“Predictably Irrational”
Regarding “Predictably Irrational” (Editor’s Opinion, November 2021), right on, Bobby! Thank you for the stance you have taken regarding this sad, sad situation regarding our beloved fire service. It is a dangerous situation when many of our own fire service people (some of them officers) turn their lives over to a government that has become an enemy of the union and expect the rest of us to follow suit. Many of our citizens have grown to distrust our elected officials; I will never call them leaders ever again.
Perhaps the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation needs to rethink itself, especially in these times, and not play politics with its supposed mission, which it seems it has become just that. Thanks again.
Jeff Shupe
Firefighter (Ret.)
Cleveland (OH) Fire Department
Thank you for the editorial about the irrationality of the vax vs. unvax risks. This whole thing has spun so far away from anything scientific in favor of politics and control that it’s scary. Regardless of the comments, it’s a breath of fresh air for someone with a profile like yours to publicly state what many of us are thinking. Well done, Sir!
Tim Congdon
Firefighter
South Metro (CO) Fire
Many thanks for your highly thoughtful, hard-hitting editorial in the November issue of Fire Engineering!
Vytenis (Vyto) Babrauskas, Ph.D.
Fire Science and Technology Inc.
Clarkdale, Arizona
Hey, Brother, amazing response! Thank you! This issue has fractured my very close personal family and our fire families. To the most respected voice in the fire service, I say, thank you!
Rick Denike
E.S. Safety Systems
Ontario, Canada
I have to admit that I am severely disappointed in your last two columns. As a scientist as well as a fire chief, I feel that your opinions show a serious disconnect with reality. COVID-19 is exceedingly contagious and has already killed something like 750,000 Americans; it is not like lung cancer, which is very deadly but is not contagious. If you had kids, I would bet you a box of donuts that they had to be vaccinated for a number of diseases or they could not attend school. How did that fit in with your thinking?
Your argument is the same as arguing that freelancing is perfectly OK because the person involved has not yet killed the neighboring fire department. You should be ashamed.
Craig Brooks
Chief
Carancahua (TX) Community Fire Department
Bobby Halton responds: Well, as a “scientist,” I am sure you know of the law of unintended consequences—or perhaps not. If you aren’t, maybe you should get a quick refresher. Never did I, nor would I, discount the seriousness of the infection; I have had it. What I will say is that every human being has certain inalienable rights and that what one puts into one’s body is one’s choice. I do not support violating anyone’s body by force. Further, as I have said repeatedly and is without refutation, being uninoculated or not COVID-19 vaccinated does not make you infected; that is a fact. To your statement, then, if you are not infected, then you are not capable “of killing” anyone with COVID-19. And, by the way, I am sure you are aware that fully vaccinated persons can get and transmit the disease, and they have. Additionally, they have also died fully vaccinated.
My point, Craig, is that people have personal rights. Additionally, there is natural immunity that also begs a scientific question. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week stated it has ZERO evidence of a naturally immunized person transmitting the infection post recovery—ZERO. However, a study in July suggested that about 469 new COVID-19 cases were found in Massachusetts, with 74% of the cases among individuals who were partially or fully vaccinated; 79% of those were also symptomatic. In Germany, 55.4% of symptomatic COVID-19 cases in patients ages 60 years and older were fully vaccinated individuals, and this proportion is increasing each week. Ireland, which is 90% vaccinated, is having the largest outbreak to date. So, there are those inconvenient facts—not opinions, facts. This is not like the smallpox, polio, or any other vaccine, and changing the definition to make it so does help “scientific” arguments for mandating it.
As lethal as it is, people still have a right to choose to take a medicine or not. Every person is different, and so are the potential risks involved in taking a prophylactic treatment. The data on adverse effects continues to grow as the vaccine continues to be distributed. As someone who is immunocompromised and has had near-fatal reactions to three medications, I can empathize with the hesitant.
The right of the individual has to come first, or we have abandoned our dearly bought heritage. If someone is sick with any contagious disease, they should protect themselves from others; no one thinks highly of Typhoid Mary. But to imply that not subjecting oneself to a treatment that may violate one’s conscious or religious beliefs makes one a bad person or is something to be ashamed of is abhorrent. Or to suggest that one in the low-risk group who doesn’t feel compelled or is just uncomfortable with the vaccine should be forced to take it or lose his job when a healthy uninfected person is no threat to anyone just defies logic.
I am sure you are a nice person, and I thank you for your time and your letter, but protecting the weak and defending those who are exercising their rights as Americans, as persons to choose for themselves, is something I would never be ashamed of. To the contrary, if I had violated my conscience and gone with the mob like a “useful idiot,” despite my reservations, I would have nothing but contempt for myself.
This is a wickedly complex issue and, as such, the unintended consequences of our actions and inactions will unfold over time. I have never liked bullies or pseudo-intellectual credentialed idiots like the voices we hear threatening and vilifying our fellow citizens who feel differently about this vaccination issue; their tone and their vehemence belie their ignorance and arrogance. Washington once said, “It is better to be alone than to be in bad company.” Those who can’t argue and convince use force, and they are very dangerous, evil persons.
I hope this helps you understand my thought process.
Civilian Rescue
The article “Civilian Rescue: The Reason We Exist” by Brian Brush and Anthony Kastros (July 2021) was absolutely superb! These fire service leaders have done an outstanding job gathering new and using already available data (from the U.S. Fire Administration and the National Fire Protection Association) and turning it into classic “actionable intelligence” we all can use on the fireground. The purpose of this letter is to share some data I have experienced on the fireground over the past 46 years serving with an average suburban fire department. Fortunately or unfortunately, this was when working fires were the norm, and telephone alarms and emergency medical services did not dominate our runs/workers ratio and totals.
Bystander information regarding trapped victims has proven highly unreliable in my very small sample size. Along with other firefighters in my department, I have done nine searches of residential structures, most under very bad conditions. Of these, all nine were based on “reliable reports” from bystanders. There were victims inside in only two of the nine. Consequently, I am not a big fan of risking firefighters in dangerous search operations based on “reliable bystander information,” though I clearly understand our life safety mission and that the primary search must be done.
Experience has taught me a very valuable tool on how to verify/qualify the bystanders’ information while balancing firefighter risk during a primary search. When a bystander tells you someone is inside, ask this simple question, “How do you know?” As the authors eloquently state, the importance of questioning the bystanders (using the SIGNAL, 10-second process) may provide critical information for your size-up, search, and risk analysis. Here are a couple of examples from my experience.
Case study #1: We were dispatched to a 1,200-square-foot ranch house at 0300 hours in a good neighborhood. Heavy smoke was showing from several windows, and fire was visible in the kitchen in the front of the house to the left of the front door, A side. A police officer yelled from the front lawn that there was someone in the rear bedroom. I asked him how he knew. He replied, “I saw him at the window trying to get out and heard him hit the floor when he collapsed.”
Firefighter Pat Simeone heard the same words, and before we knew what vent-enter-isolate-search was, he did it and rescued the civilian, who had a severe, classic case of smoke inhalation, nasal passages clogged with soot, and so on. The victim survived, and Simeone was assisted out of the building by the engine crew, who knocked the fire down in the kitchen.
Case study #2: We rolled up to a small duplex with a fire in the back room, C side, first floor. A woman on the attached unit’s small porch (yes, in fuzzy slippers and pajamas) said there were kids in there. I asked her how she knew, and I got a blank stare. I yelled again the same question; no response from Fuzzy Slippers. My suspicion was this was a false report.
We searched the tiny house’s upper rooms and, after getting disoriented in a closet, found no one. Thankfully, the engine crew had water on the fire quickly. Escaping a flashover roaring up the stairs would have been difficult with the small rectangular windows on the second floor. We could have been a line-of-duty death report based on a false report. Water on the fire is critical.
Case study #3: It rained on July 4, so the drunken homeowner celebrated with his fireworks inside his house, the neighbor reported, as we arrived on scene to an 800-square-foot small one-story ranch house as the sun was coming up around 0630 hours. Two fire officers and one firefighter forced the front door, chocked it open, and made for the back bedroom where the victims were assumed to be, based on a verbal report as we arrived on scene.
As we now know, the open door caused a ventilation-induced flashover and we had another close call, this one caught on video, which is a very valuable training tool. The three very nearly trapped firefighters escaped through the front door just as the flashover was fully developing out the front door as I grabbed the last firefighter’s self-contained breathing apparatus strap to get him out the last steps of the fully involved house. This was another really close call; there was no water on the fire.
Case study #4: A neighboring department was dispatched to a working house fire in a 2½-story wood-frame house. I grabbed my camera to get some good pictures for my house fire book, and as I walked toward the scene, a neighbor came out and told me, “Someone lives in there and he was home.” By this time, the attic fire was knocked down, large portions of the roof were burned through, and obviously any occupant was long dead. My buddy was the fire chief, and I passed this information on to him. He gave me a weird look when I told him what the neighbor said, which was totally false. The attic was not occupied, and there was no victim.
Certainly, you and members of your department have had similar fireground experiences. My assumption is that civilians see us arrive on scene, lights and sirens, stretching lines, throwing ladders, and working rapidly and want to help the wonderful wizards of civilian life safety (us). I don’t think it is malicious, but their “help” results in bad, very bad information. If there is any psychological rationale for this, it is far beyond my understanding.
Thanks again to the authors for their information gathering and analysis that we all benefit from to improve our strategic and tactical on-scene decisions.
Jerry Knapp
Chief
Rockland County (NY) Hazmat Team
