With regard to Greg Falkenthal`s Fire Commentary, I`ve been in the fire service for 21 years, the last few as a captain–all in a small southern California town (four stations; 6,500 calls a year, 85 percent medical calls). I teach at our college fire academy (hydraulics, fire streams, and water supply).
Falkenthal has many valid points about being diversified, lack of training, and the inherent dangers in firefighting, but his railing against two in/two out and SOPs is off the mark, as were his analogies.
Diversification is a reality, and SOPs are an attempt to give fire officers a basis from which to work, not hard-and-fast rules. If you are not following SOPs, you`d better know why and have a good reason. Given fires, haz mat, rescues, and medical aids, an officer cannot always “know” what the proper action is. SOPs start you down a planned road with many forks ahead, but at least you are going in the right direction.
SOPs are not the problem. Lack of training is. On this we agree.
Two in/two out allows you to make an exception if life is immediately threatened. I agree that two in/two out without a plan is not much good. But it does require a department to think about its training and plans. It must also ask the question, Should we go in? If you did not already have another version of two in/two out as part of your incident action plan, you were not considering the basics–or as our old friend, the size-up, says, probabilities and possibilities. One possibility is always, What do I do if it all goes to pot?
Now to Falkenthal`s analogies–kids playing ball and troublemakers. No one took the ball away. It was just said that these are the rules to make the game as safe as we can. Now do your job, and ignore the troublemakers. They are being handled. As stated before, if you had the safety of your crew in mind, two in/two out is not a big deal. If you didn`t, it makes you do it. Two in/two out does not take the place of knowledge, experience, and good decision making, but it certainly does not interfere with them either.
As for the military analogy, if the military had two in/two out, it would just have had two backup helicopters to back up the mission and pull the men out. No one said don`t rescue … just rescue with a backup plan.
As Falkenthal said in the beginning, firefighting is dangerous and unpredictable. Aren`t those just the reasons for two in/two out and SOPs? The fact that firefighters are still dying says action needs to be taken. Two in/two out says firefighters are as important as civilians. How many firefighters die saving a LIFE vs. property? We have all seen the chaos that results when firefighters are trapped or injured. Two in/two out just tries to minimize this.
I agree training is paramount and cannot be replaced by two in/two out, SOPs, or any other rule. All of Falkenthal`s arguments against are the reasons we need them. Firefighters and civilians have been entrusted to our care. Let`s say they are all important. I never want to be the chief knocking on a door to inform a loved one that we knew the firefighter was down but no one was ready to rescue him.
Jerry Ormond
Captain
City of Vista (CA) Fire Department
