November 28, 2012
Why is Emergency Management the Fire Service’s Whipping Boy?

Like with any profession, there are different generations within the fire rescue service. In the sixties and seventies, you had the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) generation—the very first EMTs and paramedics, many of whom delivered service from the tailboard of a fire engine. In the eighties, there was the Hazardous Materials (Haz Mat) generation, who developed tools, techniques and protective clothing for dealing with a world that had become dangerously complacent about modern chemicals in their lives. The firefighters of the nineties were the technical rescue guys, and proved their worth in places named Northridge, Oklahoma City, and Manhattan. I would argue that the 1990s were also the first time that firefighters collectively stopped and made what is now (for us) a clichéd observation: “Hey, they keep giving us a bunch of new, strange stuff to do!” Then everybody shrugged their shoulders and went back to work. There are very few fire rescue services extant where the mission is just putting out fires.  In various configurations, the 21st century firefighter fights fires—albeit more rarely than ever—delivers medical care, contains the release of haz mats, and performs rescues in almost unimaginable situations. The firefighters of the 2010s are also a part of the Emergency Management generation, but unlike their predecessors they seem particularly unwilling to embrace this latest addition to their duties. In a nutshell, emergency management has existed for decades under different names. Basically, it is the concept that the public safety, public works, utility and political bodies in a given area (a town, county, region, etc.) recognize the different types of risks faced by their community, agree to work together to either prevent the risk or deal with the effects of an emergency, and develop plans on how exactly they will prevent and respond to different risks. More problematically, it also means that these groups will find a way to communicate using the same terms and structures, and that a given group will be a “team player” during an incident even if a representative of that group isn’t in command of the situation. During World War II and shortly after it was called Civil Defense. In the sixties and seventies this coordinating and facilitating service might have been done by an Emergency Services and Disaster Agency (ESDA). In subsequent decades and especially after the creation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the modern emergency management profession was born. The point of this history lesson is that really, emergency management is not some new, strange looking baby that’s been left on the doorstep of the fire rescue services. Its intent and practice is also not at all outside of the fire rescue service’s scope of responsibility. So why the resistance? Why do you hear of fire officers scoffing that the National Incident Management System (NIMS) stands for “Not In My Station?” Why are there still reports of police officers and firefighters involved in confrontations over vehicle placement(!) at motor vehicle collisions? Why are public works and utility workers greeted with “Took you long enough” when a fire rescue company has been “babysitting” a downed power line after a strong storm? If we’re all working toward the same goal why can’t we all get along? I suggest that the problems come from 1) the fire rescue services’ issues with trust and control, and 2) substantial work in the theory and framework of emergency management, but little work in coming together as a group of organizations and practicing emergency management. To elaborate:

1)      Trust and control: Veteran fire rescue professionals will understand this problem if they consider how long it took their organizations to come around to the idea of mutual aid and its more useful offspring, automatic aid. For the uninitiated: mutual aid is an agreement between two fire rescue services that Town A will send help if Town B is faced with a large fire or other situation which taxes the resources of its fire rescue service. Automatic aid is the automatic dispatch of resources from Town A to Town B for certain, pre-agreed upon emergencies, usually with some type of reciprocity in place. The catch is (or was, hopefully, in most of the country) that Town B’s fire chief remained in charge of all resources working to control the emergency—including firefighters, etc. from Town A. As mutual and automatic aid systems have evolved, individual fire and rescue services have had to overcome an amount of distrust in each other. Eventually the point of view has emerged that all fire rescues services regardless of jurisdiction comprise a team trying to meet the same objectives. However, this has taken place over the last fifteen to twenty years. Think of how much more distrust (and fear, to be perfectly honest) there must be when a fire rescue service contemplates working an incident with “outsiders” from public works, or an out-of-state specialized response team, or, God forbid, that a police official be the incident commander where firefighters are working. Most industry professionals consider 2001 as the unofficial birth of modern emergency management with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the eventual promulgation of NIMS, and the final recognition of terrorism, pandemics, and natural disasters as local or regional events with possible national effects. That’s only eleven years…and the old saw that firefighting is “Three hundred years of tradition unimpeded by progress” is not an unfounded charge. We couldn’t get along with each other until relatively recently, and still get antsy when we’re operating under the command of some other guy’s chief. How much greater that distrust must be when we’re forced together with other people who—gasp!—don’t ride on big red trucks. Working together and developing familiarity with each other will help a lot with this problem, but my point is that, simply, it’s also going to take a lot of time. Which leads us to…

2)      Problems in the practice of emergency management: “Wait a minute,” I hear you saying. “Our chiefs just went to a tabletop exercise. Our county’s Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) is six inches thick!” Well and good, but how much of that trickles down to the folks in the field? Take a common enough, everyday situation in which several agencies come together to deal with an emergency—a gas leak. Naturally the fire rescue service will have developed its own SOGs for responding to this sort of incident, but do your local police (i.e. the folks on the beat) know how the fire rescue people prefer to isolate the affected area? Do they know how to coordinate with the battalion chief? Do they even have any idea who might be in charge when they see a bunch of different colored helmets running around? Does the battalion chief know how to contact the shift supervisor for public works, and have they discussed the need for barricades, sand barriers, and heavy equipment before? Have the guy driving the dump truck and the new lieutenant on the engine met before, or received any guidance on the roles and responsibilities of the other during an incident? Should you call the mobile command post, and when? Who will occupy the command post? Who’s in command? Now some lately-evacuated residents are reporting headaches and nausea from being downwind of the leak, so you need to establish an EMS group in your Operations branch (you’ve remembered to implement NIMS, right?). Where do they set up and what are their responsibilities as the incident extends? This is not a particularly complicated or unusual scenario, but you can see how the different organizations come together and how many different, connected decisions need to be made. Maybe these are things that ought to be practiced—not just talked about—by the people who will actually be “doing it,” and not decided in an ad hoc meeting outside the hot zone while more of your citizens fall ill and their homes fill with combustible gas. This is what is meant by the practice of emergency management; the boots-on-the-ground folks do what they would do during an emergency. They meet each other, get to know each other, and get used to the idea of maybe, briefly, working for another organization’s boss. Interoperability, which is the fancy, industry jargon name for different organizations seamlessly working together like this, becomes a practiced skill for firefighters and others, just like raising a ladder or laying down fire hose. Tabletop exercises and doorstop-sized EOPs are still needed, but they’re essentially just someone’s theory until the included groups act on them—together. For what it’s worth, the scenario I’ve just described could be thoroughly drilled within two to three hours. You can’t find a handful of hours in the course of a work year to perform emergency management exercises quarterly or biannually? I don’t buy it. If emergency management is a core value of your fire rescue service—the same way firefighting is, or EMS, or Haz Mat, or technical rescue—then treat it that way. Bring it into your firefighter training. Talk about it during your kitchen table coffee break meetings. Invite the utility guys or the mass casualty folks from the hospital over to talk about what they’re going to do when the Big One happens, and how they do it. Firefighters are creatures who are highly observant of others’ behavior; when they see the brass and their company commanders demonstrating an internalization of this core value, they’ll follow…and your operations will improve.    

5:25pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZiCtLvYFYLe-
October 9, 2012
A New Look at an Old Concept

 

     Usually I’m the last person to look back at the “good old days” in the fire rescue service. I find no romance in riding on the tailboard of an engine, or in leather helmets or in the idea of going to a house fire every day. But not every blast from the past is without merit. For instance, a current and vital debate in the fire rescue service is whether or not to install home fire sprinklers. Putting aside arguments about privacy rights of homeowners, cost and political wrangling, I’ll just say that sprinklers are a piece of technology more than a century old with a proven record of reliable and effective performance. Another “oldie but goodie” is Fire Prevention Week, which has been observed for nearly 90 years and was first proclaimed by President Calvin Coolidge in order to bring attention to “startling” fire losses in the United States. Even today among industrialized nations, and despite our robust firefighting resources, the U.S. depressingly leads the world in fire deaths and property loss due to fire.

     So not every old idea is a bad one. And the situation in my fire department—in which we’re trying to decide how many and what type of new apparatus to purchase—has me thinking about another old idea that maybe ought to be revisited: the quad or “city service” type of truck.

     We aren’t looking at buying a ladder truck, but a lot of my writing and teaching is geared toward rural and suburban communities where there is a need for more of a ladder capability than is offered by a regular pumper, but where the cost of a ladder truck may be prohibitively high. However these communities will still have small apartment buildings, 2-3 story school buildings, stately old Victorian homes and newer “McMansions;” buildings in the 35-50 foot range of height. In other words, they can find themselves in situations where two ladders on the first in engine—usually a 28 foot extension ladder, a 16 foot roof ladder, and a 10 foot attic ladder— aren’t going to cut it. If you don’t have (and can’t afford) a ladder truck, what can you do? Well, what about a quad truck or a city service style ladder truck?

     First, a bit of definition. According to fire apparatus manufacturers, a “triple combination pumper” is a fire engine which carries hose, its own tank of water, and a fire pump. In other words, what most folks think of when they think of a fire engine. “Aerial apparatus,” or ladder trucks, carry a selection of ground ladders as well as a large ladder fixed to the truck itself. A variation on the aerial apparatus is the “quint,” which is a ladder truck which also incorporates the features of a triple combination pumper. Years ago, though, there was an “in-between” truck: the quad. A quad apparatus is a triple combination pumper that also carries about 100 feet of ground ladders. This gives the engine company the extra capability to affect fire attack or rescue at heights not possible with a regular engine. Since it’s strongly advised that any building on fire be laddered on all sides, this naturally gives the smaller fire department the ability to perform this key safety and operational task which might not otherwise be possible. The city service ladder truck is a cousin of the quad; it was also common into the 1950s, and is very similar to an aerial ladder truck, minus the aerial device. A city service ladder truck may carry more ventilation and rescue specific tools than a quad, and greater quantities of ladders, including the 50 foot Bangor ladder which is still occasionally seen in service around the country. Realistically, when we think of fire attack with handlines, rescue and vertical ventilation, in a rural or suburban community these tasks are often performed at heights of fifty feet or less. Since the city service ladder truck didn’t carry hose, water or a fire pump, it has a greater capacity for specialized equipment, which to my mind makes it ideal for use both as a ladder resource and as a rescue vehicle. For a small community where a fire truck is a major purpose, we cannot discount how important it is for some vehicles to perform in multiple roles.

     By now I hope you’re wondering, “If they’re so useful, why aren’t these trucks still around?” The answer is….a long story. Part of the reason has to do with standards. NFPA 1901, Standard on Automotive Fire Apparatus, contains definitions for various types of pumpers, aerials, and rescue or service vehicles. A quad is not quite an engine, and not quite a ladder truck; a city service truck is not quite an aerial and not quite a rescue truck. As I said, they’re “in-between” vehicles for communities where buying several single-purpose vehicles isn’t practical or isn’t possible. But the consensus industry standard for firefighting vehicles doesn’t make allowances for the “in-between.” Because of this the Insurance Services Office (ISO), who for many years was the leading grader of the effectiveness of fire departments, would not give fire departments credit for these vehicles, so eventually people stopped buying and building them. That was then; this is now. While there still exist in the national fire rescue service many diehards who believe that ISO’s grading schedule is the be-all, end-all of judging a fire department, there is also a dedicated minority who realize 1) that a good ISO score is not necessarily indicative of the actual ability of the local firefighting force, and 2) that fires today constitute only a small part of what the modern fire rescue service does, and that fires beyond the reach of a ground ladder constitute a smaller part of that total. So while you, as the fire rescue service of a small community, might not need an aerial apparatus to protect your citizens, you also ought to realize that if you’re fighting a fire over ground ladders that you’ll need A LOT of ladders; more than the 2-5 you’ll find on the engines which are part of your first-in structure fire response. If you’re more interested in accomplishing the mission than in how your department looks on paper, maybe you should consider a quad or a city service apparatus. Talk to your truck manufacturer about it; business is business, so they’ll try to talk you into a true aerial or buying more than one engine, but remind them that if they can build custom fire apparatus, they can build you one of these rare and versatile vehicles; an old idea whose time may have come again.    

1:13pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZiCtLvUzJjCC
June 27, 2012

theatlantic:

In Focus: The Terrifying, ‘Epic’ Wildfire in Colorado

Colorado Springs Fire Chief Rich Brown described the blaze as “a fire of epic proportions,” as tens of thousands of Colorado residents and tourists have been evacuated ahead of the growing, potentially disastrous Waldo Canyon fire. This fire joins several others across the state, including the High Park fire, which has consumed nearly 90,000 acres since June 9. While no reports of deaths or injuries have surfaced, hundreds of homes have been destroyed, with many more threatened. Fire crews are doing their best to contain the fires and save what homes they can, as authorities urged residents to flee affected areas.

See more. [AP, Reuters, Colorado National Guard]

8:44pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZiCtLvOG9omz
Filed under: rural fire review 
June 22, 2012
Mayberry Needs an Emergency Manager, Too!

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about the latest addition to the fire rescue service package: emergency management. Like a lot of new things, it’s currently also the least popular, at least in informal surveys I’ve done. That’s too bad because I would say that local fire rescue services probably play the dominant role in any type of disaster scenario. Whether it’s fire suppression, technical rescue, hazardous materials management, medical care, or restoring infrastructure, we’re usually the first ones there.  Ten years on in this modern era of emergency management, though, when you ask a firefighter about the term “emergency management” he or she will think of either 1) storm spotting, or 2) the old civil defense model from the 1950s and 60s. Unfortunately, in some emergency management agencies this attitude still persists, not the least because many fire rescue services have responsibility for their area’s EMA. In smaller communities, some fire rescue officers may not even know their role in emergency management, or even who has the local responsibility for an EMA.  Take the Midwest, for example; I will because it’s where I happen to live. It is tornado season here, and as I’ve said that’s where most people’s conception of emergency management stops. But we’re also in the middle of a drought. This increases our risk of wildland or ground cover fires (which are ALWAYS a multi-agency, interdisciplinary operation), but also increases the risk of heat-related medical emergencies—which most rural fire rescue professionals seem to conceive of as a “big city” problem. But suppose you’re a managing fire rescue officer in a rural volunteer or combination fire department and the air conditioning breaks at your local nursing home; or a touring bus experiences a breakdown; or prolonged high heat is creating health problems for the very old and very young in your community. Where do you put these people so that they can be comfortable? How do you address the problem? How do you manage a large amount of long-term medical patients while still providing emergency protection for the community? This is an overlooked area in which fire rescue and emergency management authorities ought to be working together closely, and not just at the management level. After all, it’s not the fire chief or the emergency manager who’s going to be setting up a sheltered area, triaging patients and lining up follow-on response resources—it’s the company level supervisors and lower-level EMA professionals. Or what about that large pasture or crop fire? How do you manage traffic around the area? What’s your command structure for all of the other fire rescue agencies coming in to help you? Where do you stage oncoming resources, and where do you put displaced residents? If the fire affects farm properties, what is the haz mat potential, and who do you call? All of these considerations—for ONE type of summertime incident, mind you—should lead you to believe that instead of looking at this as “a fire,” officers ought to be looking at it as a true disaster situation, and one that your local EMA can help you with. But it takes close collaboration between the EMA and the fire rescue service; simply walking through the mobile command post annually is not enough. Both emergency management agencies and fire rescue services MUST adapt themselves to looking at the communities they serve though an “all hazards” lens, and acclimate themselves to working together more frequently. If the EMA is located within the fire rescue service, then emergency management has to be included (in your mission statement, too!) as a core value and function of the fire rescue service, and your members should be trained to serve as effectively in those roles as they are in medical care, rescue,  and fire suppression. If you happen to be your local emergency manager, don’t just hide out in your basement EOC, either—don’t be afraid to go have a cup of coffee at the fire station a couple of times per month; give the fire rescue folks a heads-up on emerging risks, and neither side should be afraid to say, “Hey, we’re worried about this part of our response. Is it something you can help us with?” Hopefully my thinking has gotten you thinking, too. As always, if you have any questions about how to bring this part of your service up to speed, come see us at Rural Firefighting Review!

1:35pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZiCtLvNvQn7l
May 31, 2012
Competitive Exams for Volunteer Officers?

A bit of history trivia: do you know where the term “black balled” comes from? No doubt you’ve heard it before—what you might not know is that it comes from the first volunteer fire companies in the United States. New members were voted into the organization via ballots containing black or white balls; when the ballot box was opened, a candidate was not accepted if there was even a single black ball (or negative ballot) cast. Elections for company officers were held in similar fashion and, in the true democratic spirit of our nation’s early days, all members were eligible for election/promotion. For decades, this was the accepted promotional practice in the volunteer fire rescue services, and in some parts of the country, this outdated practice is still in use. Lately in the fire rescue world (which is a bit like a gossipy small town) there has been a lot of talk about basic firefighter qualifications, particularly for volunteers who don’t have the time to devote to training and professional development that their full-time, paid counterparts do. What’s being left by the wayside, though, are questions of qualifications to supervise volunteer firefighters and the processes used by volunteer fire rescue services to promote their members into those supervisory positions. In this blog, I suggest that a competitive exam process for supervisor or company officer promotion in a volunteer service is an idea whose time has come.

First, let’s review how company officers can be promoted in some of the current systems, which Joe Citizen may not even be aware of. Still, placing the right personnel in the right position, even if it’s unglamorous, is an important public safety function. As previously mentioned, the oldest and least rigorous method is popular election. Another way is appointment by the governmental oversight of the fire rescue service; this can be a village board, town council or fire district board of trustees. In this process, the prospective officer submits an application and sometimes a resume to the board, attends a brief interview, and appointments are made based on what the local trustees “think is right.” In a variation on this method, chief level officers interview the candidates for company officer positions and make recommendation to their boards of trustees. Sometimes there are guidelines in the form of an SOG or administrative memo for assessing the candidate’s interview, but usually there are not. Success or failure is determined mostly by personal preferences and prejudices of the interviewing chiefs. While I won’t say that an interview is without value, I do strongly believe that it is of less value than is currently believed in the volunteer service. However, as with many other aspects of their organization and service delivery, many volunteer fire rescue services feel that they do not have the time or resources to devote to developing written exams or a more quantifiable promotion process. I feel that what I’m proposing is not only manageable, but that it will also serve as a means for these organizations to kill two birds with one stone.

No matter the size or composition of the local fire rescue service, there must be basic qualifications met before a person enters a promotional process. For a volunteer organization, I would suggest that the candidate have at least five years of documented fire rescue service, with at least two of those being served with the organization. The reason for this separation is that volunteer firefighters lead mobile lives, the same as other people; in fact, the average person moves once every seven years. The days of a person being born and raised in a small town, buying a house and serving on the local fire department for ten to twenty years are long gone. Knowing this, I feel that it is a waste of time on behalf of the volunteer firefighter and of the resources of the organization to have an experienced and trained volunteer “start over” with basic recruit training when he or she moves to a new community and wants to continue as a firefighter. However, the provision for serving two years with his or her current organization assures at least a basic level of familiarity with the community and the organization and operations of the fire rescue service. The organization should also consider other prerequisites such as completed courses in basic and advanced firefighting, fire apparatus driving and operation, and the appropriate courses mandated for company officers in the National Incident Management System (NIMS). When these requirements are met, the candidate is able to sit for the promotional exam, which I suggest be given every three years—with the terms of office for company officers also being three years. The written test need not be an extensive ordeal; for a small organization, even a 100 question multiple-choice test would be sufficient. The test must address the job performance requirements of National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Standard 1021, Standard for Fire Officer Professional Qualifications. It must also address the local service’s Standard Operating Guidelines, hazards unique to the community, and sources of water supply. It should also be obvious that the people who write this test are not the people who are competing for the company officer promotions; writing the test can be done by officers from other fire rescue organizations, managerial level officers within the local fire rescue service, or by an outside third party (such as Rural Fire Review!). Once the exams are graded—again, by the impartial outside party—a predetermined number of candidates with the top scores will move on to an interview. For example, in a volunteer organization of thirty members with three company officer positions, it would be practicable for the top five to seven scorers to move on to the next part of the process.

For those who don’t move on, or those who don’t earn a promotion, this is where the “two birds with one stone” aspect comes into play. Small fire rescue services don’t always have a company officer available; or, a company officer must step up into an incident command role, leaving a (usually) senior firefighter to command the fire company. But oftentimes, these small services don’t provide any training in supervision to their line personnel. I submit that studying for a promotion does, in fact, count as training in that area which can be documented and quantified. I would further assert that, in order to insure a basic level of knowledge for firefighters who must serve temporarily in an officer position, local fire rescue services mandate that firefighters wanting to be able to fill this role take and pass the company officer promotional exam, and pass it with at least a score of 70%. Even if the firefighter is not promoted, he or she now has hours of documented training in this field and a degree of practical knowledge should he or she have to step up and supervise other firefighters on the emergency scene. The studying (i.e. additional training) makes emergency operations safer, setting local standards for officers and acting officers insulates the organization from liability, and having a process helps the career development of everybody involved. It also helps strengthen a member’s ties to the organization, and encourages participation in the activities of the fire rescue service (all experienced volunteers know or have known “no-shows” who have somehow managed to get promoted). The old “vote for me” system makes a volunteer officer more of a politician than a supervisor and a leader. It’s arbitrary, outdated and, frankly, dangerous.  For these reasons, volunteer fire and rescue services must embrace a quantitative, competitive promotional process for its officers—an idea whose time has truly come.

11:32am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZiCtLvMUUwwG
May 25, 2012
I Want My SOG

Does your fire rescue organization have Standard Operating Guidelines (SOGs)? If it does, do you make them a part of your service delivery? In other words, do you use them? If you’re serving in a volunteer, combination or small full-time fire department, odds are that you might not, because a) members of the organization think it takes up too much valuable time to develop a set of SOGs, or b) if the organization has some, they’re so out of date as to no longer be practical. It’s really too bad because no matter the size or composition of your local fire rescue service, a well developed set of SOGs can make operations safer, administration more efficient, and help insulate the organization from liability (if they’re followed, which is an entirely different can of worms). I’d like to take a few minutes to describe what Standard Operating Guidelines are and why you ought to have them. I’ll also touch on the development process, and things you can do to reach this goal if you’re one of those “There’s never enough time!” people.

A Standard Operating Guideline (SOG), which is called a Standard Operating Policy in some jurisdictions, is, according to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), a document providing information on actions to be taken in order to accomplish a specific task. I personally prefer the “SOG” designation because calling the document a guideline allows a fire rescue officer exercise judgment in unusual circumstances and allows for flexibility in those situations while maintaining safety and accountability. Some fire rescue services include organizational and administrative information in their SOGs, which is a method I recommend to smaller services who don’t feel they have time to create separate rules and regulations or general orders. Topics covered in a general set of SOGs can include:

·         Organization and administration

·         Hiring practices and job classifications

·         Promotion and disciplinary practices

·         Facility and equipment maintenance programs

·         Fire emergency response guidelines

·         Rescue response guidelines

·         Emergency medical standards of care

·         Special services (technical rescue, hazardous materials response, etc.) organization and guidelines

·         Emergency management plans

·         Preventative services (fire code enforcement, public fire education, etc.)

The “Cliff’s Notes” is that the SOGs describe what services the organization offers and what you do when you encounter a situation it isn’t trained or equipped to handle. They should also cover who may or may not serve in the organization, and how people are able to move into supervisory and management positions. They provide a convenient place for job classifications and descriptions, as well as explaining the organizational chart (another useful document every fire rescue service should have) and the chain of command. SOGs provide a means for handling emergency situations safely and consistently; in effect, they are the fire rescue service’s “playbook” and allow members to know what is expected for the completion of each organizational task.

As if these weren’t good enough reasons for the fire rescue service to use a current set of SOGs, it’s also a practice encouraged by NFPA, which produces consensus industry standards for fire and rescue worldwide. The development of SOGs is strongly suggested in Section 4.5.3.1 of NFPA 1201, Standard for Providing Fire and Emergency Services to the Public, which states:

            “The fire and emergency services organization leader shall develop and adopt a formal policy statement that includes the specific types and levels of services to be provided by the organization, and delegation of authority to subordinates.”

Having a comprehensive set of SOGs should also be addressed in the organization’s risk management plan as such plans are explained in NFPA 1250, Recommended Practice in Fire and Emergency Service Organization Risk Management. Essentially, since NFPA is the consensus standard of record for fire and emergency services in the United States and Canada, this means that your organization could be held liable for following these standards in a misfeasance, malfeasance or negligence type of tort situation.

Now that we’ve established that having these documents makes good organizational and operational sense, and that they provide some degree of legal protection, I’d like to discuss some “nuts and bolts” of actually putting together Standard Operating Guidelines. Who should write your SOGs? In some fire rescue services, this is the exclusive responsibility of officers in managerial positions; in others, SOG development is an elected or appointed committee. Some departments choose to bring in an outside expert to assist with creating SOGs (which can be done with Rural Firefighting Review).

In general, if personnel from within the organization will generate these documents, it is best if the people who will be using the SOGs write them. E.g. chiefs write or assist with documents addressing control of emergency scenes, organizational management and the like, the training officer focuses on job qualifications and assists with promotional practices, etc. Members of the organization who have special interest or training in particular areas should share in the development of the SOGs covering those areas. They should also be experienced and active members of the organization, and participation should be voluntary; in my opinion, compulsory participation will only yield a half-baked, poorly done operating guideline. I would also suggest that the SOGs be re-examined for revision every five years; the body should be broken into subject areas so that the whole document isn’t being examined at the same time (i.e. if the body of SOGs has ten subject areas, update two per year, so the project is manageable and the organization is able to stay in a safe time window for maintaining SOGs). Also, if possible, it’s advisable to rotate membership in SOG committees or work groups every 3-4 years; fresh eyes will help identify what works and what doesn’t, and serving in this capacity will give all of the members a sense of ownership in the organization.

As you can see, creating and maintaining standard operating guidelines, and integrating them into fire rescue operations, solves many problems ranging from administration and training on down to the actual emergency responses themselves. They’re an insurance policy for your fire rescue service; many people complain about paying for insurance, but it’s sure nice to have when something goes wrong, isn’t it? Your payment for SOGs is the investment in time and knowledge your organization puts into them in order to assure safety, consistency, and efficiency for the long term. And if you still feel that it’s not something your organization is capable of, we’re always willing to provide help at Rural Firefighting Review!

4:13pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZiCtLvM7m807
May 22, 2012
Is your small business prepared to survive an emergency?

Most small businesses don’t survive a fire or natural disaster; here are some tips to get you thinking about how to protect your business. RFR also offers a business continuity consultancy if you want to know more!

5:12pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZiCtLvLykVYa
May 16, 2012
A Teachable Moment…For the Teachers

Sometimes I think that our fire rescue services are perceived with benign neglect—or at least, benign ignorance—by the public we serve. By that, I mean that most people will look at their firefighters working and assume that they know what they’re doing, or that they’re observing safe work practices and using effective techniques. Be assured, that is not always the case; or, as a coworker puts it, “If people knew what they were actually getting when they call 911, they might think twice about it.” This is particularly on my mind this week because in my area this weekend a firefighter suffered an injury during a training exercise that was entirely preventable. Firefighter training is an area not often discussed with the public when we educate them on the services we provide; occasionally you’ll see a recruit class graduating on the news, or you may drive by a building which is not on fire but is being systematically wrecked by a crew of enthusiastic firefighters. As I said, if you think about it at all, you probably assume that your fire rescue professionals are observing all the best practices, national standards, etc. These observations were emphatically not made during the incident I’ll summarize for you here.

A local volunteer fire department has hosted live-fire training sessions for the last month in a block of vacant buildings on a closed Air Force base in their community. These buildings have had fires set in them, walls breached, holes cut in floors and roofs, and water damage from fire hoses. At the time of the firefighter’s injury, active burning had been taking place in one building for about eight hours. One firefighter I spoke to after the incident particularly noted the condition of the floors, which were full of holes. This is of special concern to us as firefighters because…well, crawling on the floor is our typical way of getting around in a burning building. Visibility is clearest, the air is cooler, and it’s much easier for us to see/feel/hear hazards at floor level. Despite the condition of the building, the approximately ten instructors conducting the training decided to go forward with another evolution. It was during this “just one more” drill that the fire traveled into the common plumbing space of the building, allowing it to spread unchecked by the training hoselines or the mandated safety hose line present in the building. This was not known until the fire was visible from the exterior roof of the structure. At that time, the appropriate action was taken, and students were evacuated from the building so that the situation could be evaluated. It was during the evacuation that one firefighter broke his leg in two places, reportedly while trying to negotiate an area which had been altered during the previous exercises. The firefighter was removed, received medical care and was transported to the local trauma center while the now very real building fire was fought from the outside until it was deemed safe enough to enter and verify extinguishment.

“Fine,” you might be thinking. “No one died, and it was a vacant building, what’s the problem?” From a firefighting and instructional standpoint, there are several problems. Did you know that perennially most firefighter injuries occur during training? Using the old adage that if something is predictable, it’s preventable, I’m forced to conclude that there is no excuse for injuring a firefighter during training. It’s comparable to shooting a police officer so that he or she can appreciate the dangers posed by a gun. There are even national standards designed to prevent it; specifically, National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Standard 1403, Standard on Live Fire Training Evolutions. The first two provisions of the standard are that a live fire training drill has both a safety officer and an instructor-in-charge. The safety officer is a person whose sole job on the fireground is to mitigate unsafe conditions and stop unsafe acts. This person, regardless of his or her rank, has the authority to stop any activity during the training in order to prevent injury or any other potentially dangerous situation. The instructor-in-charge is the person responsible for coordinating the activities of the subordinate instructors, who each supervise a crew of no more than five student firefighters. Importantly, the instructor-in-charge is also the person responsible for compliance with relevant training and firefighting standards, including NFPA 1403. At the time of this writing, it is not clear whether or not this training session had a dedicated safety officer or instructor-in-charge. Whether or not these positions were filled, I find it unbelievable that ten (hopefully) trained instructors came to a consensus that a structurally altered, fire weakened building was still safe to train in, especially after hours of sustained drilling. The standard states that prior to lighting training fires, “An inspection of the structure shall be made to determine that floors, walls, stairs, and other structural components are capable of withstanding the weight of contents, participants, and accumulated water.” It should also be noted that a compromised flooring system is also more prone to sudden collapse; not only was the firefighter injured by the hole in danger, but his entire crew was vulnerable to an already weakened floor—an unacceptable condition. The standard goes on to state that “floor openings shall be covered to be made structurally sound,” which plainly was not observed in this instance.

What happens next? In this case, it depends on the fire department which hosted the training. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) conducts investigations of firefighter deaths, but not of firefighter injuries. The case can be made that the fire rescue service was not in compliance with NFPA 1403, but NFPA standards are just that—consensus industry standards that are guidelines for operations, not law. The only time a standard has the force of law is when it is adopted by ordinance by the authority having jurisdiction; i.e. whoever has governmental oversight of the fire rescue service, be it a board of trustees, city or town council, or county board. However, standards DO have some impact in civil cases as nationally recognized safe practices for firefighting. Unless there is some civil action brought against the local service by the injured firefighter, there is currently nothing to compel his service to use the NFPA standard. Moreover, there is nothing existing to legally compel them to critically examine the incident in order to prevent such an injury from occurring again. There is also the question of the training, qualifications, and coordination between the safety officer and instructor-in-charge, if in fact those positions were filled.

To conclude, this is where I get on my soapbox about fire rescue services being accountable to the taxpayer; according to NIST, firefighter injuries cost from $2-7 million dollars annually, along with time lost and insurance fees. This is an utter waste if we truly believe and put into practice the maxim that training accidents are totally avoidable. There is also the ongoing “hot dog” problem in the fire rescue service: the occurrence of actual structural fires is at an all-time low. But the best way for firefighter to develop their firefighting skills is to put them to use in a burning building; this means that when a vacant structure becomes available for fire training, it is very valuable to the fire rescue services using it. It represents a rare opportunity for firefighters to prevent skill fade and build muscle memory for the techniques and tactics used to safely fight building fires. Knowing the value of this training, fire rescue services owe it to their members and to the public to safely maximize the use of the structure—but also to know when it is no longer safe, and to resist the urge to stay inside and “feel the heat.” If you’re a fire rescue professional, you MUST become conversant with standards for conducting fire training, including professional qualifications of instructors. You owe it to your students to make sure they leave your classes injury-free. If you’re an interested taxpayer, the next time you see your fire department training, don’t be afraid to ask what they’re doing and why. And don’t assume that because someone is standing in the front yard wearing a white helmet and holding a clipboard that that person is an expert. And lastly, if you think your department needs some help with a training or safety program, don’t be afraid to contact us at Rural Firefighting Review!

3:06pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZiCtLvLbb-yb
May 11, 2012
What’s In a Name?

Over the course of what I hope will be a series of informative, albeit accessible and non-preachy, blogs, you’ll hear me call your local fire department something else—the fire rescue service. Why? Is it a ham-handed attempt at branding? Personal idiosyncrasy? Or a small step toward redefining what the public should expect from their public safety services? Come, on—of course it’s the latter. Let’s break down why I think a name change and a change in perspective is in order:

·         FIRE—For an organization whose primary objectives are educating the public on the dangers of fire, enforcing codes designed to prevent fires, investigating the causes of fires and aggressively responding to incidents of fire, this seems to be kosher. We’ll leave “fire” in the fire rescue service. Plus, most places there aren’t any other group trained and equipped to address this unique life safety and quality of life concern.

·         RESCUE—Here’s where the problem starts. “Rescue,” as perceived nationally by fire rescue services is actually a big umbrella. It involves vehicle rescue (who gets there first when you see a motor vehicle collision?) as well as the specialized rescue services—high angle rescue, wilderness and water rescue, confined space rescue and the like. Lastly, it also includes the provision of emergency medical services, a mission carried out in one way or another by the vast majority of fire rescue services in the United States. The “rescue” part of “fire rescue” is, in fact, about 80% of what firefighters are doing when they receive a call for service. Despite this, rescue services remain a secondary focus in fire rescue services

·         SERVICE—Not department. Think of how many departments your local city has. Public works. Police. Neighborhood Services. When city governments and their attendant bureaucracies were organized in the late 19th century, Max Weber called them departments because…ugh, it’s been a while since grad school. I suppose he had to call them something. But “department” is a simple differentiation between government authorities; fire is different from police, which is different from parks, etc. “Service” is a much more accurate descriptor for both fire officials and the public they serve. Public servants provide a service—they don’t impose authority. Firefighters are here to help—always. Maybe it’s a subtle change, but media professionals will tell you that subtle cues affect what people think. As fire rescue professionals, we should want people to think that they can come to us at any time, and know that we’re going to help solve their problem. It’s a reminder to firefighters, too, that they’re here to serve.

Hence, “fire rescue service.” It starts with the name, but it forces fire rescue professional to reconsider how their services are organized; what services are offered; and how firefighters should be selected, trained and equipped. I’ll prove it to you in coming weeks.

6:49pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZiCtLvLJ1wVG
May 8, 2012
1. If you’re a fire department, I hope you have a traffic incident management plan. 2. If you’re a motorist, I hope you have the courtesy to slow down and keep clear of emergencies on our roadways.

1. If you’re a fire department, I hope you have a traffic incident management plan.

2. If you’re a motorist, I hope you have the courtesy to slow down and keep clear of emergencies on our roadways.

3:13pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZiCtLvL75NwN
Liked posts on Tumblr: More liked posts »