LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Unsafe roof operation
Regarding the cover on the September issue, I have some difficulty in understanding why five firefighters, one of which has no head or face protection, are on the roof of what appears to be a totally involved house, attempting to ventilate or salvage the house. It appears that the value of the house is much less than the value of the young men’s breathing equipment, let alone their lives.
Although 1 believe any citizen or professional firefighter would appreciate their aggressiveness, I believe it should be tempered with wisdom. As you know, our industry is a dangerous one even when proper risk analysis is practiced. I do not want to seem critical, just concerned about the logic employed.
Dwight Williams
President
Williams Fire & Hazard Control. Inc.
Mauriceville, Texas
Fire prevention is also an efficiency coefficient
Some time ago, after a council meeting and a review of the fire department month-end statistics, the mayor casually commented, “Those guys are sure saving us a lot of money.” The remark was somewhat facetious.
I thought to myself, “Weil, we are saving a lot of money through maintaining a fast, efficient initial attack, but we are just not advising Council of those statistics.”
At that time, I started including the property saved each month as a result of our fire suppression efforts in my month-end report. 1 have continued to use this dollar figure against the cost of running the fire department to advise Council of this department’s efficiency.
1 have always felt that a fire department produces a product as viable as any other business function: however, our product or profit, if you will, is intangible. How could a department determine how many fires the fire prevention program prevented or how many lives the public relations program saved?
Robert W. Laeng’s article, “Measuring Fire Department Effectiveness” (Fire Engineering. August 1993) provides a method for calculating the effectiveness of the fire protection system. The efficiency coefficient provides a measurable factor that gives a reasonable assessment of the fire department’s effectiveness using two factors: “property coefficient” and “life safety coefficient.”
However, I feel there is still a factor missing. For example, Laeng refers to the “system” as “the entire fire protection system, not just the reaction of fire suppression forces to one or more incidents.” In addition, he explains that the public education program has a direct bearing on the number of persons who safely escape from a structure. My point is, perhaps there should be a third factor involved in the “efficiency coefficient” formula that relates directly to the fire inspections done and the effect of those inspections on preventing fire and lessening its effects. For example, if the assessed market value of the total inspection workload (assessed property inspections = API) were divided into the assessed property saved (APS), the quotient would produce a fire prevention coefficient (FPC). e.g.,
APS.ppc
API
Like the other two factors, PC and LSC, this figure would be between 0 and 1. This factor could then be added to the property coefficient, the life safety coefficient, and the fire prevention coefficient to produce an efficiency coefficient based on the three factors: fire suppression, life safety, and fire prevention, e.g., PC 4LSC + EPC = EC 3
I would like to compliment Robert Laeng on his providing a means for assessing fire department efficiency. Also, I would be interested in learning how many fire departments in the United States have implemented his method of assessing fire protection effectiveness.
W. R. Dawson
Fire Chief
District of Kitimat
British Columbia, Canada
Apparatus placement
I read with interest John W. Mitiendorf s article “The Basics: Aerial Apparatus Placement” (September 1994). Since I served on truck companies during my career, both as a firefighter and an officer, 1 can relate to many of his comments. I was especially pleased to see the inclusion of quints in his article. As a deputy chief for the St. Louis (MO) Fire Department, I have firsthand experience using quints. Our Total Quint Concept has been successfully used in St. Louis since 1986.
The use of 34 quints has allowed us to increase service while reducing overall operating cost. Safety staffing has been accomplished, and response times have stayed intact. Each truck has been designed and equipped to stand alone.
Our department assembles 28 firefighters on the fireground at first-alarm assignments. The utilization of prepiped waterways, automatic nozzles, deck guns, and preconnected handlines gives these apparatus tremendous fire knockdown power. Our three-, four-, and five-alarm fires are few and far between.
The Total Quint Concept eliminates most of the problems experienced using the traditional engine/truck combination. Well-written standard operating procedures and the use of the incident command system take care of the rest.
Since the inception of the Total Quint Concept, thousands of communities have purchased these apparatus. The system works. If it works in St. Louis, it can work anywhere.
Fire departments should take a hard look at the system. If you don’t, you are not keeping up with the newest technology or the latest in strategy and tactics.
For more information on the Total Quint Concept, contact Gregg Gerner/Frank Schaper, Emergency Service Consultants, St. Louis Quint Concepts, 5116 Jamieson, St. Louis, MO 63109,(314)752-4801.
Frank C. Schaper
Deputy Fire Chief
St. Louis (MO) Fire Department
More on tubular webbing
While “15-Foot Tubular Webbing” (Innovations: Homegrown, Anthony J. Pascocello, Jr., September 1994) provides excellent suggestions for the use of the webbing, information on the one-inch tubular webbing contains errors that may stunt the acceptance of the development of safer materials and equipment.
The author refers to the different types of tubular webbing (shuttle and chain). The correct names of the two most popular types of webbing refer to the looms used to produce them. These two types are the shuttle loom (spiral weave) and the needle loom. Shuttle-loom technology has been around for many years and is characterized by the weft filaments joining the warp together by “spiralling” around the webbing. The needle-loom webbing is characterized by a seam on one side. This seam can be joined using a chain stitch or a lock stitch. The original versions of this type of webbing featured the chain stitch and would unravel like a cheap sweater.
Current versions of one-inch needle-loom webbing feature a lock stitch. The lock stitch actually makes the needle-loom webbing less prone to unraveling than the shuttle loom because it limits the weft to one circuit across the webbing and back—since it is stopped by the lock stitch. Additionally, needle-loom webbing can be produced with greater tensile and knot strength and greater resistance to cutting and abrasion. One thing to note is that there are no more shuttle looms being produced to manufacture tubular webbing. As these outdated machines break down, they are replaced by the more efficient needle looms.
The author also references the military specification MIL W-5625 as being the standard for one-inch tubular webbing, which addresses one-inch-wide tubular webbing with a minimum tensile strength of 4,000 lbs. However, the Mil-spec was amended several years ago because of the fact that shuttle looms are no longer manufactured and are being replaced by needle looms. This amendment separated Mil W-5625 into two types to accommodate shuttle and needle looms. The shuttle-loom webbing now is designated as a Type 1 and the needle-loom webbing as Type 1A tubular webbing. The addition of the Type 1A webbing demonstrates the federal government’s acceptance of needle-loom webbing.
The NFPA 1983 Life Safety Rope standard makes no reference to any safe working load ratio of less than 15:1. Additionally, this ratio refers only to life safety ropes. The rescuer can apply this ratio to webbings, but it is not directly referenced in that standard.
During the 25 years I have designed, developed, and produced life safety rope and equipment, I have been studying the problems associated with the Mil-Spec oneinch tubular webbing (low strength, low abrasion resistance, raveling). 1 have found that a Type 1A tubular webbing produced by a major life safety rope manufacturer exceeds the specifications and performance of Mil-Spec 5625 Type 1 webbing. There have been technological advances in webbing design and production, and rescuers should investigate thoroughly the products they use.
Glenn Newell
Rescue Technology
Carrollton, Georgia
1 have been using a length of 15-foot tubular webbing similar to that described by Anthony J. Pascocello, Jr., for about 10 months and have found it to be an invaluable tool. I have done one thing with my webbing that wasn’t mentioned in the article, and that was to have one foot loop sewn into each end. This makes it easier and quicker to apply the tubing for such things as holding doors open, hauling tools, etc. The sewn loop, however, should not be relied on for holding a person’s weight such as in a rappelling situation— in which case, a properly tied knot should be used.
Bob Falcone
Team Leader
Donald Wescott Fire Protection District
Colorado
