Regarding Paul C. Melfi’s article “Fire Service Accountability” (December 2001), I say, “Amen, brother!” Thanks to Fire Engineering for exposing the truth regarding supposed “accountability systems.”
Too many departments and chiefs believe accountability means having a company officer hand firefighters a tag before they enter a building. The incident commander then checks off a box, believing he now has accountability, when all he has is exactly what Melfi says: “the name of the dead firefighter.”
Accountability is the responsibility of every firefighter on the fireground. How many firefighter fatality reports do we need to read in which accountability ranks at the top before we do more than hand a recruit a tag with his name on it?
Let’s get back to basics, teaching firefighters such information as tool assignments, following identified strategies/tactics, and the importance of staying with the company officer. Then let’s coach our officers on maintaining control of their companies and communicating to command while in a building. To paraphrase Dennis Compton, chief of the Mesa (AZ) Fire Department, the incident commander needs to know three things from his interior companies: where they are, how they’re doing, and what they need. If the incident commander knows that information and is continually updated by his companies, he is on his way toward having accountability. The gadgets, gizmos, and tags cannot provide that communication-they are only ancillary to the process and should never be considered the be all and end all of fireground accountability. Let’s use accountability so that we save the lives of firefighters prior to a possible tragic event instead of knowing the names of missing firefighters after the fact.
Rich Collins
Assistant Chief
Darien-Woodridge (IL) Fire Protection District
A job well done
I am a volunteer firefighter with the New South Wales Rural Fire Service in Australia. I read Fire Engineering on a regular basis. I want to congratulate the staff on a job well done and urge them to keep up the good work. I have found the magazine to be a great resource that broadens my understanding of firefighting and emergency service work in general. I have only recently logged on to the Web site, fireengineering.com, and found it a great warehouse of emergency service information. Well done.
Tim Scott
Firefighter
NSW Rural Fire Service
Australia
Carrying tools up a ladder
I have thoroughly enjoyed every issue of Fire Engineering. It is an informative and well-written magazine. I found the article “Laddering the Fireground” by Mathew Rush (December 2001) very interesting, especially the one-person ground ladder drag.
I do have one concern, though. Rush gives helpful hints for carrying tools up a ladder. Two of the suggestions are acceptable. The third is not, in my mind. The idea of hooking a halligan bar (adz and hook end) on your clavicle/neck area is very dangerous. We all know that the ladder will always have a heel person-either on the front or back. Since Rush says this carry involves using no hands, the danger of this tool falling on another member is great. We attempted this carry in full turnout gear several times and each time achieved the same result-the halligan fell to the ground. If we continue to stress firefighter safety on the fireground, this carry is not acceptable. We should teach newer firefighters to use the beams at all times and to slide the tools up. To me, this is the only safe way to carry tools up a ladder.
Chuck Kramaric
Firefighter
Arlington County (VA) Fire Department
Headfirst bail out and other acts of preservation
I have been reading for months or maybe years the various opinions about the headfirst ladder bail out. After 29 years in the fire service, I can think of only a few topics (the introduction of SCBA and NFPA 1710) that have promoted such diverse opinions for so long. Concerning its being an “unsafe” act, I have come to the conclusion that it is probably the last of several unsafe acts in succession. And all the “unsafe” acts in firefighting have one thing in common: We do them not because we like them but because we have to do them to save ourselves.
We must stop focusing on the final act-the bail out-and ask ourselves what is causing this behavior. To borrow from Gordon Graham and Chief Alan Brunacini, it is generally the result of firefighters’ being involved in a high-risk/low-frequency event. I know that some of you fight fires in triple deckers every day, but most of us do not. Once in awhile we find ourselves on the floor above a fire conducting search; the fire flashes over, and we end up diving out a window before we get burned. It seems only natural to put a ladder there so the sudden stop doesn’t kill us. In reality, to borrow from Graham again, this high-risk/low-frequency task has resulted from a situation that is generally predictable and therefore most likely preventable. Of course, this is a dangerous business, and fire control is not always 100 percent predictable. How have we adapted to this unpredictability or reality of interior structure fires? We communicate, we ventilate, and-most of all-we evacuate (hopefully) before it is too late. Sometimes it doesn’t work and, being the proactive types, we develop a technique that will save us when all the “approved” techniques go up in smoke. We only get burned once before we make an adjustment.
The ladder bail out is another version of the final act of self-survival; we have others just like it that have been in place for years. For example, wildland firefighters carry fire shelters. We learn how to deploy them in all conditions-in high wind, on uneven terrain, with two people-and all under 30 seconds. If the logic used in opposing headfirst bail out were applied to fire shelters, I suppose we would not use them or practice with them. Why? Because it is much wiser to run from the area of threat down an escape route to a safety zone to wait out the event. And at one time, this is what we did. We even trained personnel to dig out a small depression in the soil, lie on their bellies, and protect their faces from the heat as the fire passed over. This didn’t work so well, hence the fire shelter. Keep in mind that getting into a shelter is dangerous and the least preferable method of avoiding a wildfire. Most likely, you will be injured and can at least expect smoke inhalation problems. It is not an OSHA-compliant environment. It is the final act of a succession of events that were predictable and preventable. But it beats experiencing that shrink wrap feeling after exposure to radiant heat or open flame. I will tell you that sitting in a windowsill during a flashover while accessing a ladder in the approved fashion hurts about as much. So what did we do in both cases? When the approved options didn’t work, when our prediction system failed and the event was no longer preventable, we developed a lifesaving procedure.
Let’s look at some other self-preservation techniques up for debate. Mickey Conboy of FDNY is advocating an extrication system for firefighters using the SCBA belly harness through the crotch as a quick harness assembly. Do FDNY firefighters wear the SCBA like this all the time? Do they want to have to do this to a partner to drag him out of the building? No. It is a behavior resulting from activities in a high-risk/low-frequency environment and born out of need. Some don’t like it-not “approved.”
How about the practice of slapping a tool in the corner of a window for an anchor and using your personal rope simply wrapped around your back to lower yourself out the window? Approved? No. Does it work in seconds? Yes.
Some skeptics are saying right now that injuries are more likely to stem from practicing headfirst ladder bail out than wildfire shelter deployment. True. But is this a reason to eliminate bail out from your toolbox? Absolutely not. In fact, this procedure is so dangerous that you should practice it more because you probably will never use it in your career.
One of the fire service’s strengths is our willingness to think of new ways to do the job better and to share those ideas. And firefighters should have available to them all the tools that will help them to operate safely and to go home at shift’s end. Unless you can predict every eventuality in a fire, you should not be opposed to developing methods to save your personnel.
Michael S. Terwilliger
Chief
Truckee (CA) Fire Protection District
