefighters to search a building of whatever size confronts you, then the search isn't going to be completed very quickly. If you don't have enough firefighters to ventilate, then the engine crews take an unnecessary and dangerous beating. Most importantly, if you don't have enough firefighters to staff all of the 1st Due functions plus an Incident Commander, a Safety Officer, and a RIT Team...yes, a REAL RIT team, then an even fuzzier math sometimes takes place.

If we're shorthanded, Command may choose to staff a RIT team made up of firefighters that would otherwise be doing basic engine or truck work...forcing Side C, providing ladders for secondary egress, stretching a backup hoseline, or completing the primary search. That means we'll be putting off essential firefighting basics so we can staff a team that we'll hopefully never have to use.

On the other hand, we can't put everyone except Command and one pump operator inside and think that we'll always get away with it.

How do we ensure that we get enough numbers for the 1st Due Arithmetic? In theory, it's simple. We send more firefighters on the first alarm. Repeat after me..."Overkill is good, Overkill is good, Overkill is good." Use Automatic Aid/Mutual Aid if you have to, but get the additional firefighters there in numbers that shift the equation advantage from the fire to the firefighters. Send the extra engine or truck on the first alarm and cancel them if it's food on the stove. No matter what it takes, have an adequate number of firefighters respond on the first alarm!

After all, the fire doesn't understand budget cuts...it just understands 1st Due Arithmetic.

Safety Culture vs. Extinguishment Culture – Smart Fire Departments Can Have BOTH!

2009-05-01T16:54:00.000-07:00

If you have a personal or departmental "Extinguishment Culture", would you grab a line and enter this flashed over abandoned house that is showing signs of impending collapse? If you have a personal or departmental "Safety Culture", would you wear your SCBA , a traffic safety vest, and crank a PPV fan while sitting in the rig a half-mile down the street? Chances are, if you are a U.S. firefighter, you'll choose an option somewhere in between the two extremes.

In a recent FDIC speech, Lt. Ray McCormack, made some statements that have generated a great deal of controversy in the U.S. fire service. His comments in favor of an “Extinguishment Culture” and against a “Safety Culture” in particular have stimulated a lot of thought, comment, disagreement, and counter-disagreement. Art “ChiefReason” Goodrich, in particular, blogged a sharp and well-articulated counterpoint to Lt. McCormack’s thoughts.

I watched the video of Ray's speech several times, and read some of the thoughtful, not-so-thoughtful, and some downright nasty comments that other firefighters posted in replies to Art’s counterpoint. I gave the issue a lot of consideration for several days, watched the video again to make sure that I didn’t miss something, and decided that I finally couldn’t go any longer without saying something myself.

First, for those of you who called Art a “coward”, a “yard-stander”, or who made rude, vulgar, or even threatening responses to his blog, shame on you!!! Those comments were an embarrassment to the profession and to the people that made them. Just because another firefighter has a differing opinion doesn’t make him a coward. In particular, I noticed that many of the alleged firefighters that called Art a coward and worse posted anonymously. Does anyone else see the irony in that??? In case you don’t, I’ll spell it out for you. You call someone who posts his opinion under his real name a coward, while being too chicken to post your own name??? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who the real cowards are when that occurs.

Brotherhood includes respecting other firefighters opinions and differences, even when you disagree. Calling a brother firefighter a coward out of one side of your mouth for a simple difference of opinion while preaching the brotherhood out of the other side is practicing the former while demonstrating that you really don’t understand the latter.

On the other hand, for those of you who castigated Lt. McCormack for his fist-pumping, gum-chewing performance at FDIC, you’re focusing on style points at the expense of consideration of the substance. I don’t care about the style points – what is important is what he said. I don’t think Ray was advocating that we commit suicide for anyone or anything. It is apparent that he truly believes that extinguishing the fire before it grows larger tends to make the fireground safer, and he’s got a point. Al Brunacini’s 1985 comment that “Things on the fireground tend to get better when the fire is extinguished” tends to agree with Ray, too.

There are three important issues that neither Lt. McCormack or Chief Goodrich addressed.
1) New York firefighting rules don’t work for everyone else. Not every fire department has the building types, manpower, apparatus, or response times to which Lt. McCormack is accustomed. When you have a short response time for several companies and 35 or 40 firefighters to a multistory, ordinary construction apartment building, there is a reasonable expectation that the structure won’t collapse on the firefighters in the first 15 minutes of the firefight, and that you’ll have enough manpower to accomplish all of the necessary fireground tasks in fairly short order. On the other hand, when you get 3 or 4 firefighters, an engine and a tanker, no hydrants, and a 15-minute response time to a lightweight construction, two-story house with truss floors and roof, putting firefighters inside with a working fire is flipping a coin with their survival chances, no matter the reason for or method of entry. Years of fire fatality statistics show us that in almost every lightweight construction house fire, the occupants either self-rescue or they are dead when we get there.

2) We generally rescue civilians from smoke, not from fire. If the room – or structure – has flashed over, anyone in it is dead. If the truss void has flashed over, pretty much anyone we put in it or on it is probably going to be dead, too. On the other hand, if you have a solid apartment building with smoke-filled apartments above the fire, your team should take the can, tools, search rope, and thermal imager and go get ‘em. New York and other big cities have a lot of situations where they can rescue people from smoke. The vast majority of U.S. firefighters don’t see a lot of those situations, because they don’t fight fires in those structure types very often. The rules for non-dimensional lumber frame houses or garden apartments are simply different than a lot of the building construction seen in the big northeast and Midwestern cities.

3) We can have a culture that achieves both safety and extinguishment. That culture is one that believes strongly in fire sprinklers in EVERY occupancy, along with smoke detectors, kitchen hood systems, and monitored fire alarm systems. Fire protection systems – especially automatic sprinkler systems - make the building safer for the civilians and for the firefighters. Their response time is better than what any engine company on the planet can match. Of course, that will take away a lot of the “fun factor” in going to fires, but the public doesn’t fund the fire department based upon us having fun while they experience tragedy.

Firefighting is challenging, it’s ever-evolving, and the rules for doing it are not the same for every occupancy or for every fire department. A culture that places extinguishment over safety in all situations is a culture that will run into Born Losers and unnecessarily kill a lot of firefighters. A culture that places safety over extinguishment in all situations is going to have fewer funerals…and more parking lots. We need a culture that stresses both. Safety and extinguishment are not mutually exclusive. We need to be smart about choosing the right mix, depending upon the situation.

Putting generic Strategic Priorities to work

2009-04-21T18:24:00.000-07:00

One of the things I do with my all-too-rare spare time is that I read. My favorite genre is science fiction and sci-fi fantasy, because it often fuels my imagination. A lot of yesterday's science fiction ends up being tomorrow's science fact, too.

I recently finished a book regarding an unusual twist on a fairly standard plot - an uneasy intergalactic peace brokered by an advanced non-human society after two different human societies attempted mutual genocide.

The author could have been writing Strategic Priorities for fire and rescue. Her take on how to keep oriented to the proper Strategic Priorities, no matter what the situation involved four simple concepts and keeping them in sequence. The priorities...Life, Mission, Security, Operations. Fire and rescue services would be well-served to remember those same four priorities during both emergency situations and during our everyday routine.

Life - If we lose our lives, we can't accomplish the mission or any of our other priorities. At the scene, we need to focus on the most important things - discovering the things that can kill us and avoiding them. Those things can be buildings, forces of nature, evil people, or or our own egos. Or...it can be more insidious...smoking, lack of fitness, heat stress, cumulative stress, or a driver that's just a little sloppy with the accelerator.

Mission - If we don't accomplish the mission, we're wasting our time being there in the first place, plus our training time, plus our pre-planning time, plus our vehicle maintainence, plus the public's trust...

Security - If we don't secure our apparatus, our stations, and the rest of the public property with which we've been entrusted, then we may not be able to take care of our first two priorities. If we're missing tools, or if our station is wide open for anyone to steal from it or trash it while we're gone, then we might be missing the one tool that will save our lives or just the public's trust that we're going to be responsible with the expensive stations and equipment with which we're entrusted.

Operations - We have to keep on operating, no matter what challenges occur. Budget cuts, brownouts, station closures...the department keeps on operating. High call volume and unusual calls, check. Major terrorist attack, check. Long, boring shifts with few or no calls, check. A firefighter-arsonist that shames us all...the rest of us still keep on pulling on the gear and rolling out the doors.

If in doubt about what the priorties are, make sure that you and your crew can stay alive...the other priorities are important, but you can live without them. After all, imaginary intergalactic heros do it all the time, and they have it made compared to us. After all, their problems are imaginary.

To evaluate progress, take a SEET

2009-04-11T17:10:00.000-07:00

During simple call like a room and contents fire, it's usually fairly easy to evaluate progress.

The black smoke turns to white steam, the fire goes out, the building cools down, we go home, and the invetigators take over. The next morning, the local newspaper reports the wins and losses...hopefully with a box score that reads "Fire Department wins, 1 to 0". The local paper usually isn't shy about reporting the score when we're on the losing end, either.

Have you ever seen the morning paper report a tie score?

I've never seen a "Fire 1, Fire Department 1" front page box score. That means that eventually we figured out who won, but during the fight, it wasn't easy to tell. We can have a smoky fire that's difficult to find, even with thermal imagers. We can have a prolonged entrapment at a motor vehicle accident with so much wreckage that it's difficult to tell if we're making real progress or not. We can have a major incident where it takes days to find all of the problems and weeks to sort them out.

I've found a simple way to evaluate progress that works on almost any incident type...you just have a SEET. SEET is a simple set of four strategy considerations that you ask yourself Jeopardy style...in the form of a question.

Safety - Are we being safe? If we don't create additional patients, properly care for the people who were injured before we arrived, and operate using safety equipment, PPE, and while practicing safe behaviors, then we're being safe. If we're injuring responders, operating carelessly, or not wearing appropriate PPE, then we're not being safe.

Effectiveness - Are we being effective? Are we getting the job done? Can we tell? Task completion is the easiest way to measure effectiveness, but on a prolonged incident, task completion might have to be broken down into a subset of smaller tasks. "Cut through Beam A by 4 PM" or "Defensively confine the fire to the structure of origin if we can't extinguish the fire offensively in the next ten minutes" are pretty obvious measures of effectiveness.

Efficiency - Are we being efficient? Did we do an accurate size-up and take the right tools to the building or wrecked vehicle the first time, or did we have to send firefighters back to the rig for something that was forgotten or not anticipated? Did we split a four-firefighter crew so that they could accomplish two simultaneous tactical objectives? Are we operating in a manner that looks calm, smooth, and professional?

Timeliness - Are we doing things in a timely manner? Are we doing things at the right time and in the right sequence. Timeliness includes getting water on the room and contents before it extends, stabilizing the wrecked vehicle prior to applying tons of force to the it...and to the patient's cervical spine injury, and in performing tactical priorities in the correct sequence for the situation. RECEO-VS is a mneumonic invented by a Timeliness fan.

I don't know about you, but I'm having a SEET the next time I want the paper to report a win for the firefighters.

Staging Prevents DIOs

2009-04-05T13:35:00.001-07:00

"DIO" is a "Disfunctional Incident Outcome". A DIO can be something as mundane as two engines trying to lay in from opposite directions in the same street, or it can be something as severe as a LODD at hazmats, shootings, and other violent or escalating incidents.
Staging Prevents Funerals when you're responding to incidents with an expanding Hot Zone.

Rolling the Window Down on Safety

2009-04-04T19:24:00.000-07:00

Skip Kirkwood's Jems Connect blog had an excellent post about the recent multiple shootings at the nursing home in Carthage, NC, Binghamton, NY, and todays triple police officer murder in Pittsburgh, PA. Skip made some excellent points about how to approach dangerous scenes.

Skip's post triggered reminders of some old street safety habits that were daily occurrances in two high-volume cities where I previously worked. I have gotten a little slack on using these basic survival behaviors, due to the relatively peaceful nature of the town where I work now.
Skip's reminder that two of the three above multiple shootings occurred in similar "peaceful" towns to mine reminded me that there's no such thing as a really safe place to work fire-rescue or EMS.

My old habits - ones I dusted off today - are the following:

1) Roll the Window Down on Safety. If you roll the window down at least a block out from the scene, you can hear screams or gunfire that would otherwise not be heard over the death metal your new EMS partner or engine driver plays while responding. Rolling down the window also lets you smell the natural gas leak started by the car that creamed the meter when it hit the house or the unusual smoke smells from the landscaping company fire that was reported next door to the actual fire location. With the window up, you have disengaged four of your five senses - vision is the only one working. With the window down, you add the senses of hearing and smell, and triple the number of senses working to keep you alive and unhurt.

2) Stage on every call where a known violent event has occurred. Domestic violence, reported shootings/stabbings/assaults, robberies, hostage situations, or even unknown suspicious scenes or high-crime locations are good places to stay away from until law enforcement secures the scene. Stage a block away, out of line of sight, and it could save the lives of everyone riding your rig.

3) Don't run the lights and siren right up to the front door. Unless you work on crowded city streets where you can't get to the scene any other way, it won't make a real difference if you cut the lights and siren a block out. Being the center of attention is great...unless you're a shooter's bullseye. Reducing your "Bullseye Profile" might also save your life.

Roll the window down, stage, lower your Bullseye Profile, and remember that bad things happen in otherwise peaceful towns as well as in the big city.