Our names are Joe and Melinda O’Malley. [Joe is an 18-year veteran of the Seattle (WA) Fire Department (all 18 years at Engine 9 in the Fremont district), and Melinda has been a registered nurse for 23 years and a trauma nurse at Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center for 20 years.] We celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary this May.
We wanted to let you know how much we enjoyed, and learned from, the article “What Every Firefighter’s Spouse Should Know” by Anne Gagliano (Fire Commentary, December 2009). Even though we’ve talked about the subject matter for years, it was both refreshing and enlightening to have a new perspective, with data to back it up. We hope that in the future Fire Engineering will consider including more articles of this nature in the magazine.
Joe and Melinda O’Malley
Seattle, Washington
Paint or sand wood?
This refers to “Light Rail Incidents: From Response to Extrication” by Jason Blount (January 2010). This article raises some concerns. I joined the fire service in 1960. I also went to my first extrication that same year. My department needed lots of cribbing materials for this particular job, so mutual aid was called. The heavy rescue that arrived from another department had cribbing, but it was painted. The department was sent away. After the incident was over, I asked what was wrong with the other department’s cribbing. I was told that there is a great chance that if the wood is painted, slipping could occur.
When I became a career firefighter several years later, one of my part-time jobs (for seven years) was selling paint. I asked about putting sand on wood to make it more slip resistant. I was told that there were only two ways to sand wood:
- One was to mix the sand in the paint and apply it to the wood. Of course, the sand particles would be covered by paint, which would give them less grip strength.
- The other way is to paint the wood, apply the sand while the paint is wet, and let the paint dry. The problem with this approach is that 40 percent of the sand doesn’t stick to the paint, and it also has a chance of having bare spots, which would negatively affect the gripping ability.
Neither of these ways leaves the surface as slip resistant as just plain wood. I know that Oregon gets a lot of rain (my sons live in Hillsboro). My department also has had weather [concerns]. I am from Illinois and spent 38 years in the fire service. Unless the author has devised a new way to apply sand to wood, I feel that the whole Portland area and, since I have seen this practice being done by other departments, the whole fire service in general are rolling the dice with this practice.
Larry Taggart
Battalion Chief (Ret.)
La Grange (IL) Fire Department
Jason Blount responds: One of the benefits to the fire service is the willingness of others to lend insight and question practices so that we are sure to consider all the possibilities. This is at the heart of “Crew Resource Management” in the fire service today.
When we set out to build these blocks ourselves, we did so considering several factors, including the intended use of the cribbing, Federal Emergency Management Agency guidelines for cribbing capabilities, local practices, and recommendations from our own local light rail provider.
Our agency had tried other cribbing arrangements, which did not work. It was only when we looked at what our local light rail provider was using that we considered doing the same, including painting and adding sand. Our one concern was that when you use paint, you cover the evidence of any cracks that develop in the cribbing, which can possibly hide an unsafe condition.
Our light rail provider explained that the wood is expected to crack a little under the 40-ton load but that because of the way it is configured in the block, the provider had not experienced any major failures or slippage. The sand simply adds additional friction or “bite” as pieces press down on one another under the load. Smaller cribbing and wedging are expected to crack, settle, and even break because of the unique cribbing challenge presented by the light rail. For this reason, we try to use oak for these smaller pieces. We have used this setup multiple times; it has not presented any problems and, in fact, has solved our previous concerns.
Our department is very disciplined in that we carefully consider our practices. When we look at new procedures or equipment, we do so weighing the risk vs. the gain, consulting the appropriate members within our department and, where needed, seeking input from other agencies. We do this so that we can operate safely and work confidently with our equipment.
“Training Minutes” very useful for drills
Three months ago, I was told about Training Minutes on fireengineering.com. I found them and the Web site very interesting and now visit the site very often. I use some of the training tactics in these free videos to train my fellow firefighters.
Recently, I used the methods in the “Basement Metal Bilco Doors” video presented by Lieutenant Frank Ricci of the New Haven (CT) Fire Department and Deputy Chief Anthony Avillo of North Hudson (NJ) Regional Fire & Rescue and was very successful using what I learned in that video.
I hope to see more Training Minutes in the near future. I find them to be very useful in my training drills.
Paul Buehler
Captain
Bergenfield (NJ) Fire Department
