From the Publishers Desk
Small Town Fire Departments Can Cope With Anything
A leaking 8-inch main carrying natural gas under 30 psi would no doubt bring nightmares to the fire chiefs of even our largest cities. But a big city chief would have tremendous resources to draw upon should a spark create disaster. But what could a small town chief with a fourman response for initial alarms do when the spark appeared.
Pretty good, as it turned out, in Hastings, Neb., where a disaster was made less of a disaster by a small town (population 27,500) fire department composed of five officers, 15 regular firemen and 20 volunteers. You read the story in the September issue, but we’d like to pick up some of the highlights here.
First off, the temperature was down to a bone-cracking 6°F when the first-in companies arrived, but they managed to stretch four lines in quick order. And when approaching the fire, a captain of one of these companies sent out a second alarm that automatically brought in all off-duty members and the paid-on-call volunteers.
An assistant chief, while still responding and on seeing the flames in the sky, ordered a mutual aid call that promptly brought in 20 men and two pumpers.
One of the mutual aid companies responded quickly enough to stretch hand lines into exposed building and managed to stop the fire from extending.
The above paragraphs, according to our editors, demonstrate two important first decisions that must be made by a fire commander: send for help and protect the exposures.
Actually, the point we are trying to get across is our admiration for the smalltown fire departments, paid and volunteer, who seem to be able to do so much with so little as the Hastings Fire Department did.
Next month’s issue will be directed to the emergency medical service and again we will be hearing about how some small fire departments handle this relatively new function of the blue-shirts.
