Do not rush in at WMD incident
“Approach WMD Incidents with a New Mindset” in the “Weapons of Mass Destruction: Determining Your Readiness” supplement (Fire Engineering, November 2004) made several good points. However, I disagree with the philosophy to “rush in” to a scene involving weapons of mass destruction. Many responders lose their lives every year because they do not take the time to size up the incident. To rush in blindly and risk responders’ lives in these scenarios is an injustice to our people. We know responders are targets. Why add to the body count? We all agree speed is of the essence. However, we must ensure that our rush to save citizens does not result in unnecessary firefighter fatalities or exposures.
Neal Sharp
Director
West Virginia Homeland Security & Regional Response Team
Chase N. Sargent responds: No one said anything about rushing in. You don’t have to, because the incident is going to rush to you! The bottom line is, you are going to have your hands full with the people who come to see you, crawl, walk, or run.
Consider this: Stand outside a sports arena or mall in your clothes. Now announce that everyone should leave through the exits. Now stand there and try to change from your street clothes to a Level B with respiratory protection before they overrun you! Get the picture?
Second, take the time to look at the chemistry of the agents you are dealing with when speaking about nerve agents and vesicants, and you have your answer.
Seat belt safety
I read and enjoyed the letter to the editor from Battalion Chief Richard Lockhart (“Why not better restraining systems for fire apparatus?”) and “How to Get Firefighters to Wear Their Seat Belts” by Dr. Burton A. Clark in the October 2004 issue. Both contained excellent information about a serious problem that is killing our firefighters.
In my department—and probably others—most seat-belt violations occur when firefighters struggle to put on SCBA while the truck is moving. When are the folks who design fire apparatus and SCBA going to get together, hold hands, and design an SCBA harness that also serves as a vehicle-restraint system? Give us a large, easy-to-reach and operate—with gloves on—switch or lever to “unlock” the SCBA from the apparatus on arrival.
If firefighters are tempted to move around the cab trying to reach stuff they think they will need immediately on arrival, then remove that temptation by putting that stuff in a compartment on the rear of the truck. How many times have you honestly, truly needed to have anything in your hands—or on your back—the instant you stepped off the truck? I decided a long time ago that I never wanted to eat a halligan. Why do we continue to put laptop computers, thermal imaging cameras, map and preplan books, irons, AEDs, trauma kits, and so on, up in the cab with us? Do we really believe that a bungee cord will hold that stuff in place during a serious collision or—God forbid—a rollover?
Every department seems to have a few of what I call “determined idiots.” It may be the firefighters an officer has to counsel about not mopping the floor, getting to work on time, not wearing medical gloves on an EMS call, and the like. Unless you are a brand new company officer, you already know how to deal with them. It may take a friendly chat, an official reprimand, or perhaps “getting in their wallet” (time off without pay). An officer who enforces safety policies may literally be saving a firefighter’s life. About 20 years ago, I forced my then lieutenant to “put my money where his mouth was” by repeatedly violating a rule; he gave me 24 hours off without pay. I won’t tell you what I did, but I will tell you I have never, ever done it again.
We have a saying in the deep South: “If you’re gonna’ talk it, you’d better walk it.” Be the good example, or shut up. Don’t depend on a chief who never rides the apparatus to make a seat-belt policy happen. Don’t be afraid to yell out, “STOP THE TRUCK!” if you see something dangerous, such as an unrestrained firefighter. Company officers should encourage their firefighters to do this. Treat this as the life-and-death safety issue it is.
Do a bit of research. In my neck of the woods, state law and departmental policy require that seat belts be worn. Workers’ compensation benefits are greatly reduced if an unrestrained firefighter is injured or killed in a traffic crash. Check with your risk manager/personnel director/human resource person, and find out about this. Make sure your firefighters know that the decision not to wear seat belts may financially affect them and their families.
Talk about this stuff with your firefighters. Some of the best training I’ve ever given or gotten has been over a cup of coffee at the kitchen table. Tell them about the department policy and your own expectations about seat belts. Perhaps more importantly, listen to what they say. Is there some reason they feel they cannot or should not wear seat belts? Fix all the problems you can, but remind them that seat-belt usage is required.
If your supervisors (at whatever rank) don’t have the courage to write and enforce a realistic seat-belt policy, then back them into a corner and find out why not. Make sure they will back you up if you have to enforce it.
Some of us old geezers remember when a safe firefighter was looked on as a wimpy firefighter. Thank goodness those days are over. This is one of the very, very few situations that injures and kills us where we have some real control. Let’s work together to fix this thing.
Ken Wiggins
Lieutenant/Safety Officer
Bartow (FL) Fire Rescue
Nozzle tests
This refers to the letter to the editor by Assistant Chief William Crapo in the September 2004 issue relative to the “Nozzle Tests Prove Fireground Realities,” Part 1 (February 2003), Part 2 (September 2003), and Part 3 (February 2004) series by Jerry Knapp, Tim Pillsworth, and Sean White. I was impressed by the methodology and results of the testing done by the three authors. It proved what I was taught by my mentor and what I myself have taught over the past two decades to hundreds of recruits: For reach and penetration in a structural fire attack, the smooth bore nozzle surpasses the combination nozzle hands down.
Do not get me wrong. I believe that, like any tool, the combination nozzle has a place in firefighting and that people need to be trained in the proper use and selection of that tool in realistic situations. I believe Knapp and the other authors did just that.
I do not know the size or run load of Chief Crapo’s department. I know mine. The departments I run with have a decent call volume and a chance to practice what we spend so many hours training on. I train my people like we fight. To do less would be a disservice to them and the citizens we protect.
In Part 1, Knapp and his coauthors did a commendable job of explaining the testing setup and how to control the variables that could affect the outcome. They also described fully the limitations of the testing equipment involved. Although I would truly like to see the total volume of air pulled into the compartment—2000 cfm through a four-square-foot opening is a lot of air by any standard—we must remember that the authors were trying to show realistic situations, not a sterile testing environment.
Crapo also mentions the difference between William Clark’s book and the University of Maryland study and that he would bet on the University of Maryland. In studying Clark, you see that common fog nozzles could move between 10,000 and 30,000 cfm, depending on size, type, pattern, and location. Clark also states that the air movement depends on the size of the ventilation openings as well as the nozzle pressure and fog pattern. Therefore, without knowing the opening size for the University of Maryland study, it would be difficult at best to apply that information to real-world situations.
The University of Maryland study also states that at 60 gpm, the airflow was 5,406 cfm. That equates to 3+ air changes a minute in a 1,500-square-foot compartment. If openings for ventilation are not provided, the superheated gases will seek any exit possible because of the increased pressure within the compartment. In this situation, the largest opening available would be where the firefighters would be operating.
Regarding the second Knapp article, Crapo applies the Iowa State rate-of-flow formula to the test compartment, coming up with a flow of 9.6 gpm. While I agree that Iowa State’s work was the most definitive study of its time, I believe that the rate-of-flow formula woefully underestimates fire flows needed for suppression for today’s increased fire loads. Fires today contain more and more plastics with higher Btu output, requiring higher rates of flow. Remember, water, not pressure, puts out fire. If pressure put out fires, then high-pressure pumpers and 800 psi would be the standard, not the large-capacity engines we use today.
Crapo also mentions that the committee impaneled by the National Board of Fire Underwriters (ISO’s predecessor) espoused Layman’s methods not to improve fire protection but with the hopes of reducing insurance payouts through the reduction of water damage. Reducing water damage is a positive theory to espouse, but I don’t believe it should be at the expense of the crews attacking the fire.
Dave Fornell in his Fire Stream Management Handbook explores this in some depth. Layman, while commandant to the U.S. Coast Guard Firefighting School, experimented with finely divided water particles to absorb the heat generated by fuel oil fires in enclosed shipboard compartments. After he returned from the war, Layman continued his experiments on structures and was able to adapt his shipboard tactics into indirect attack.
First, Layman said his tactics were useful only on a certain number of fires. He also never advocated applying fog for indirect attack while firefighters were within the fire area. He said this action would run a crew out of the building. In addition to this, Fornell says that neither Layman nor the Iowa State group considered life safety while evaluating the methods of indirect attack. He explains that testing has proven that a direct attack on the burning materials with coordinated ventilation is the best way to protect victims and fire crews in most interior fires.
Crapo also mentions a series of tests conducted by the United States Navy in the 1990s. Were these tests structural in nature, or were they conducted shipboard? If they were shipboard, they would have no bearing on these tests.
With regard to Part 3 of the Knapp article, Crapo discusses the authors’ comment regarding setting the nozzle on a 30° fog and whipping it around without stating when to shut down. Every firefighter in my area is taught to shut down the nozzle when knockdown of all flaming combustion is achieved. Firefighters should not be in the room for the indirect method to work properly, and the building must be enclosed and have high heat for the method to work. If this is the case, how do we get water into the compartment and have it remain relatively sealed for the indirect method to be successful? It still does not make sense to spray water into the upper part of a compartment when the fire is on the floor.
I resent the comment that the fire service has dumbed down over the past 20 to 30 years. If anything, the knowledge and skill levels of today’s firefighters continue to grow. In 20 years, you will need a doctorate to manage the fire service of the day.
Knapp and his coauthors did a commendable job of training to dispel some long-standing myths in the fire service.
Brian M. Halwchs
Captain
Washington Park/French Village (IL)
Fire Departments
Mutual aid: some historical facts
The November 2004 Roundtable discussed mutual aid. Fire Engineering should be proud of the fact that in the 1930s the prime mover in a then unique mutual-aid concept, “The Westchester County Fire Chiefs Emergency Plan,” was Roi B. Woolley, editor of Fire Engineering, my friend and fellow Fire Bell Club member.
From 1945 until 1949, as a Naval officer and then as a civilian, I was the assistant fire marshal (assistant fire protection manager) of the Fifth Naval District headquartered at Norfolk, Virginia. I organized a mutual-aid plan for the entire Hampton Roads area. A General Accounting Office auditor was horrified when he learned that two companies of Navy civilian firefighters had been paid to spend the night in Norfolk fire stations. His superiors took a broader view and suggested that the Department of Defense seek suitable legislation, suspending punitive action in the meantime.
As a result, Public Law 84-46 authorizes mutual-aid agreements by federal agencies. Just south of the naval base was a shipyard that built tankers very economically. The stingy owner had refused to fix the hump over the rail track so Norfolk’s La France pumpers could get over it. Our Seagrave pumpers could make it, so we agreed to provide two engine companies on the first alarm. I was incident commander for our units on such runs, leaving the deputy chief on the base with the remainder of our six-engine, two-truck fire department. (If the units were to be gone a long time, a telephone tree was used to call in off-duty personnel to staff the pumpers left behind. We ran a two-apparatus engine operation; both were pumpers. Off-base runs were made with one.) The night before the launching of a tanker, we had a fire in the cribbing and grease on the launch way. Mr. Economical asked me if I had seen any red hot steel. I said yes, an untruth, but I enjoyed the thought of this tightwad millionaire’s having a bad night worrying about whether the keel would break. The ship launched the next morning without incident.
Another off-base run originated when I heard a radio message from my boss: “We have a plane down, right in back of Brannigan’s house.” As I turned into our street, I could see Maurine (my wife) with the children, all okay, on the sidewalk. The plane was in the trees; the crew, unhurt, was climbing down. Maurine told me, “Get the rockets!” Practice rockets had spewed off the plane. With a propelling and marking charge, they were dangerous. The local kids had gathered them up and removed them. We had to retrieve them from their hiding places.
A number of mutual-aid firefighter deaths can be attributed to unsafe orders on the fireground. I recommend that on a mutual-aid call, you also dispatch a knowledgeable officer with the ability and authority to say, “NO WAY!” if necessary.
Francis L. Brannigan
SFPE (Fellow)/Author
Silver Spring, Maryland
