DEALING WITH CIVILIANS AT FIRE SCENES
BY CHARLES R. ANGIONE
You pull up first on a 2-1/2-story frame residence that is “going good.” “Is everybody out?” you ask an occupant exiting the fire building. “Yes, yes, we are all out,” you are told. You breathe a sigh of relief as you reach for your portable radio. “Engine 5 to responding units: Be advised that everyone is out of the building.” WRONG! Your radio report to the incoming units is inaccurate. You don`t know that “everyone is out.” All you know for sure is that a civilian reported that everyone is out. This is what you should relay to the troops. Be precise! Telling them everyone is out of the building may lead them to believe that this is an established fact, perhaps even that your company has performed a primary search.
If the above civilian report is incorrect, and there are victims in the building, your truck or rescue companies may, based on the erroneous information, perform a less-than-thorough search for them–or perhaps no search at all!
The fact is there is more than one possible interpretation of this statement. I have come across such potentially dangerous fireground reports, and you may have also. What the fleeing occupant may really be saying is, “Everybody in my family is out. The house is a two-family residence, however, and I have no idea about the family on the second floor.” Or perhaps the occupant is saying, ” I just returned home from shopping. No one should be inside, as far as I know (that is, unless my son unexpectedly came home early and is taking a nap in his attic bedroom).”
A fire building occupant may even tell you that everyone has escaped because he wants to believe this rather than confront the fact that, in his panic, there might be a neighbor still inside whom he failed to alert.
Of course, the occupant may be correct in reporting that everybody has, in fact, safely exited the building, thereby making a dangerous and time-consuming search for victims unnecessary.
Another time you may be told, “There are children in the second-floor apartment.” I have heard this on several occasions also and soon discovered an alternate interpretation for this statement, too. “The family living on the second floor may or may not be home. The only reason I mentioned the children is that if they were at home, they might be at risk. You also asked so urgently that I felt I had to tell you something.” It is true that sometimes the appearance of excitement or even panic in a firefighter may cause a similar reaction in a private citizen.
Obviously, in the ab-sence of evidence to the contrary, one must err on the side of life safety and adjust one`s strategy to give that second-floor apartment top priority. This change in strategy may impair our extinguishment efforts–or even cause a potentially deadly delay in the search for actual victims who may be trapped in other areas.
You may also come on a situation in which a language barrier exists, causing someone who does not speak English to seem to indicate “yes” or “no” to your urgent questions.
We should, of course, question witnesses further, when possible, to clarify what is really being said. Even so, we cannot fully rely on civilian information, which may consist of erroneously drawn conclusions or the irrational and even hysterical utterances of terror-stricken occupants who are fleeing for their lives. We simply must find out for ourselves if anyone is home by performing our own search.
Then there are some civilian reports that are deliberately misleading. Sadly, some of our “customers” are sick souls who get a kick out of harassing firefighters and sometimes even seeing them get hurt. False alarms, generally considered kid stuff but often perpetrated by adults, are unfortunately a commonplace indication of this unhappy fact of life. Holes cut in the floors of abandoned buildings and then covered over with linoleum or other camouflage so firefighters fall through are dramatic proof that there are people out there who hate us, as is the brick thrown from a roof as our apparatus passes by.
The above notwithstanding, I readily acknowledge that I have received invaluable information and assistance from private citizens at fires and other emergencies. Some have provided information on the special features and contents of fire buildings. Others have even single-handedly extinguished fires or made rescues prior to our arrival. Still others have operated specialized equipment for us or have otherwise lent their expertise to facilitate our operation. Such potentially life-saving help has earned my deep gratitude. I am sure we have all truly appreciated many intelligent and courageous civilians for their bona fide–even indispensable–emergency assistance. Thank God for them.
Still, we know that civilians (as with the occasional firefighter) can sometimes do strange things at emergencies. Generally speaking, despite the genuine help sometimes given by private citizens, firefighters eventually learn to listen to civilian reports at emergencies with some healthy skepticism. Many of us have seen how rife with error such information can be.
At one fire scene, for example, perfectly respectable appearing civilians advised me that the fire involved “radioactive materials” (actually, they were discarded radio vacuum tubes); that oxyacetylene units were stored in the garage (the detached garage was well back from the house and contained no hazardous materials); and a natural gas explosion had occurred in the basement (the homeowner himself reported this, although the house did not have gas service).
Another time, a distraught neighbor reported that the elderly occupant of an apartment well below the fire had not been seen and might be trapped. “You`ve got to get him out now!” I was admonished. I thanked him for his “report.” It was only after the fire was under control that I had time to explain that even an elderly occupant who may be in an apartment below the fire is generally not in any immediate danger (assuming, of course, that a building collapse is not imminent). Certainly, he would not be given priority over occupants who may be on the fire floor, the floor immediately above it, the top floor, or any intermediate upper stories. Our “missing” occupant may simply have been out shopping. For all we know, he may have been visiting upstairs above the fire. His apartment would normally be checked following the completion of more urgent assignments, perhaps in conjunction with the start of salvage operations.
I have also witnessed civilians voluntarily pitching in by helping to drag hose or performing similar chores. I must admit that there was a time or two when this physical assistance was welcomed. Some civilians get caught up in the excitement, however, and want to be part of the action or at least get a closer look. Unfortunately, these may be the same civilians who will sue you and your department when they become injured–and sometimes even when they don`t. Except for necessary nonemergency assistance by experts (plant technicians, agency or utility representatives), private citizens should not be allowed to work on the fireground or remain inside the fire lines. Your safety officer should keep an eye on this problem and use the police to keep civilians out of harm`s way–and out of your hair!
And then there are the answers one often gets from occupants to questions regarding the cause of fire in their homes or apartments. Afraid of getting in trouble for their negligence in causing the fire, many will automatically discount any fire cause that may imply their negligence. “Oh, no, no one smokes in the house,” you are told. One resident went a bit further, adding, “Not even in the entire neighborhood.” Or you`ll be told, “Oh, no, our children never play with matches. There are none in the house.” While a young couple was telling officers this very thing, I whispered to their four-year-old to bring me a cigarette lighter. The child returned in less than a minute with a nonchildproof lighter and an ashtray with several extinguished cigarettes.
It helps to assure such fearful and embarrassed occupants that there is generally no penalty or fine imposed for accidentally causing a fire in one`s own home. We should also explain that there are only a few practical ways in which a fire is likely to start in a private residence: It can be caused by
1. Electricity (if electrical outlets or appliances were in the area of origin, or if there had been an electrical storm);
2. Malfunctioning heating and cooking equipment (if such equipment was in the area of origin);
3. Careless handling of smoking or cooking items; or
4. Arson (did someone sneak into your child`s bedroom and start a fire?).
If it is obvious that the first two items above did not cause the fire and the occupants vehemently deny item three, that leaves arson as the only remaining possible cause.
The occupants might then be advised that arson investigators are being called in and that we might be here all night. At this point, they might decide that maybe that discarded cigarette was still smoldering or perhaps their child had been playing with the lighter after all.
Fire scenes are emotional places. People who are normally thoughtful (even reticent) and many who have never before witnessed a hostile fire often have no hesitation in telling you exactly how to handle a complex emergency. At almost every significant fire, excitement induces fleeing occupants, civilian onlookers, rookie police officers (and sometimes even firefighters) to offer their well-meaning advice. Sometimes, the information offered is a suggestion; at other times, it`s more like a direct order.
In my 25 years on the line–13 of them as an operations deputy chief, I have received my share of coaching from civilian “incident commanders.”
Among my many command post partners:
The neighborhood onlooker who saw the movie Backdraft;
A young reporter who just that year bylined her first piece on Fire Prevention Week;
The police officer who is good at but bored with traffic duty;
The probie who managed to read through our department SOPs;
The rescue squad volunteer who once responded to a barn fire; and
The mayor who managed to distinguish a ladder truck from an engine during a recent tour of the fire station.
These helpful partners and many others sometimes took considerable credit for “our” successful fire operations, but that`s okay with me. Good firefighting is, after all, a team effort. What I couldn`t get them to do was share the blame when “we” lost one. n
n CHARLES R. ANGIONE, a 25-year line veteran of the fire service, served as operations deputy chief of the City of Plainfield (NJ) Fire Division. An instructor, he is a state-certified Fire Instructor II and Fire Official, has a diploma in fire science, and has attended the National Fire Academy. He is a freelance writer, columnist, and a frequent contributor to fire service publications.
