Common Sense
I wanted to point out a common misnomer in the fire service that we need to step away from. In “‘Doc Feelgood’s Miracle Cure, 50 Cents a Bottle’” (June 2022 Editor’s Opinion), Bobby Halton mentioned one of my favorite Einstein quotes: “If you cannot explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” Right on! However, later on, he mentioned two of my most dreaded words in the fire service: “No, I think the test is always common sense and polite but respectful confrontation.”
What we need to start understanding in bringing up new members of the fire service is that common sense is not inherent. I would even go so far as to say that common sense isn’t even a real thing. I have seen many a candidate, rookie, or simply newbie get chided for “not using common sense.” Are we sure that we were ever on the same page with that person about what is “commonly known”? In America today, more children are growing up with ACEs (adverse childhood experiences); their brains are wired very differently than a child born in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. Sometimes, I have to explain things to my high school students as if they were six years old, very patiently, without giving them the “common sense” line—not from a point of condescension, mind you, but from a true teaching standpoint. Those of us with years of experience (old people) can easily be on the receiving end of the “Don’t you have any common sense?” comment. My students give that line to me any time I do not understand “common sense” social media etiquette because I just don’t use it that often.
I think that if we want common sense around the firehouse, we have to be patient, build that sense, and maintain the training. One thing I can’t stand in America these days is that instead of having patience and understanding with one another, we just automatically go with, “If they don’t think like us, then they are stupid.” This is a very toxic atmosphere to create in the fire station. I wish I could word it like Chief Halton, but I have to stand up for getting the words “common sense” to mean something different!
Tom Fulton
Volunteer Firefighter/Investigator
Highland, IL
Refresher Training
Todd McNeal’s brilliant article “Wildland Refresher Training: Don’t Just Go Through the Motions” (Wildland Supplement, June 2022) highlights two important points applicable to all of America’s fire service.
First, refresher training is boring, repetitive, and often not effective and needs to change. Here in New York, we suffer through and waste valuable training time on the following refresher training every year, just to ensure we are compliant with regulations: OSHA safety training, bailout training, bloodborne pathogen training, and hazmat response refresher.
More importantly, McNeal suggests we should use mandatory refresher training to prepare ourselves for our next response in a positive/proactive way. In his wildland example, he states, “Conduct a thorough evaluation of some basic categories, such as hazards in the response area, response capabilities, cooperators capabilities, and the fuels and fire history in the region.”
Consider McNeal’s wildland suggestions in terms of structural responses in suburban and urban areas. Replacing redundant training with forward thinking and planning will be much more effective at reducing injuries and improving our responses.
For example, evaluate the “bad buildings” in your first-due area, such as the new “toothpick towers,” the old mill building converted into art studios, or the industrial complex with many hazards. As McNeal suggests, estimate required fire flows for these buildings where you and your members will fight a fire sooner or later. Follow that up with what he calls response capabilities—determining estimated fire flows for suppression water (hydrants, tanker shuttles, or draft sites) that is or isn’t available to your first-due units. Especially in old water systems, hydrants may not provide the water you need. Remember, you will take water from the municipal system faster than the water plant may be able to replace it! Figure this out before the fire during “refresher” training.
What do you want your first-due and multiple-alarm units to accomplish? Plan their ingress to the scene and expected actions at these bad buildings. Plan for what mutual-aid companies will add to the fight and how you will support them. Plan traffic control with the police so you can get additional units in and out of the scene.
Refresher training can look forward or back and be extremely valuable, but it should not be redundant and painful. Was there a fire or alarm where there was a line-of-duty death, an injury, extreme fireground factors, or good lessons learned? What did you learn from it? Refresher training should be an after-action review of that fire. An in-depth look at past incidents with a focus on preventing something similar at a bad building in your area would be better than a transportation placard review for the 10th year in a row.
Refresher training can be a powerful tool to better prepare us for our next alarm if the time is used effectively and not simply to check the box.
Jerry Knapp
Chief
Rockland County (NY) Haz Mat Team
Safety First
This is in reference to “Safety First vs. High Performance: What Is Too Safe?” by Michael J. Barakey (June 2022). As a retired firefighter whose career started in 1973 and a student of fire service history, I have seen many “innovations” within the fire service. When I read the article, I came away with the feeling that he blames item 1 of the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives—“Define and advocate the need for cultural change within the fire service relating to safety: incorporating, leadership, management, supervision, accountability and personal responsibility”—for what appear to be shortcomings related to “nonaggressive” firefighting. Further from the truth, the “culture of firefighter safety” has been an evolving process in the industry since its inception.
Barakey wrote that if one is to follow with “Safety First Directives,” mitigation of the incident will take longer. Yet, each item has its own validation left to each individual fire department. Toward the end of the article, he does offer some “solutions” on how to overcome the items in his laundry list, such as providing the opportunity to “think and perform” outside of a fire department’s standard operating procedures to accomplish an assignment.
Disregarding and blaming the evaluators and the fire service organizations that have worked diligently over the past 50-plus years to provide us with accurate research data to make intelligent, informed choices in fireground incident management on saving the structure over that of the firefighters sent into it are not the way to go.
Michael Teslar
Firefighter-II (Ret.)
California Department of Forestry
& Fire Protection/Cal Fire
Regarding “Safety First,” the author talks about the “clean cab” concept. In my presentations I call it the “cleaner cab.” Keep the SCBA, tools, and so on, but clean the cabs better, more often. We did that at the start of COVID when we did not know what to do with it. Clean our PPE when required—I agree with him when we still have to do our jobs.
One thing that can be added is Mike Rowe’s “Safety Third” message. I have been involved in Boy Scouts almost all my life, with two sons who are Eagle Scouts; he had a great idea/movement of not have safety be the first driver on everything.
We need to be smart, take care of our health (clean your PPE), but need to do our jobs. That job, being a firefighter, paid or volunteer, is dangerous. Smart risks need to be taken. Take care of your health. Train for the fight and not just the book.
Tim Pillsworth
Past Chief
Winona Lake (NY) Engine Company #2
“How-To”
In reference to “How-To” (Editor’s Opinion, July 2022), thanks to Bobby Halton for his belly laugh-generating remark, “misguided adventures in plumbing, auto repair, electrical, and a wide range of other activities I have no business attempting to do.” I’m also acutely aware of what that remark means!
Thanks also for reinforcing the truism that everyone understands/learns differently and that our respective, instructional toolboxes need to regularly include varied/updated methodology to keep our business/profession always improving and moving forward.
I recently reviewed Halton’s Editor’s Opinion columns from 2017 onward. In one, he described, as a retired firefighter coming upon a fire, reporting it, conducting a size-up, and reporting his findings to the first-arriving company officer. If I recall correctly, the point of that column was that even as an “old fire dog,” his acquired skill sets over the decades still allowed him to be useful when the flag went up.
Herb Jewell
Retired/Still Engaged
Poulsbo, WA
Correction: In my June 2022 article, “Applying SLICERS to Ensure Firefighter Safety,” I stated there had been 13 LODDs as of April 18, 2022, that occurred during structure fires operations, but that number should have been 5. I incorrectly attributed all fire scene-related deaths when quoting FEMA statistics.—Ryan Petsche
