November Issue
Fire Engineering always provides up-to-date and actionable information, and the November issue was spectacular in this regard! The articles cause us to think about how we can make our own operations more effective in service to our citizens, concurrently reducing risk to manageable levels for our members. As our military and most successful companies in the business world have learned, this mental collaboration and resultant tactical adjustments lead to ultimate success. The articles are what I call “pre-action” reviews, a simple takeoff of military after action reviews (AAR), which are designed not to find fault but to apply lessons learned to improve the next operation. What better way to honor our fallen members than to make ourselves better because of them.
Thomas A. Merrill’s superb Volunteers Corner, “Delivering a Successful Training Drill Presentation,” highlighted a major issue the volunteer fire service must examine and fix if we are to survive in the 21st century—that we promote a person to an officer position often without ensuring he has the proper training for the new tasks we expect him to perform. Obviously, not only the officer’s performance is on the line (success in doubt) but this lack of training can lead directly to company or department tactical success or failure as well. Merrill’s words, “The new officer may be knowledgeable and even skilled with various tools, tactics, and equipment, but that does not necessarily mean he can get in front of his peers and successfully instruct them.” Conducting training is a separate learned skill.
Consider that military members must be trained to meet the specific challenges/tasks of their new position before they can even be considered for promotion. The U.S. Air Force does not put an airman into the seat of an F-35 and hope he does well. A carpenter, an electrician, or a plumber does not join the union as a journeyman and then learn his job. There is a training and a qualification process based on job requirements. The United States Military Academy at West Point is a four-year leadership experience that prepares second lieutenants (lowest grade Army officers) for their tasks of leading a platoon. The volunteer fire service promotes, then hopes you can do the job—not a good business model. We must change this if we expect to survive and thrive.
It is also important to note that many volunteer departments have tactical training requirements before promotion. However, the reality is, most of an officer’s/leader’s job is leadership—personnel management, budget, and training—as Merrill so correctly points out. Officers’ time spent on tasks could be summarized as 1% tactical fireground decision making and 99% other leadership tasks that prepare for the 1% success where lives (ours included) are in doubt. Delivering a successful training presentation, as Merrill points out, is not simple and requires a number of skills that new officers must have to ensure fireground tactical success for the people they lead. New officers must be trained to have these skills before promotion. Hoping our new officer will be a good trainer is not the best idea. Hope is not a plan.
Jeff Chandler’s excellent, thorough, and experienced-based article “RAPID HazMat for Safe and Quick Response” is another example of how valuable Fire Engineering really is for sharing the best practices, improving our mission of life safety, and tactical operations. In a few pages, he shares a career’s worth of highly detailed, time-tested, effective procedures. It truly is a model for all hazmat teams to consider.
Chandler makes a very valid point for civilian decon: “Plan to treat hypothermia.” The classic two-engine mass decon corridor with fog streams directed at each other is challenging for victims. We tested (ran our team through as victims) this and found the following: 55°F water is very cold/unpleasant, even during a hot summer day; the fog streams completely take away visibility from the victims. It is wildly disorienting (engine noise, very cold water, and no visibility), so imagine how a scared/injured civilian is going to act under these conditions. Good idea on paper, less than ideal in reality. If you have to do this, plan for lots of staffing to treat victims (hypothermia), secure valuables and police officers’ weapons, etc.
Decon is a critical role in any hazmat response, and having confidence in it eases the burden on any hazmat team leader. In Rockland County, New York, we have staffed and equipped two fire departments to operate decon teams that have only two missions: provide technical decon for our entry teams and perform mass decon for civilians and ambulatory and nonambulatory victims. The priority mission of both departments and hazmat teams is life safety.
We learned the importance of swift/effective decon the hard way when I got showered with a chlorine solution that had run down over my head while I was trying to plug a leak from a flange under a pool supply tank truck. My face piece seal kept it from my eyes, but when I stood up, my concern was if it would run into my eyes and blind me. The AAR led us to modify our standard operating procedures and keep a charged hoseline within close proximity of entry teams for immediate gross decon for corrosives/toxics and chemicals that could cause harm during a personal protective equipment/suit failure.
Keep filling Fire Engineering with these experienced-based, practical, and well-researched articles. It is superbly valuable for those who continually strive to improve on-scene effectiveness and member safety.
Jerry Knapp
Chief
Rockland County (NY) Hazmat Team
What’s the Answer?
The disturbing trend of reduced numbers in the fire service along with increased calls for service has placed a heavy burden on responders. On the volunteer side of the fire service, you’re going to step on some toes if you mention a lack of responders at calls. How do you ask for more from volunteers without sounding ungrateful for the sacrifice they are already making? On the career side, you’re going to upset the bean counters if you mention the need for more resources. Even if you have the budget, recruitment and retention have become a pressing issue for both volunteer and career responders. Someone is always going to be unhappy when this issue is discussed.
However, being that I’m currently a volunteer, my concerns are focused on the volunteer scenario. It’s difficult to ask volunteers to give up more of their time to respond, train, and maintain apparatus and equipment. As volunteers, we must prioritize our obligations. Family needs to come first, and work better come second if you want to be able to afford to provide for that family.
How does one claim to put family first while simultaneously leaving them at home to help others and spending time training for a volunteer role that could otherwise be allocated to spending additional time with your family or at least advancing your professional career to provide for your family? Everyone should try to pursue their passions, but to what end? At what point have we changed the order of our priorities?
When we are responding to calls with inadequate resources, I feel like we are pushing our families down the list of priorities by taking unnecessary risks. I’m certain career personnel feel the same way but because of mandatory overtime, mental health/burnout, and additional time away from family. In some instances, I know career houses are closing down because of staffing.
So, what’s the answer?
Mike Metzroth
Firefighter/EMT
Pleasant Plains (IL) Fire Protection District
Flags, Bricks, and a Copper Bracelet with a Name
September 11, 2001, undeniably changed the United States, especially for those in public safety and the military. All those who went to work that day did what most Americans regard as their routine—that is, go to work, come home, and be with friends and family. That rather simplistic paradigm was ruthlessly and inexplicably changed in a matter of hours. Many of us went to work that September, but some of us did not come home. It left families and, even more so, a nation with the emptiness and shock that often surround such catastrophic loss.
Like many first responders that day, I was at work, training, when the news of the terrorist attacks was announced in my classroom in Anniston, Alabama. Coincidently, my training was on terrorism preparations. I knew back home my family would be worried. However, as a conditioned first responder, I wanted to do something, anything to help. I knew that many of my brother and sister firefighters on either the national disaster medical teams or as part of the national urban search and rescue program, among countless others, would be responding. Those who assisted did great work and helped show unity in a time meant to cause chaos. I stayed at work, disappointed that I was still home but proud and grateful for those who responded.
As the news of casualties began to come out, I received notice that Deputy Chief Raymond Downey of the Fire Department of New York had been killed in the collapse of the Twin Towers. Although I never had the fortune to personally know the chief, I was well aware of the differences he made in the urban search and rescue environment. He was instrumental in preparing the traditional locally based fire service for responding to large-scale disasters on a national level. His leadership on search and rescue inspired me to try to join my local team.
While the recovery efforts went on and bodies were recovered, I raced to keep alive the memory of those who did not come home from work that day. I remembered the POW/MIA bracelets worn during the Vietnam War and subsequent wars as a symbol of its motto, “You are not forgotten.” I especially felt a connection to the dedication of those waiting for their service member to come home so they could remove the bracelet and either welcome home their loved one or begin the process of truly grieving.
In that spirit, a local jewelry manufacturer started selling bracelets with the names of first responders lost in New York City. I chose Ray Downey. A week or so passed, and while I was conducting district inspections, the manufacturer called and said my bracelet was done. I immediately placed it on my right wrist; however, unlike the POW/MIA bracelet, I did not take it off when my service member was brought home. Instead, I placed the bracelet on when Chief Downey was found and opted to keep it on in reverence of his sacrifice. This was my tribute, however small it may seem, to those who went to work that day and to honor all of those in uniform on and since 9/11. Chief Downey’s body was recovered the day I picked up the bracelet, and the bracelet has remained in place during numerous airport visits and through my daily routine as a reminder of the courage all displayed by merely going to work.
Much has changed in my career in the 20 years that have passed. Lessons learned and funding received even helped at the tragic Station Fire in West Warwick, Rhode Island. I and many personal friends have changed positions and are now peers at the agency that was created out of the attacks, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). I still have the honor of working with the nation’s first responders, but now it is in preparation for the next natural disaster or terrorist attack. Despite this, I remain haunted by the view outside my former office building. The campus flag is lowered all too often, and the brick wall at the memorial continues to have more names added, just as it did in the months following 9/11.
At work, I was often faced with the loved ones of those lost when students are in class. They visit the wall or walkway, searching for a family member or friend. I have seen the statue of the three New York firefighters raising the flag just like the Marines on Iwo Jima did, as a symbol of pride during battle, receive its share of visitors. Nothing has underscored the depth of what was lost like seeing a family’s pain while still trying to do my job to prevent the next loss. Nevertheless, just like 20 years ago, I go to work.
I have described what flags, bricks, and bracelets mean to me. They are symbols of what the United States has been before and has proven countless times since 9/11—that those in public safety and the military continue to go to work with the hope of returning home, despite at times the heartbreaking elusiveness that comes with that hope. We must all strive to prepare, train, and work together so that no more bricks, walls, or bracelets have to be made with names on them and the flag remains where it should always be—at full mast.
John N. Carnegis
Firefighter/Paramedic
Frederick County, Maryland
