LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Liked the fire report
Nice thorough job on your reporting of the Empire State Building fire in the November 1990 issue. All three articles by Hassett, Brannigan, and Smith added insight into the fire incident itself and presented an interesting historical perspective related to highrise fires. Quality stuff.
Ronald Spadafora
Captain City of New York Pi re Department
Reduce flashover risk with sprinklers
Your editorial in the November issue of Fire Engineering speaks of the flashover “phenomenon.” In the article you state several factors that contribute to flashover but nowhere do you mention the fact that the installation of a properly installed and functioning sprinkler system would greatly decrease the likelihood of flashover. Particularly in single-family residences w here properly installed 131) systems are present, the probability of a flashover is greatly decreased.
The thrust of Operation Life Safety and the International Association of l ire Chiefs has been to promote the use of such systems. I would hope that this is also the desire of Fire Engineering.
W illiam V. Dolan
Fire Chief North Andover (MA) Fire Department
Hill Manning’s response: Thanks for the input. Chief l assure you that Fire Engineering recognizes the positive impact that residential sprinklers have on life safety and applauds the efforts by fire service groups to pro- mote the concept. Although in the November editorial I wanted to touch briefly on modifying home products and consumers’ buying habits, l agree with you that no discussion of reducing flashover is complete without addressing the sprinkler issue. We intend to pursue a complete treatment of residential sprinklers in Fire Engineering in the near future.
They beg to differ on rope rescue
Having read the article “Single-Slide Rope Rescue” by Jack Hibbard (November 1990), and with the realization that there is a current focus on high-angle rescue techniques, 1 feel obligated to respond.
First, the words “high-angle rescue” and “inexperienced rescuers” are (or certainly should be) at the opposite ends of the rescue spectrum. This emergency operation is not the place for on-the-job training. If the level of expertise required is unavailable, then prior to the emergency, resources who are able to deal with the emergency should be identified.
Second, when selecting an anchor point for the rescue rappel, it is my opinion that a firefighter does not qualify as a substantial object. While some firefighters may have substantial proportions, they will not be able to handle two body weights when shock loading occurs.
Third, equipment is readily available for a safe victim pick-off. A pickoff strap and emergency rescue strap can be applied in a matter of seconds and ensure safe evacuation from the hostile environment. Few firefighters have the strength to hold a victim safely and securely for any period of time, even if the victim assists. It is of little value to successfully pull someone from a dangerous situation and then have them injured as a result of the rescue operation.
Dick Olson
Fire Chief
Meeks Bay (CA) Fire Protection
District 1
Certified Instructor, State of California
Jack Hibbard advocates using a firefighter as an anchor point for a pickoff. A firefighter used as an anchor might hold a single rappeler if there were no shock loads, but there’s no margin for safety. Let the rappeler pick up the victim and it’s a certain air rappel resulting in three craters. Remember the 15 to 1 safety factor? Where am I going to find a 9,000pound firefighter to use as an anchor for a two-person load?
Hibbard also states that during the pick-off, the rescuer “uses one or both hands to hold the victim to him.” No mention of locking off or of what happens to the descending device when the brake hand is removed (two craters). This might all look good on paper to the uninitiated, and those with a little rope rescue training are going to ignore this article, but whose responsibility is it if someone actually tries this?
Tom Schafer
Defiance (OH) Fire Department
Encouragement from Rhode Island E 9-1-1
Since the Rhode Island Enhanced 9-1-1 System began providing emergency communications services, several articles have been written relative to its design and purpose. I must tell you that no article was written with greater accuracy or insight than that which you published in the November issue of Fire Engineering.
Frank 1 iolt is by far the most talented journalist that I have had the privilege of knowing in many years. The entire telecommunications staff as well as the management team here at 9-1-1, the New England Telephone Company, and members of the 9-1-1 Authority join me in extending our most sincere appreciation to you for your superlative coverage of the Rhode Island Enhanced 9-1-1 System.
Colonel Ernest E. Ricci
Executii>e Director F 911 Uniform Emergency telephone System Providence, Rhode Island
I would like to thank Frank Holt for his excellent article about our 9-1-1 system. Your article points out very clearly the positive aspects of the enhanced system as well as the transfer method for the support of the local public safety agencies.
Expansion of such systems throughout the United States would enhance the delivery of public safety service to our citizens as well as give public safety work more support. Articles such as yours go a long way in getting the message out to those involved who need to know what is going on.
Marion H. Donnelly
Public Education and Information
Coordinator
F 9-l-I Uniform Emergency Telephone System Providence, Rhode Island
Disgruntled with dispatch systems
I have read with interest the two articles in the November 1990 issue on shared dispatching and a 911 telephone system by Francis X. Holt I think you have done your readers in the municipal fire service a great disservice by publishing these articles without quoting municipal fire chiefs who have problems with this type of operation or some of the fire chiefs or other department heads who do not believe that they are served well by the communications organizations that Mr. Holt is advocating.
Mr. Holt states that you do not have to be a police officer or a firefighter to carry out dispatchers’ jobs effectively. He claims that individuals can be trained to do call taking and dispatching. I submit to you that a chimpanzee can be trained, but you cannot train a person in experience. It is becoming more important, especially in a fire service that has been reduced in manpower, to have experienced sworn personnel receiving calls and operating dispatch. There is nothing you can do to destroy the efficiency of an emergency response organization any more than replace experienced line personnel with other individuals or agencies, especially those that have no accountability to the fire chiefs.
When responders on the field side of the radios have their own experienced people who are part of their incident command system dispatching for them, they are at a great advantage. If necessary, when a command officer is not available these experienced, sworn personnel are capable of making decisions that affect that incident and the safety of those responding. The experienced dispatchers from that agency can put themselves in the place of those responding and if necessary can make decisions for them based on their own firsthand knowledge of the operations and procedures of that particular organization.
It is not enough to say that these experienced line personnel can coach untrained people over the phone to restore breathing and circulation or stop profuse bleeding while the responders are en route. Their experience in crises intervention makes them far more valuable to the taxpayers of the community than civilian employees or employees of separate communication divisions that are not accountable to the fire chief.
Mr. Holt’s preoccupation with reducing staffing personnel, pension costs, compensation costs, health insurance, etc. can at first glance be viewed as a possible way to reduce cost. When you look deeper, you can also see that this type of thinking can be a disservice to the community. When you realize that Mr. Holt was merely a dispatcher in New York City for almost 10 years but is now operating a consulting firm, every fire chief, especially this one, would have to question Mr. Holt’s motives in postulating his theories on emergency dispatch. I submit to you that there are far better experts in the area than Mr. Holt appears to be. At the very least, your readers should hear what those chiefs or department heads who work under Mr. Holt’s recommendations have to say when they experience problems with this system and are critical of its operations.
Mr. Holt suggests that the taxpayers may no longer be willing to pay for experienced sworn personnel operating dispatch. He alludes to the possibility that these ty pes of people are too costly. What this self-appointed opinion maker does not say is how much it costs a community in efficiency of its emergency response agencies, delays, incorrect units dispatched, lack of accountability to the chiefs for errors committed, etc. Mr. Holt’s views are put forth so strongly in your magazine because he is a member of your editorial advisoryboard. You owe it to your readers to publish the criticisms and problems that Mr. Holt’s views create, especially for fire chiefs.
Many of us who have the accountability of providing an emergency response agency that is efficient and well-run consider Mr. Holt’s views not only foolish but counterproductive. I am certain that many other municipal fire chiefs, as well as myself, are getting sick to death of people like Mr. Holt who continue to use the wornout attempts to justifytheir theories by blaming anything and everything on what they claim are turf battles. I submit to you that Mr. Holt’s theories are not in the best interest of the citizens or the taxpaying property owners of our communities. The time has come to speak out against these types of policies and operations that can compromise the safety of emergency response personnel who may find themselves involved in a critical or dangerous situation.
Donald H. Harrison
Fire Chief City of Elmira (NY) Fire Department
Bill Manning’s response: This magazine is a forum for ideas. We work hard to present articles that are educational. interesting, and thoughtprovoking. We enjoy receiving both positive and negative responses from our readers—it shows the magazine is (dive. In that light, Chief I must insist that publishing Frank Holt’s articles by no means constitutes, as you put it, “a disservice to the municipal fire service.” They are reports of actual communications systems in operation today, written from a perspective with which you are entitled to disagree. Certainly I was not aware that a magazine should poll its audience to determine whether or not an article should be printed.
You make several other assertions to which I feel compelled to respond. First, I believe that empowering a dispatcher to make fireground clecisiotis is a very dangerous policy’.
Second, I am personally acquainted with several municipal dispatchers who I know for a fact are competent, hard-working, and a credit to their profession—and who are not sworn personnel. I’m sure they wouldn’t take too kindly to being called “trained chimpanzees,” and I wouldn’t blame them.
As for nonun iformed dispatch personnel destroying the efficiency of an emergency response organization, that shows poor management and poor training, and any department with such a problem had better blame itself rethink its training program, and reevaluate its commanications managers. And any munici- pality whose dispatchers subvert the authority of the fire chief ought to do the same. Many municipalities have employed civilian dispatchers, with excellent results. I think the issue isn’t civilian vs. uniformed; it’s whether you have effective managers supervising well-trained staff. Furthermore, I am surprised at the suggestion that uniformed personnel be placed at the communications console when you yourself complain of reduced manning levels. Perhaps creative economics is in order to get more firefighters off the phones and back on the lines and still allow for the training required to produce quality dispatch personnel. Your disdain for the nonfirefighter is evident.
Creative economics is a reality of the business world, cmd the fire service is part of that world. It should never take precedence over public safety but rather should support the objectives of the organization. That’s one of the reasons we profiled Rhode Island’s statewide E 9-1-1 system and the Southwestern New Hampshire Fire Mutual Aid System: to give fire service members an idea of some alternatives to “the way we’ve always done it. ” No one ever said that they’re the right systems for every’body, although they seem to work well for those jurisdictions that implemented them. In this time of budget cutbacks it seems prudent to consider a plan that would cut overhead yet maintain efficiency before the policy makers begin their chopping, as they’re so apt to do.
I resent the charge that Frank Holt has ulterior motives for writing these articles and that Fire Engineering would knowingly allow self-serving editorial material to stain its pages. FXH Consulting provides alcohol and drug abuse counseling and stress management seminars for emergency services; it is in no way connected to communications systems or anything else. Frank has always been honest and forthright and extremely helpful to the staff of this magazine.
I am disappointed that a fire ser- vice leader displays a condescending attitude toward others in the fire service community who have not achieved his own rank. I question individuals who judge another’s qualifications or right to express an opinion because he “was merely a dispatcher. ” You place a great emphasis on the importance of having dispatchers who are “accountable to the fire chief’; in my opinion, if I may be so bold as to express it, a leader who shows disrespect to his people is entitled to the same in return.
Finally, / resent the assertion that Fire Engineering gives special preference to members of its editorial advisory board and gives their opinions more weight. Only a small percentage of the hundreds of articles published every year in this magazine are from our advisors, and they are treated the same way as everyone else’s.
As always, I encourage and welcome all comments from our readers. Your responses are ivhat an editor lives for. Give us a yell.
More emphasis on the search function
Over the past few years, safety at the fire scene has become one of the most highly discussed subjects in the fire service. I have come to the conclusion that search operations probably are the most dangerous situations for firefighters during a fire. Conditions in the fire building are deteriorating at a rapid pace. Smoke is building to a point that you cannot see your hand in front of your face and heat is increasing to the point of flashover.
Usually the search team doesn’t have the benefit of a handline due to the lack of mobility, time, and manpower. Many times in the beginning of a search there will not even be a backup line in operation.
Search operations at best violate some of the basic rules of modern firefighting: that our firefighters’ safety is of prime importance and we should not put our firefighters into unsafe situations. This is a paradox that seems to be dictated by the job because our first task on the fire scene is to perform rescue operations if necessary.
Because of the risks involved, it is imperative that the authorities in charge of the fire department spend whatever effort necessary to assure that its firefighters are trained in all aspects concerning search operations. Not only should the training concern the inside operations, but as much importance should be given to the backup operations. Often, for whatever reasons, we tend to forget the obvious things required to make it safer for the search team to accomplish its mission. There is no doubt that ventilation can have a more positive effect than anything else.
We have a clear obligation to our firefighters to prepare them for all aspects of search operations.
Pat O’Brien
Volunteer
Wilson County (TN) Civil Defense
