Letters to the Editor: October 2023

Buy Your Tickets and Go

If you are on the fence about whether you should attend FDIC International, I’ll give it to you straight: Buy your tickets and go. You will not regret it, and you will be rewarded with one of the best experiences of your career.

Before attending FDIC International in April 2023, I was told that the event was unlike any other in the fire service. I can now confidently say that those who told me how amazing the conference was greatly undersold the experience. I am a brand-new firefighter, with less than a year in my department, and I was lucky enough to secure a spot at the conference with another four firefighters, all of whom greatly surpass me in experience and rank. My department was gracious enough to cover the cost of two hands-on training courses as well as two four-hour workshops. I had also stuffed what limited space I had left in my luggage with new books so that I could begin building the foundation of my fire service-related book collection, all of which are now signed with a personal note from the great people behind the pages.

I was blown away by the vast amount of information I was able to take away from every class. I will typically only write down things that I believe to be new, extremely informative, or thought provoking, but I just about filled an entire notebook after only the first few days. There is a lot to choose from; the classes I chose were aimed to meet two goals. One was to build on the basic building blocks of a chosen skill and the other was to learn something new. In my nine-week drill school, we train quite a bit on forcible entry, and it was consistently implemented in our daily fireground evolutions. Since finishing drill school, I have had a limited amount of tool time and have not forced many props and no real doors. In the conventional forcible entry hands-on training class, I was not only able to relearn the basics of forcing doors, but I was afforded the invaluable opportunity of forcing real doors in a way that would typically be found in the real world.

Next, I took “Man vs. Machine.” This is a class I’ve wanted to take for a while, and I was very excited to learn from arguably the best in the business when it comes to the topic. This course had already been recommended to me by many of my friends in the fire service. I am fascinated with EMS, and I loved how we were able to implement EMS into rescue training. The best part for me though was getting the opportunity to get my hands on tools like a band saw and an oxyacetylene torch and using them on realistic props. These instructors and courses are some of the most sought after in the industry, and being able to have them all in one place for a week in Indianapolis was an amazing experience.

These classes were only part of the FDIC experience. Aside from visiting the seemingly endless vendor booths, there is a lot to see and do outside of the convention center. It became clear to me that a lot of the relationships built at FDIC are done over a hearty meal and, in some cases, more than a few drinks. There is no shortage of good places to eat and drink in the city of Indianapolis, and it’s very easy to get around.

Now that I have had a significant amount of time to process my week at FDIC and to review my notes, I can comfortably say it will be an experience that I will carry with me for the rest of my career. I had one of the most profound and positive experiences of my life. I left the conference motivated to become better all around. I was able to cross paths with people I greatly admire in this industry. The level of enthusiasm at this event is contagious, and it will keep you wanting to go back every year. I spoke to firefighters who have been attending the conference for 20-plus years who say that it’s an addicting experience going to FDIC every year, seeing friends you made the previous year, making new ones, and being surrounded by people as passionate about the job as you are.

FDIC was an amazing experience, and I hope to take part again in the years to come. I’ve been told that it gets better every year because the classes you choose reflect where you are or want to be in your career. My classes this year were mainly focused on the basics—tactics, strategy, and hands-on training. Maybe in the future I can take classes centered around leadership and logistics. If I learned anything at FDIC, it’s that no matter what classes I choose to take, I will be met with some of the best instructors in the fire service and some of the best men and women the job has to offer. Hope to see you again soon, Indy and FDIC!

Zachary Simmons
Firefighter/EMT
Portland (ME) Fire Department

More with Doors

Michael N. Ciampo’s On Fire column always has spectacular tactical tips, and “More with Doors” (July 2023) was no exception. In it, he describes the many tactical uses of doors to help your fire attack, protect your crew from advancing fire, and even as rescue devices to extricate fire victims.

A day after reading this column, my fire department responded to a first-floor fire in a private dwelling (2½-story wood frame built around 1900) that had been modified into illegal apartments where doors became a major issue. Allegedly converted into two legal apartments, it contained windows that were covered over with gypsum board, a basement apartment with only access through the outside, clamshell Bilco doors, and other surprises—doors being one.

Just inside the front exterior door were the stairs to the second floor and an interior door to the right, which was blocked on the opposite side by a heavy desk, preventing direct access to the fire room on the A side. Quick, aggressive size-up by the first-arriving chief found that the best route to the fire room turned out to be on the D side and through the first-floor apartment.

Uncooperative occupants who escaped did not “know” if second-floor occupants had escaped the first-floor fire. Heavy smoke permeated the balloon frame and highly modified building. Search crews on the second floor found lightweight doors made of plastic covering and reinforced internally with cardboard and locked with dead bolts. Traditional forcible entry techniques did not work; the doors simply failed where tools were applied, delaying entry. Taking the hinges on these doors and banging and pushing the doors are what finally succeeded, allowing search to continue. One room contained two cribs, a set of bunk beds, and a mattress on the floor. Other doors in illegally modified areas were as narrow as 18 inches and led to dead but creatively built closets in exceptionally small rooms.

Doors played a key role in this fire and could have resulted in line-of-duty deaths (LODDs). The combination of delays in getting water on the fire with firefighters searching above, their progress slowed by lightweight doors, could have turned out much worse for both civilians and firefighters. Further complicating operations were hallways blocked by a wide variety of occupants’ belongings—clothes, toys, bicycles, and discarded large-screen TVs.

The major lesson learned for these type buildings is getting water on the fire must have priority, possibly even higher than search and rescue. Rapid fire suppression may be the best and fastest way to protect trapped civilians and to prevent members from horrible deaths by entrapment and flashover. Anticipate difficult and slow search operations. Although this sounds like heresy, we must learn from fires in illegally modified buildings and from previous LODDs that the odds of applying traditional strategies and expecting tactical success are low.

This is one of many fires we are experiencing in Rockland County, New York, in illegally modified structures, especially homes. As Frank Brannigan said, “These buildings did not just land from Mars!” Actively identify these death traps in your first-due area by looking for air-conditioners in attics, TV lights flickering in basement and attic windows, and multiple cars and trash cans in driveways. Consider modification of your traditional strategies to include extra emphasis on rapid fire suppression to help protect your members at these deadly buildings. Doing the same thing and expecting a different result is insanity.

Jerry Knapp
Chief
Rockland County (NY) Hazmat Team