BY BOBBY HALTON
The report on Charleston’s June 18, 2007, Sofa Super Store fire was released last week, containing what we already suspected: that the fuel load and fire behavior outperformed the tactics, code requirements/enforcement, staffing, decision making, command and control, human resource management practices, training, and equipment employed by the Charleston (SC) Fire Department. The larger question is, do we really learn from the lessons of others? If you look at the behavior of city mayors, the answer has to be “No; no, sadly, we don’t.” Among mayors, Charleston’s Mr. Joe Riley is legendary: To find that a mayor of his caliber had little to no connection to his fire service and its day-to-day operations and capabilities should shock us all.
We have all read and reread the list of critical factors that were, for a multitude of reasons, missed or misinterpreted by the commanding officers and responding companies. The report identifies the direct detrimental effects of running substandard-staffed crews on decision making, where company officers become the number-two member advancing the line and do not focus on observing the conditions for progress, changes, and warning signs. The report outlines where a lack of staffing dictated the replacement of tactical synergy with incremental tactical discord.
The report confirmed what we collectively have been saying for the past 30 yearsthat effective firefighting requires the proper number of well-trained and properly equipped firefighters assembled in a reasonable time after receipt of alarm to conduct effective fireground operations. Having sufficient numbers of trained, equipped firefighters assembled in a reasonable time conducting synchronized tactical operations is the only way to minimize the risks of interior structural firefighting. The report states the unequivocal need for better ordinances and stronger codes and diligent enforcement.
We know that good firefighters didn’t see several critical factors on June 18, 2007. We know that “Why?” is the real question. What did they see? What did they expect to happen, given the conditions they recognized and the actions they took? I assert that company officers who have substandard crews must make more decisions regarding tactical deployment than properly staffed companies. This increases stress. This increases the probability of missing cues and misjudging conditions and reaction times. This is municipal dysfunction, a national example of drift into failure, and it permeates our cities and lies tragically unaddressed despite so much human treasure hanging in the balance.
Command-level officers who must attempt to deploy tactically with deficient staffing schemes like marrying two substandard-staffed companies to make one properly staffed company know this is moonshine. This is a pyramid scheme with firefighters’ lives in the balance, a “rob Peter to pay Paul” scheme that is foolish and that sooner or later collapsesoften when it has the greatest consequences. It is a firefighting plan that plays out only in the accounting manager’s office.
Firefighters would expect that this report would help the fire service in our battle against uninformed bean counters who believe that just because nothing bad has happened yet from the cuts in staffing, training, and equipment that nothing will. But this week, we read of proposed cuts in several cities, including one in which I recently spoke. I have sent that city’s mayor a copy of the Sofa Super Store report. Unfortunately, the world is a very sterile place inside mayors’ offices; but on the streets, for firefighters, it is chaotic, messy, and very dangerous. We all know how tight money is; we get it. We also know how precious life is. We aren’t saying babies will die, but we are saying you can’t expect world-class protection from discount funding. “You get what you pay for.” What risk level is acceptable to your citizens, Mr. Mayor?
I will continue to assert that in communities such as the vibrant and prosperous city of Charleston, NFPA 1710-compliant staffing and NFPA-compliant wellness, training, and equipment should be a starting point, not a destination. 1710 is designed around a 2,000-square-foot house firea house fire, not a sofa super store, not a Wal-Mart, not a high-rise, or a hotel, or a taxpayer, or an office building! The complexity of these types of events requires much more preparation, resources, and coordination. We know this, and the lethal potential of substandard staffing is already well understood industrywide.
The leadership of fire service organizations may be changing, or at least some aspects of the selection of leadership appear to be changing. A friend in the assessment business says that political leaders around the country are now starting to list tactical competence as the first quality required for the fire chief candidate selection process. He describes it as a 180 from the past 10 years of placing social and administrative skills as number one. He was clear that social skills are still critical, but tactical competence/operational expertise is now a clear number one. What is lacking is frank and honest discussion with our communities about what capabilities we do and do not possess.
The Charleston report will accelerate the discussion on operational capabilities and the responder/capability ratio. The capabilities of our organizations must be clearly understood by the political powers. Most discussions by tactical firefighters agree that for a well-seated two-story residential fire, we need around 25 firefighters; for a taxpayer or strip mall, where three lines are the minimum, we need around 38. Will city councils be hearing from chiefs that we can do residential but not commercial fires? Who will be the first fire chief to stop conducting interior fire attacks because of inadequate staffing?
