By ED WURSTER
Developing a firefighter safety program can be daunting for volunteer departments. Creating an all-encompassing plan that protects members takes a lot of organization, research, and time. However, no one can doubt the importance of having such a program. Who wants to volunteer for a department that does not value or emphasize the safety of its firefighters?
No one intentionally tries to be unsafe. However, the process for developing a safety program is challenging. The programs aren’t about training someone to work with new equipment; they are meant to change a culture and environment within the fire department and its members.
For the Abington Township (PA) Fire Department (ATFD), firefighter safety is always a priority. Although our department has not experienced a lot of incident-related injuries, our members believe protecting firefighter safety is critical and made improving our existing safety program part of our August 2008 strategic plan. It took us more than a year to develop a departmentwide program, which is now in place.
However, just as our roles as firefighters change, so, too, must our firefighter safety program. It will always be a work in progress as we strive to stay up-to-date and current with our procedures and protocols. Understanding that our program must be flexible was just one of the lessons we learned in this 18-month process. This article will pass along the observations and recommendations that helped the ATFD implement and carry out our firefighter safety program successfully.
INVOLVE YOUR MEMBERS
To be successful, a firefighter safety program must have the “buy-in” from the firefighters themselves. In our case, the ATFD involved its members in the development of its program from the beginning. Instead of issuing mandates that our volunteers had to follow, we focused on building a program around our members’ needs.
| (1) Safety Officer Charlie Rohrer maintains accountability in accordance with the ATFD Accountability Guidelines and ensures compliance with NFPA 1403, Standard on Live Fire Training Evolutions, during a recent live burn session. [Photos courtesy of the Abington Township (PA) Fire Department.] |
We began by approaching each of our five member companies to see what they were doing individually to promote safety. We wanted to take the best approaches from each company and find a way to incorporate them into a departmentwide plan. We also had firefighters from each company fill out surveys to indicate what they felt was most important in a safety program, what the program should consist of, and what qualifications a safety officer should have.
Once the best practices and feedback had been compiled and analyzed, we presented our program ideas to all of our members. During this presentation, more feedback was given and the program was fine-tuned. Volunteers were given multiple opportunities to voice concerns and brainstorm ideas on firefighter safety, which cultivated a sense of ownership; they took pride knowing that they contributed to various components of the overall plan. Consulting with members also allowed us to gain some valuable insights and ideas for our program. In addition, it gave our program credibility: Volunteers knew the program was being built around information received directly from the people who were “in the trenches” daily.
Separate from the membership, we asked our chiefs to review National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1521, Standard for Fire Department Safety Officer, 2008 edition, and then allowed them to ask questions and express concerns. With the chiefs’ input, we then used information from the National Fire Academy Incident Safety Officer course and other information specific to the ATFD. We then presented this program to the membership of all five member companies. This approach supplied information to membership regarding the role of the safety officer within the department and at fire scenes; members would now be familiar with the role and understand the expectations for the position. After these presentations, each of the member companies nominated qualified personnel to attend our customized safety officer program, which follows NFPA standards.
BE READY FOR CHALLENGES
One of our department’s biggest challenges was establishing the best possible accountability system. A two-tag accountability system had been in place for a number of years, but tags were not maintained, and there was no formal process for obtaining replacement tags. Some of the member companies investigated computerized accountability systems, but they could not reach a consensus on what to use. The newly formed ATFD safety officer group, which met and prioritized vulnerabilities and opportunities for improvement, intervened, ranking an accountability system at the top of the list of department needs. The safety officers concluded that the department should implement a three-tag system, which would use color-coded tags to indicate which members belong to which companies. Firefighters would leave one tag on the apparatus and one with an accountability officer, or on a traffic cone or post if the officer has not arrived. The third tag is given to division/sector officers when firefighters are entering a large scene or building that has been divided into sectors. This system was integrated into an accountability operational guideline that was reviewed and approved unanimously by the chiefs; it explains which steps to take at an incident scene to track the location and function of all firefighters.
DESIGNATE A LEADER
In every fire company, there are usually one or two people who have a passion for safety. Select these folks to take the lead on the development of your firefighter safety program. It helps to have one or two people in charge of organizing and leading the meetings that are necessary to the process. These same people can also be in charge of acquiring and analyzing the feedback that is obtained from fellow firefighters.
Once a leader has been designated, he must be given the space and time necessary to initiate and implement a program successfully. Creating an effective safety program does not happen overnight—it takes a lot of time and cooperative effort to come together. Have reasonable and attainable expectations.
DON’T TAKE A ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL APPROACH
Plenty of resources exist to help fire departments draft and implement firefighter safety programs, but beware of adopting a “canned” program. The ATFD applied guidelines established by the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and the incident command system (ICS) and, where necessary, added to the guidelines so they became relevant to Abington Township.
| (2) Safety Officer Edward Wurster reviews the ATFD Rehabilitation Guidelines with paramedics from Second Alarmers Rescue Squad during a recent live burn session. |
NIMS and ICS often address how agencies respond to major incidents rather than the smaller events our volunteers respond to daily. To avoid overwhelming our volunteers, we made sure to explain to them how to carry out the guidelines. For example, NIMS/ICS guidelines state: “The Incident Commander [IC] shall assume all general and command staff positions until the operations dictate otherwise or span of control is exceeded by the number of personnel supervised or number of tasks required to manage the incident. Whenever possible, a Safety Officer shall be appointed.” We took that guideline a step further in our incident management guidelines by explaining that most incidents will require a simple management system for the IC, safety officer, and other groups. We then outlined how the management system would work in several of the types of incidents to which our firefighters commonly respond such as car fires and room-and-contents fires.
ORGANIZE YOUR MEETINGS
When gathering your feedback from volunteers, it’s important to always be cognizant of their time. Today’s volunteers are busy people with careers and families; we make an effort to start and end meetings on time. During our meetings, we invited our volunteers to do most of the talking and acted more as moderators than lecturers. Once again, this allowed our volunteers to have a voice and increased their comfort level with the firefighter safety program because they knew their ideas and thoughts were being seriously considered.
KEEP THE TRAINING COMING
Once we had established our program, we began training. Although many of our fire companies already had designated safety officers, we wanted to make sure those people were aware of the newly adopted guidelines for incident scene safety. The safety officer program is about 12 to 16 hours of training and is generally reserved for our more experienced firefighters. The ATFD safety officers meet periodically to review opportunities for improvement and develop policies. This group reviews near-misses and provides awareness to the membership. As mentioned previously, we also held training sessions to educate non-safety officer members in what is expected from a safety officer during an incident should they one day aspire to this position.
During meetings with the chief officers, we determined that additional guidance was needed for incident management. Although many may not identify the role incident management has with safety, it was quickly accepted as a priority and, accordingly, department-specific incident management guidelines and a training program were developed, adopted, and presented to the membership. Considered a model program, we were invited to speak about the Abington Township Incident Management Guidelines at the Montgomery County Fire Chief’s Conference in January 2010.
MAKE SAFETY MORE THAN JUST A PROGRAM
Walking the walk is very important when it comes to safety. To show your department that the firefighter safety program is not just a document that will collect dust on someone’s desk, make sure safety is stressed in everything your department does. At the start of each meeting or training session, take a few minutes to talk about safety issues or to address current events. Visit the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation (www.firehero.org) for information, or review the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s Firefighter Fatality Investigation and Prevention Program (www.cdc.gov/niosh/fire) for new topics or discussion items. Doing so builds awareness among firefighters about what can go wrong during an incident and prompts them to think about how to prevent accidents before they happen.
DON’T LET YOUR PROGRAM GET STALE
Just as firefighting technology, equipment, and procedures change to fit the times, so must your firefighter safety program. Even though our program is established, we feel as though we are just getting to the heart of its development. We have begun periodic brainstorming sessions with each of our safety officers to discuss their concerns and other hot topics that we may need to address in the future. This can be done with or without safety officers; designate someone in your department to monitor trade publications or attend regional events so you can learn about current practices and issues affecting the industry. Firefighter safety programs must be dynamic because the science of firefighting is constantly changing and new challenges arise every day.
Although it requires an ongoing effort to ensure that the ATFD’s firefighter safety program is current and addresses our members’ needs, we truly believe the time spent is worthwhile. A firefighter safety program, aside from its obvious purpose of saving lives and protecting volunteers from injury, also shows members that we value their work and their commitment to our department. All of this helps us to improve our image and to achieve our ultimate goal of recruiting and retaining the skilled and dedicated volunteers who will keep our department thriving in the future.
ED WURSTER is the chief safety officer for the Abington Township Fire Department (ATFD) and the chief safety officer of the ATFD’s Roslyn (PA) Fire Company (RFC). He previously served as RFC’s chief. Wurster is also a Pennsylvania State Fire Academy local-level instructor and has worked with fire service agencies around the world, including the Seoul (Korea) Metropolitan Fire Academy. He also served as parliamentarian of the International Fire Service Accreditation Congress. Wurster has a master’s of science degree in public safety from Saint Joseph’s University and a B.A. degree in criminal justice from Temple University. He is also a chief fire officer for the Center for Public Safety Excellence and is a member of the Institution of Fire Engineers.
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