This month’s Roundtable CEN- ters around procedures-specifically safety procedures! To paraphrase Chief Alan Brunacini of the Phoenix (AZ) Fire Department, if a procedure is not being followed, it should be eliminated, amended so that it can be enforced, or simply enforced.
As we all know, there are procedures and then there are procedures. There should be no wiggle room when it relates to safety procedures. Safety procedures should be enforced. Every August we sit and analyze our firefighter injury statistics from the previous year. We administrators must ensure that the procedures we draft and put out to the “troops” are enforced.
As far as my sticking my neck out along with my fellow panel members in addressing this topic, I had to think a while-first, because I have been removed from Operations for a few months and second, because Toledo has had a long dry spell in the bigger fires to which I would respond. If I were to classify my department as it relates to firefighting, I would call it an “aggressive interior operations” fire department. We have the luxury (if it can be called that) of still going to a considerable number of fires a year. We also have the luxury of 24-hour safety officers. We have four excellent lieutenants who serve as our safety officers. They respond to every structure fire, motor vehicle accident, and special operations incident (haz mat, water rescue, confined space, and so on). They are trained well and do not hesitate to stop an unsafe evolution or pull someone aside and explain in private minor safety violations. We don’t get our members hurt at fires for the most part. Probably our greatest safety violation at fires is doffing SCBA too soon during overhaul. This is the responsibility of the incident commander and the safety officer.
Also, we are working on our accountability system at fires. If you have ever heard my two minutes (more like 10) on accountability systems, you have heard me say that the goal of any accountability system should be to track firefighters inside and outside the building, but also their specific locations inside the building. To me, that is true accountability! We require that officers notify the incident commander by radio of their intended location of operation “prior to entering the building.” If they change location (normally floor level in a house), we also require that the officer inform the incident commander of the new location. This way, if the fire acts up or if there is a partial collapse, we should be able to tell immediately if members are in the affected area. We can then react accordingly.
Change in the fire service is slow, and we are in the process of “reminding” our officers to let us know where they are inside the building. Hopefully, a few years from now, this will be as commonplace as is putting on our “hoods.”
However, I think our greatest potential for firefighter injury, and the arena in which procedures are violated most, is EMS. This is probably due to the sheer number of EMS runs vs. fire runs.
We have developed hot zones for patient care as it relates to bloodborne pathogens. As a minimum, we require eye protection and gloves for any member who comes within five feet of a patient. We provide for every firefighter a “pack” that contains all the appropriate BSI (Body Substance Isolation) protection required. All members are required to have their “pack” on and with them on every EMS run. We require that battalion chiefs respond to approximately 10 EMS runs a month to monitor, among other things, enforcement of the hot zone procedure and use of BSI. It would be expected that after a warning or two, compliance would ensue.
-John (Skip) Coleman, deputy chief of training and EMS, Toledo (OH) Department of Fire and Rescue; author of Incident Management for the Street-Smart Fire Officer (Fire Engineering, 1997) and Managing Major Fires (Fire Engineering, 2001); editorial advisory board member of Fire Engineering; and member of the FDIC Educational Committee.
Question: We often see training videos, e-mails, and Web site accounts of firefighters’ injuring themselves as a result of violating “standard” safe practices. Some examples might include firefighters’ being burned because they did not wear their safety hoods, suffering smoke inhalation because they violated mandatory SCBA policies, and failing to turn on their PASS devices unless they felt they might be in danger. Have you observed that department members tend to forget about or disregard some safety rules and standards more than others? If so, which ones? How did your department handle the situation? Was the action taken effective?
Ron Hiraki, assistant chief, Seattle (WA) Fire Department
Response: The safety rule or standard that the Seattle Fire Department needs to emphasize is maintaining the integrity of a team of firefighters working in a hazardous environment. As a result of several incidents during the past 15 years, the issues of working in teams and being accountable have become part of our culture. Seattle firefighters are careful to form teams of two or more firefighters when they enter a hazardous environment. However, there are some concerns that once firefighters are in a structure conducting a search or performing other work, they get a little farther away from each other than they should.
This separation is not because of a reckless attitude. Once these firefighters are working in the structure, they achieve a certain level of “comfort.” This, combined with an aggressive spirit and a desire for maximum efficiency, pushes the team to the edge of its safety margin. At this point, something can happen that may cause one firefighter to need the help of the other. It may not necessarily be a firefighter down; a firefighter may have located a victim or may need help forcing a door or his low-air alarm may have begun to sound. The time the firefighters take to reunite can create new hazards for members at the incident or complicate the original problem.
We have had our firefighters report some close calls. When this happens, the focus shifts from the primary objective to assisting firefighters. This is a serious concern for us as firefighters and as an organization.
Obviously, the firefighters enter hazardous environments in teams. They have a good definition of the team. They know who is on the team. They know what the team is supposed to do. The team leader needs to be clearly designated. The leader, through preincident training or direct instruction at the scene, needs to ensure that the other team members will “follow the leader.” This means that in some cases the firefighters will literally follow the leader and not decide to move on their own to another area. Leadership may also require that the leader provide an anchor point, direct the work, and monitor conditions.
When Seattle firefighters forget or disregard safety rules or standards, the department strives to address the issue in an appropriate manner. In the case of failing to maintain the integrity of the team, fire officers continually emphasize the “follow the leader” concept. We debrief with members on the team and with members department-wide. When we experience close calls, we must be thankful for the outcome and use the incident to reinforce the importance of maintaining the team’s integrity.
Steve Kreis, assistant chief, Phoenix (AZ) Fire Department
Response: The old safety slogan “safety is everybody’s responsibility” is absolutely true today. Supervisors can’t be everywhere watching for safety violations. For a safety program to be truly effective, all members must be self-disciplined in following departmental safety policies and procedures. That being said, all officers must adopt a “zero tolerance” position for safety violations.
If you think about it, the problem with violating safety policies is that 99.9% of the time we get away with it, and nobody gets hurt. This false sense of security that’s created sets us up for a big sucker punch when the 0.1% of the time comes around. In essence, this sense of security lulls us into a position from which we can’t recover when something goes wrong. Most of the time, the most effective way to get somewhere or accomplish something is to slow down and be safe.
Oftentimes when we look at safety concerns, we focus on things that happen on the fireground. One of the most dangerous situations we face on a daily basis is emergency driving. Moving a 17-ton vehicle Code 3 through traffic is one of the most hazardous responsibilities we encounter. If you analyze the associated risk and compare it with the liability a department may face, you can easily see huge problems on the horizon. But, putting all the legal and management stuff aside, it’s just not nice to crash a fire truck into the Smith’s family automobile (for many reasons) while responding to an incident. It’s not nice for the Smith family members who are riding along minding their own business to suddenly have their whole life changed forever. It’s not nice for the person having the emergency because we won’t get there in a timely manner. And, it’s really not a nice way to treat ourselves. A serious accident ruins everybody’s day. Way too many firefighters die each year going to incidents. Slow down, get there safely, and follow your department’s driving policies.
We all know when we should use our SCBAs. But, when is it OK to take them off? A recent scientific study conducted by the University of Arizona in conjunction with the Phoenix and Tucson Fire Departments demonstrated that the atmosphere during the overhaul stages of a fire is extremely hazardous for us if we are not protecting ourselves. Until somebody can manufacture a lightweight device that filters out all the bad stuff being put off during the overhaul phase of a fire, or we change the way we do overhaul, we must keep our SCBAs on during overhaul. [If you would like a copy of the study, contact the Phoenix Fire Department Safety Office at (602) 262-7808.]
Use an incident management system (IMS) every day, on every incident. If we don’t use a command system on the small incidents, we will never be able to effectively use it on the big incidents. Take a look at the recent National Institute of Occupational Safety and Heath, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and National Fire Protection Association reports on firefighter fatalities. Nine times out of 10, the report will mention something about the lack of an effective incident command system. There are primarily two reasons an IMS system exists. The first is to provide an incident commander (or incident command team) the tools needed to effectively command and control the situation. The second reason, and maybe more important, is that the IMS (and its associated components) allows an incident commander (or incident command team) to effectively account for the safety of all the players on the fireground.
There are a multitude of ways to administer or reinforce safety policies within a department-post-incident safety critiques, accident review boards, supervisory safety reviews, remedial driver training programs, strict adherence to standard operating procedures, self-discipline, and zero tolerance for safety violations are just a few of the ways we can strengthen safety programs.
Safety must be elevated to one of the department’s most important programs. To be effective, this must be the priority at the top of the organization and be extended through every rank.
Bob Oliphant, lieutenant, Kalamazoo (MI) Department of Public Safety
Response: I have observed that when personnel are dealing with major emergencies they take the necessary precautions to ensure their safety. It’s the routine stuff that gets us in trouble, and the problem typically involves the full use of personal protective equipment. Personnel operating at the scene of a serious auto accident that requires extrication don turnout gear and are well protected. At a minor-injury accident, the same personnel might wear only latex gloves and expose themselves to injury from glass and jagged metal. Personnel who normally would wear a reflective traffic vest at night do not wear it during the day. Personnel will take more precautions when rendering first aid to a gunshot victim than when handling a child that has difficulty breathing. The result is minor injuries and biohazard exposures from what appear to be low-risk incidents.
To better ensure the personal safety of our personnel, we furnish individual personal protective equipment kits. Prior to this, personal protective equipment was carried in bulk in the trunks of vehicles or apparatus compartments. It was difficult to access and was not always replaced after use. Items in the kits include gloves, disposable garments, splashguards, and filter masks. By providing everyone with his own kit bag of protective gear, we have been able to ensure that all equipment fits properly and is readily available whenever it is needed. It is still up to the individual to wear it and to the supervisors to make sure that it is used.
Frank C. Schaper, chief, St. Charles (MO) Fire Department
Response: I follow the statistics on firefighter injuries closely. They are disheartening. Year after year the same stats seem to show up on the injury charts. Can anything be done about it? Never before have firefighters been better trained and equipped. We have incident command, self-contained breathing apparatus, PASS devices, bunker gear, hoods, safety committees, safety officers, and RIT teams. Yet the injuries continue to happen. Why? I have a theory. I wrote about this a couple of times, and my thoughts caused quite a stir.
The reasons I think firefighters continue to get injured on the job are that we have managers who do not manage, supervisors who do not supervise, and firefighters who continue to do dumb and stupid things.
Let’s take a look at this from an injury-analysis perspective. We will use the principle of the 3 Es-engineering, education, and enforcement. When a firefighter gets injured on the job, it is because of a failure in one or all of the Es. Injury analysis will show that the injury was caused by poor engineering, poor training, or no enforcement of department policies and procedures. For example, a firefighter suffers burns on his knees. An investigation shows that the kneepads on the bunker pants were not sufficient to retard heat. That is an engineering problem and a manager’s problem. If we are good managers, we either sew on more padding or buy better bunker pants.
Now here is an education problem. Your department buys new self-contained breathing apparatus. The new SCBAs are issued to the companies. A firefighter dons his SCBA prior to entering a burning structure but cannot get air. In his excitement, he forgot how to turn on the apparatus and goes down in the fire. Obviously, more training is needed here. This is an education (training) problem and a problem for managers and supervisors alike. As good managers and supervisors, we take care of the engineering and training problems.
But enforcement is a different matter. This is where the fire service falls down. As an example, a firefighter enters a burning structure without donning his SCBA-in violation of department policy. The firefighter is carted off to the hospital with smoke inhalation. This is an enforcement problem and, again, a problem for managers and supervisors as well. By rights, the firefighter should be written up for violating the department’s SCBA policy. I would venture to guess not many are. Until our fire department rules and regulations, policies, and procedures are enforced, injuries will stay at their current level or possibly even rise. Policy enforcement is the biggest failure of fire departments today.
Departments should be applying the 3 Es on every injury investigation. Doing this will give us a means of finding out what caused the injury. The key is to take action-even if you have to write up the firefighter. In my experience, nothing changes poor safety habits like a hit in the wallet. Managers and supervisors are the keys to doing that successfully. The firefighters will fall into line, and injuries will go down.
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Leigh Hollins, battalion chief, Cedar Hammock (FL) Fire Rescue
Response: It certainly seems that a few of the safety rules and standards are an issue much more frequently than others. The ones that immediately come to my mind are backing up the apparatus and wearing proper protective gear.
Although we still encounter problems concerning these issues from time to time, the frequency has certainly dropped over the past few years. We dealt with the problem by educating and instituting clear, concise, and reasonable SOPs.
Concerning safely backing up apparatus, we had several incidents over a period of time that individual disciplinary actions, such as verbal counseling and written reprimands, did not seem to help. It helped the individuals involved to modify their behavior so it wouldn’t happen again, but it seemed as though it would be another individual a month later. The incidents were not serious in nature, but we could see the potential that existed for a major problem that might include injury or death, in addition to property damage.
We developed a revised shorter SOP that, if followed, would alleviate the problem. It reads as follows:
“A backup person (spotter) must be used when available. If a spotter is not available, and it is practical to do so, the driver should perform a walk-around of the apparatus prior to backing.
“The following shall apply:
- Spotter is in charge, and his/her commands must be followed.
- Driver’s window must be down completely.
- Visual contact between driver and spotter must be made prior to backing.
- Verbal contact between driver and spotter should be made, if possible.
- If spotter is not in view of driver, driver shall stop.
- Check for overhead and backing obstructions.”
In addition to implementing the revised SOP, the training officer reviewed the procedures with all personnel and reinforced it with case histories from other departments. These actions, in addition to our officers’ displaying a serious attitude toward the problem, have alleviated the problem. That’s not to say we won’t or don’t have any incidents, just that their frequency is much less.
The issue of personnel wearing the proper protective gear was a little tougher to fix, although we used a similar method to address this issue.
The problem was twofold. First, the majority of our responses are medical-related and require only medical personal protective equipment, not turnout gear. With the implementation of the bloodborne pathogens standard years ago and the training that went along with it, we did not have many problems on these types of responses.
Second, since the majority of our nonmedical responses (including responses to vehicle accidents) did not seem to warrant full turnout gear, complacency seemed to set in. You know the calls-the automatic fire alarms, the minor vehicle accidents, the smell of gas in the area, and so on.
What we saw over time was that our personnel were getting fully geared up only for the structure fire jobs or firefighters were frantically gearing up at the scene when what was anticipated to be a minor call turned out to be something. Even worse were the working jobs where the only personnel who wore gear were the interior firefighters; the operators and command personnel wore their uniform of the day. Those days are over.
Although we took the same approach as above in dealing with this problem, it took a little longer to get everyone “on track.” SOPs were reviewed and revised. We held training sessions to advise everyone of the SOP changes and the reasons for the changes. Again, we reviewed several case histories to convince our personnel that it could happen to them (the NIOSH Firefighter Fatality Program at www.cdc.gov/niosh/firehome.html is an excellent source for such case histories).
But mainly, our approach in dealing with individuals seemed to be more about leadership than discipline. Our new fire chief expects the upper-level command officers to set the example and, therefore, take the time to don turnout gear at the command post and when entering the warm or hot zone of a working incident.
Expectations were communicated to the firefighters from the top down, in words and actions-expectations such as minimum gear requirements at all nonmedical responses and that operators need to gear up as soon as possible on arrival.
Personnel at all levels soon realized that this was not a move to protect management’s interests; this was important stuff to protect them and their brother firefighters.
No one was expecting these problems to disappear overnight. We were realistic and set a time frame and were proactive in reaching our goal, which was to create a safer work environment. With the combined efforts mentioned here and cooperation by all personnel, we feel that our actions were very successful.
Larry Anderson, deputy chief, Dallas (TX) Fire Department
Response: Firefighting is one of the most hazardous occupations in the world. There is no denying that most of us will be injured to some degree during our careers. The most astounding and unbelievable fact is that our people continue to do really dumb stuff and get really dumb injuries. Why in the world do we insist on making the job more dangerous than it should be? Part of the answer is that young firefighters seem to think they are immortal. For the most part, the older I got the more mortal I became and the more care I took at emergency scenes. Within some work groups, there is also a devil-may-care attitude that wants to challenge prudent practices. I did not use the word “macho” because I have seen female firefighters with as much of an attitude as male firefighters. I have noted over the years that company officers have a great impact on safety consciousness at emergency scenes. A safety-minded officer will generally have a safety-minded crew, and vice versa. The tragic events of September 11 should serve as a wake-up call to the fire service that our job is dangerous.
In my opinion, the single most effective deterrent to unsafe practices is to have a readily identifiable incident safety officer (ISO) present at every working emergency scene. Our department’s standard practice is to dispatch an additional battalion chief to every working fire incident to act as the dedicated ISO for that emergency scene. Every one of our battalion chiefs and their backups are trained and certified as ISOs. Our EMS shift duty officers are also trained and certified ISOs. We have 152 certified ISOs in our department. We have found that the mere presence of an ISO has a beneficial effect at an emergency scene. Just seeing the green safety vest on one of our chief officers makes our firefighters a little more cognizant of safety practices. As long as firefighters are human, it will be a struggle to ensure adherence to all safety practices. It is incumbent on all of us to minimize the dumb injuries and maximize safety consciousness. That being said, I must acknowledge that firefighting has been the beneficiary of technologies that did not exist 20 years ago. Now that our equipment is safer, it is time for our personnel to carry it a step further and make sure everyone goes home healthy at the end of the shift.
Robert R. Wesley, engineer/ turn instructor, Chesterton (IN) Fire Department
Response: One of the duties of the engineer of the first-arriving engine is to run accountability until relieved by a sector officer appointed by the incident commander. By policing the point of entry, you catch things the safety or sector officer might not notice. The most ignored or forgotten safety violation by far has to be failure to activate the PASS device, followed closely by freelancing. Having integrated PASS devices on the SCBAs would be the ideal solution to this ongoing problem. As we teach the children in our fire prevention programs, our PASS device is the most important part of our personal protective equipment. Maybe it’s the “it won’t happen to me” attitude that is to blame for failing to turn on these devices; but, as hundreds of our brothers and sisters find out year after year, it can happen to any one of us at any time. Whether working a fire in a three-story multiple dwelling or a room-and-contents job a block away from the fire station, the potential for injury or death is real and lurking in every charged and choking hall.
One way our top brass tried to deal with this situation was to issue a newer model PASS device, which is activated by removing a clip from its side. This clip has a thin cable attached to it to tether the clip to the firefighter’s coat. We attached the firefighter’s accountability tag to the other end of the cable-this way, the wearer has to activate the PASS device to turn in the accountability tag before he can enter the hazard zone. We still use some of the older PASS devices without the clip feature. Those members with the older models still get a stern reminder to turn on the device from someone with a few bugles on his helmet. This rather small piece of equipment could save your life in an emergency.
Name withheld
Response: The most often forgotten safety rule around my area concerns wildland firefighting and turnout gear. We are a structural volunteer fire department, but we also respond to grass and woods fires. The only gear we have for fighting the grass fires is our structural firefighting gear. This often results in no one’s wearing turnout gear or only the pants and gloves.
At the last grass fire to which we re-sponded, one of the company captains was wearing shorts, a T-shirt, and tennis shoes. We are going to have burn injuries from lack of gear or heat exhaustion from wearing turnout gear.
We cannot persuade our chief to order wildland turnout gear. Until we properly outfit our firefighters, we face a very real threat of firefighter injury on every grass and woods fire to which we respond.
