FIRE HAZARDS THE SAME FOR VOLUNTEERS
VOLUNTEERS CORNER
An officer of a volunteer department responded to a working fire in an apartment building. After a relatively short transit time, responders arrived at the site. Two engines were on scene securing water supplies, and a truck company was en route. Heavy smoke was emanating from the front first-floor apartment, one of four apartments in the three-story structure. Fire already was venting from the rear door window of the fire apartment. The door to the apartment fronted on the street side and required no forcible entry, since the fleeing sole occupant left it unlocked but closed. The officer assigned crews to search the other apartments and approached the building with the enginecrew on a primary search of the fire apartment, which seemed untenable.
With no entry problems and the fire having vented itself opposite the point of attack, the officer thought the fire would be over in a hurry. The officer was wrong. Before any handlines could hit the street, a firefighter wielding a hook broke the front windows, allowing a massive influx of air. It was off to the races. Through the window, the officer could see the fire traveling rapidly toward the engine crew at the front of the building. A tactical blunder, yes, but one that in itself wouldn’t have condemned the interior attack.
The officer followed the nozzleman and engine officer into the apartment to complete the search. (The police department and bystanders had removed all occupants prior to the fire department’s arrival. ) The initial line was making great headwaydown the hall, right up to the point where the search crew was hit by an opposing stream operating in the door from which the fire had vented itself! After a plea to shut down the culprit line had been transmitted, the fire was brought under control rather fast.
The officer returned to the street to receive reports from the other search crews from the upper floors; they were negative. After a short rehab period, the officer accompanied a crew to the secondfloor apartment to check on the overhaul underway. Overhaul was the word of the day. Every wall had been opened! Not only were there observation holes, but large portions of the wall had been removed. None of the openings showed any fire extension. The officer then heard glass being smashed on the third floor. He proceeded to the stairwell, where from the second floor he could see a firefighter breaking a window with a hook from the interior. Since there was little smoke and no heat, the officer had asked that the windows be opened, not smashed—to prevent not only unnecessary damage but also the possibility of ground-level firefighters being hit by falling glass.
After the crew returned to the street, it dawned on the officer that not all personnel on the scene had the fundamental knowledge and skills necessary to properly and safely combat a structural fire. Over the next few days, he set out to see why inadequately trained personnel were operating in this department.
His inquiries about the training deficit were met with such hostile retorts as, “I’m a volunteer; I don’t get paid for this.” “I have a job, and a wife and kids….” “We don’t fight enough fires to learn all that stuff.” The “favorite” remark heard by the officer was, “This isn’t a big city; we don’t have fires like they do.”
The officer was surprised. He had the utmost respect for volunteer firefighters. He himself had been one for a number of years. He and many of the other volunteer firefighters he knew always believed that professionalism on the fireground isn’t related to compensation for service. When people dial 911, they don’t care if the personnel responding are paid or volunteer—just whether they are trained professionals who can handle the situation. The public doesn’t just expect the fire department’s help—it deserves it. It is the public that supports the department’s fund-raising events and, more importantly. that pays taxes for public safety.
As for the comments from the firefighter concerning his family, the officer thought, he should realize that training will keep him safe and bring him home to his wife and children. The officer then posed to himself the rhetorical question, Doesn’t a firefighter’s family have the right to have the firefighter trained to safely handle situations he or she undoubtedly will encounter? As for not having a sufficient number of working fires to warrant proper training, it takes only one to hurt or kill—and the fire doesn’t care if the firefighter is paid or volunteer, trained or untrained.
The officer’s reverie continued. A volunteer firefighter’s hometown may not be a big city, but were the dangers posed by the “mishaps” in the apartment fire any less dangerous for the firefighters involved than they would have been for a big city firefighter? Of course not!
Big city firefighters may respond to thousands of apartment fires yearly, while a volunteer department might catch only a handful of such jobs, but one fire can kill just the same—regardless of its locale. While most volunteers probably never will have the opportunity to gain valuable firefighting experience by responding to as many fires as paid departments in large cities, the training opportunities for volunteers are out there.
The officer then recalled something once told to him by the truck captain of a ‘ large metropolitan area department: “The only firefighter who stops learning is a dead one.”
The officer considered this observation “profound” and relates it to all new firefighters he meets. He stresses the importance of learning the essentials and skills in which all firefighters should be proficient-regardless of where they live. He suggests to these volunteers that they take a walk around the district and observe all the possible fire and rescue situations that could occur and then ask themselves: “Am I able to handle these situations, or do I need more training?” To firefighters who think they have all the answers, the officer; responds, “Guess again.”
