Thanks to Captain Larry Collins for “More Rapid Intervention: ‘Grab and Go’ Turnout Handles” (Fire Engineering, February 2009) and the work behind it. Trying to find a way to enhance the critical task of removing a downed firefighter, especially under inhospitable conditions, is a worthy endeavor. It is from this type of study and practical evolutions that useful techniques and equipment evolve.
It was interesting to note Collins’ mention of the “then-new drag rescue device concept that evolved” from the Brett Tarver line-of-duty death in 2001. In the mid-1980s, the volunteer fire department I served as fire chief purchased all turnout coats with what was then known as a “Fallen Man Harness.” Morning Pride offered this as an option, and it was the same thing as the “new” drag rescue device (DRD) that now is offered in turnout coats and is part of the National Fire Protection Association standards. The primary difference was that it was a more robust strapabout two inches wide, as I recall. Not only did our firefighters’ turnout coats have the integrated device, but we spent a good amount of time training on its use and firefighter rescue in general.
Alas, the department was merged with others, and the forward-looking safety device fell by the wayside for the department and (I think) the vendor. It is encouraging to finally see the integrated harness recognized as a valuable tool.
Harold Thiele
Assistant Chief
Miami Township Fire & EMS
Milford, Ohio
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“The Right Thing and the Right Way”
This refers to “The Right Thing and the Right Way” (Editor’s Opinion, Fire Engineering, February 2009). One thing that concerns me is the interpretation of the National Incident Management System (NIMS) that says “the first-due company officers remain outside as ‘Command’ and direct their crews from an exterior location at every working structure fire.” That scares me. Being a new company officer (18 months now), the thought of not being with my crew at an emergency scene is sickening and startling. However, I guess it’s the fire department’s right to write standard operating procedures the way it wants so long as they are NIMS compliant. I respectfully disagree. I still will argue adamantly that a first-in company officer should be with his crew.
Mike Newbury
Captain
St. Louis (MO) Fire Department
I wholeheartedly agree with Bobby Halton’s “The Right Thing and the Right Way.” The application of National Incident Management System-Incident Command System (NIMS-ICS) is an example of government run amok. It is more than the “800-pound gorilla” in the room Halton describes. It is pure lunacy. It is like saying, “You must use a table saw in your woodshop to do all of the wood cutting” even though in some situations the band saw, radial arm saw, coping saw, miter-box saw, hack saw, or cross-cut or rip saw would be the better saw for that particular cut.
The NIMS Alert dated August 18, 2005, by the NIMS Integration Center at the Department of Homeland Security states: “The requirement is to adopt and implement NIMS and ICS means NIMS and ICS every day. The point is that all responders at all levels use the same organizational structures, terminology, procedures, and systems all the time.”
I see two major problems with NIMS. The first is the perspective in which it is taught. Ninety-five percent of the course time is devoted to large-scale multiagency incidents that most people attending the course will never or will infrequently face. Even though NIMS states it is applicable to all incidents, even single-unit operations, the training does not focus on the everyday incidents that occur 99 percent of the time. This disproportion causes students to dismiss NIMS in their minds as something that they will never use. Maybe a whole new course strictly focusing on NIMS-ICS at everyday incidents should be added.
Second is that NIMS-ICS is unrealistic when compared with the everyday environment in which most fire departments in the United States operate. At the recent U.S. Air emergency landing in the Hudson River, FDNY was able to assemble and devote 15 battalion chiefs and two deputy chiefs to the incident in a matter of minutes. And that was just on the New York side of the river. I have no idea how many chiefs were assigned on the New Jersey side. How many of the more than 30,000 fire departments in the United States could assemble more than a handful of chief officers at a major incident quickly to staff the modules necessary in NIMS-ICS? A dozen?
Using company officers, especially in the seriously understaffed fire companies most fire departments operate with, to fill NIMS-ICS positions is not a good policy for safety and efficiency reasons. Company officers can be incident commanders (ICs) at single-unit situations and even the initial IC at major incidents. The first-arriving company officer will be the initial IC and determine whether to initiate an offensive or defensive operation, where to position the apparatus, what size line to stretch, where to take the line, what type of water supply to use, and even when to call additional resources. Just recently, the company officer of FDNY Ladder Company 47 transmitted a second alarm on arrival for a fire in the Bronx, New York, that had already extended into an exposure. This rapid second alarm was instrumental in containing the fire to just the two structures involved on arrival.
A number of years ago, I presented a weeklong series of lectures on incident command to a southern capital city fire department. I had an extremely hard time getting across some of my concepts on incident command because the attendees were fixated on the wording used in ICS. This was before NIMS. This department protected the city with a full career department and the surrounding county under contract, with paid drivers supplemented by volunteer firefighters and company officers. Career chiefs responded from the city to incidents in the county.
The concept that was difficult to get across was that it is very different when a company officer arrives at fires in the city and is the initial IC, and the battalion chief is 90 seconds behind him; in the county, the company officer is the initial IC, and the chief is 10 to 15 minutes away. In the city, the company officers can make all the decisions previously mentioned, but they don’t take a stationary command position, set up a command post, and go through a 12-step change of command ceremony when the battalion chief arrives 90 seconds after the company officer. There isn’t much to tell the battalion chief about all the things that happened and all the decisions made in 90 seconds that the battalion chief can’t see for himself. In this situation, the company officer stays with and directs his company and can radio a report to the battalion chief. In a well-trained fire department with comprehensive standard operating procedures, a first-alarm assignment should be able to self-deploy and operate without specific orders from the IC.
Again, in the county, it’s a different story. One of the first-arriving officers must become the IC and coordinate all operations until the arrival of the chief and enough command officers to expand the command structure to address the size and nature of the incident. This company officer can assign one of his qualified firefighters to act as a company officer or assign his company to another unit with a company officer.
NIMS-ICS also requires clear voice radio transmissions. This may be great for a small department that has its own radio frequency, but what about big cities such as New York that have limited frequencies? FDNY, which protects a population of 8.25 million people, has only four dispatch frequencies for the five boroughs. The Bronx and Staten Island share a single dispatch frequency. Maybe this will change when more frequencies are freed up by the change to digital over-the-air TV broadcasting.
The state of New Jersey has the same population as New York City and is protected by 700 separate fire departments using dozens, if not hundreds, of dispatch frequencies. In New York, a fire company giving dispatch a disposition on a response might say, “At box 3622 a 10-18 for a 10-22.” This transmission takes five seconds. Using clear voice, the fire company would say, “At box 3622, we are using the first-due engine and the first-due ladder company for an outside rubbish fire. All other responding units can return to quarters.” This transmission takes 15 seconds. Having all routine transmissions take this long would clog the dispatch radio frequency and prove disastrous. In my 42 years in FDNY, I have never heard of a misinterpretation of the 10-code radio signals by dispatchers or line units. If we need mutual aid and responding units don’t know our 10 codes, it is easy to speak to them in a clear voice. No training is needed to accomplish this.
As I stated in one of my previous articles, I can show the full implementation of ICS in Currier and Ives lithographs of fires in the early 1800s. ICS is not new. I don’t need the federal government saying I can’t use the numbers “10-18” in a radio transmission. NIMS is good. NIMS is necessary. NIMS saves lives. But, there has to be flexibility. Although some of the thoughts in my previously published articles differed from those of Chief Alan Brunacini, I definitely agree with his proposal that a Local NIMS (LIMS) be used at everyday incidents and that NIMS be used at extraordinary incidents. We need more than one type of saw in our shop.
Ted Goldfarb
Deputy Chief (Retired)
FDNY
Fire Science Coordinator Middlesex County (NJ) College
