NEWS IN BRIEF
Fire Safety House saves life
“The firefighters showed me what to do when I was in the ‘house’ ” is the explanation four-year-old Octavia Harris offered when she was asked how she saved her one-year-old sister from a fire.
Octavia and her sister were watching television in their babysitter’s home when the set began to smoke. She ran to the kitchen to tell the babysitter, and when they returned to the room it was filled with thick gray smoke and one-year-old Jasmine was not in sight. Immediately, Octavia dropped to her knees, crawled along the floor under the smoke, and found her frightened sister. They slid on their bellies outside to safety.
The “house” to which Octavia referred was a Fire Safety House on loan to the City of Winder (CiA) Fire Department from the Georgia Fire Academy. The Georgia Firefighters Burn Foundation donated the house to the academy. The house, built on a travel trailer frame, was brought to her Head Start class during Fire Prevention Week.
“With more than 20 years in the fire service, 1 have never seen an educational tool for kids like this,” says Chief Timothy R. Szymanski of the Winder Fire Department. “I am confident that Jasmine Harris is alive today because of the training her sister Octavia received by our department when she toured the Fire Safety House.” A fire safety educator for the Georgia Fire Academy, Szymanski recalls that it was raining hard the day the house was brought to Octavia’s school. “We thought about canceling the activity, but we gave it a try anyhow,” he explains. “I often wonder what would have happened that day of the fire if we didn’t have the aid of the Fire Safety House.”
‘Hie “miniature house on wheels” contains the rooms in which fires are most likely to occur—the kitchen, living room, bedroom, and bathroom—and also has a control room with a smoke system, a heated door control, and television monitors. It features life-saving devices including smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, and an escape chain ladder (from the “second-story bedroom”). Offering children a hands-on learning experience, the house allows children to practice life-saving, fire safety procedures such as “swimming in smoke,” feeling a door before opening it, escaping by using a ladder, and recognizing the sounds of a smoke detector and properly reacting to its alarm.
Szymanski would like to see a safety house in every region of the country and a mandate to have it “visit every school.” “You should see the faces of these kids when the upstairs bedroom we are sitting in begins to fill with smoke and the smoke detectors begin to whine,” he says. “There’s nothing that can compare to it in the world. It is an experience they will never forget, and yet it is an experience that may very well save their lives.”
ADA will affect fire service personnel policies
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which will become effective in January 1992 and which is the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Title VII, will have a profound impact on the personnel policies of American businesses, the government, and particularly public safety agencies, according to ARA Human Factors, a consulting firm. Especially pertinent is the requirement that employers using entrance examinations have “clear, strong, consistent, [and] enforceable standards.”
Among the features that could affect the fire service are the following:
- The terminology “individuals with disabilities” is preferred over the term “handicapped.”
- The following practices would constitute discrimination: “using qualification standards, employment tests, or other selection criteria that screen out…qualified individuals with a disability.”
- The employer must make “reasonable accommodation” for an otherwise qualified applicant with a disability unless the employer can demonstrate that this would cause “undue hardship.” Although the ADA attempts to define these terms, the consensus among the legal community is that this portion of the Act could “engender litigation for years to come,” according to Dr. Paul O. Davis, president of ARA Human Factors.
- The ADA extensively covers medical examinations and defines when and how they can be given. “Under the ADA, there is really no such thing as the ‘routine’ history and physical,” observes Carl Schneider, M.D., ARA’s specialist in occupational medicine. Under the ADA, he adds, an employer first must make a job offer and then perform a “post-offer” exam, making employment contingent on passing. Voluntary medical exams are permitted as part of an employee health program, but confidentiality and separate files are required, he explains.
- “In general,” says Jim Cross, J.D., ARA’s regulatory law specialist, “the record-keeping system, the language used on all forms, and the entire hiring process are affected by the ADA and should be audited to ensure compliance. The legislation also authorizes enforcement, including fines and civil penalties.”
- “The key to being in compliance with the ADA is to have in place jobrelated, validated medical and physical performance standards that are consistently applied in proper sequence to all employees,” Davis stresses.
Update on fire apparatus weightrestriction legislation
The Intermodal Surface Transportation Act (H.R. 2950), which passed the House of Representatives on October 23, 1991, would exempt for two years firefighting or disastcr-response vehicles from the current regulation that restricts vehicles with more than 20,000 pounds on any one axle or more than 34,000 pounds on any tandem axle from using federal highways (see News in Brief, Fire Engineering, November 1991). During these two years, explains the Congressional Fire Services Institute, the Secretary of Transportation would study the problem and suggest to Congress how the law can be modified or these vehicles can be exempted permanently from the law. It is possible that the Secretary may extend the two-year exemption period for an additional year.
The Senate version of the bill (S. 1204) does not contain weight-limit exemptions. The bill has been sent to conference, where the differences will be addressed.
USFA launches “Safety Circuit” program
A public education program on home appliances and electrical wiring has been developed by the U.S. Fire Administration in cooperation with the National Electrical Manufacturers Association.
The “On the Safety Circuit’’ kit contains “ready-to-use fire safety information it is hoped will reduce the more than 550 deaths and thousands of injuries attributed to the misuse and poor maintenance of home appliances and electrical wiring each year,” explains U.S. Fire Administrator Olin L. Greene. Each day, he says, common home appliances such as irons, electric blankets, hair dryers, coffee pots, toasters, portable heaters, and electric stoves, dryers, and ovens ignite due to misuse or poor maintenance.
The kit contains the following:
- a brochure and checklist on appliance safety and household wiring.
- a resource guide of relevant materials and model programs.
- statistical information from the USFA’s National Fire Incident Reporting System on the home appliance and electrical wiring fire problem in the United States.
The kits are available free from the US FA, P.O. Box 70274, Washington, DC 20024.
Emergency vehicle technicians form association
The National Association of Emergency Vehicle Technicians, a recently formed not-for-profit association, seeks to promote and support the profession through training, education, and legislation and to develop publications, self-study materials, videotapes, and safety training materials for its members.
Its first organizational meeting was held at the Firehouse Expo in Baltimore in July, and the following interim officers were appointed: Allan Burnham, executive director (New England Eire Mechanics, North Andover, MA); Ralph Craven, president (California Fire Mechanics, Santa Clara, CA); Dane Jones, vice president (Florida Eire Mechanics, Hudson, FL); Darlene Skelton, secretary (Germantown. MD). and Jack McLaughlin, treasurer (Long Island Fire Mechanics, Nesconset, NY).
Additional information is available from NAEVT, P.O. Box 790, Hauppauge, NY 11 “88 or Darlene Skelton, (301) 916-2300.
IAFC and NCMA target fire safety in buildings
“The United States’ distinction of having one of the worst fire safety records in the industrial world may be substantially improved if federal legislation is implemented to create a technical forum bringing together government and broad private sector interests to study (within a period of two years) the use of fire safety methods and how they may be used synergisticallv to improve fire safety in buildings,” according to the International Association of Fire Chiefs and the National Concrete Masonry Association (NCMA), w ho have joined in a movement to push fire safety in American buildings.
They ask that Congress pass federal legislation mandating a comprehensive study that includes the three basic fire safety components of synergistic design: fire sprinklers, smoke detectors, and compartmentation. “The proper balance of these factors results in an acceptable fire safe environment in buildings,” the associations explain. They also request a cost-benefit analysis with life-cycle costs used as the parameter for the analysis, since fire safety should be designed to provide reliable protection throughout a building’s useful life.
The proper balance between fire protection systems and building construction is the long-term answer to achieving fire safety in buildings, observes Chief James Halsey, newly elected IAFC president. “Vie must now put together a reliable equation that will provide the necessary guidance to the fire service and the building industry.”
IAFC elects new officers
The International Association of Fire Chiefs elected the following officers for 1991-1992 at its 1991 conference in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in September: Chief James Halsey, president; Chief Gary L. Nichols, first vice president; Chief Philip McGouldrick, second vice president; and Chief Robert Counts, treasurer.
Flalsey has been with the Troy (MI) Fire Department since 1961 and has been chief since 1973. He has served as president of the IAFC Great Lakes Division and as a member of its Volunteer Fire Service Committee and People-to-People delegation.
Nichols, a member of the Sedgwick County (KS) Fire District since 1955, has been its chief since 1975. He is also director of disaster management for Sedgwick County and has served the IAFC in several capacities, including as treasurer, second vice president, and director-at-large.
McGouldrick, a member of the South Portland (ME) Fire Department since 1957, has been the department’s chief since 1972 and has served on the IAFC board as the international director of its New England Division since 1989.
Counts has been a member of the Troy (OH) Fire Department since 1952 and its chief since 1965. He has served as the IAFC international director of the Great Lakes Division and on the following committees: Fire Prevention, Emergency Medical Services, and Resolutions and Government Affairs.
NPQB grants accreditations
The National Professional Qualifications Board (NPQB) has accredited the Maryland Fire Service Personnel Qualifications Board, Inc. for 23 levels of certification ranging from firefighting to chief officer. “Maryland’s program could well serve as a model for other agencies that choose to decentralize or delegate their testing processes to local or regional entities,” says David B. Gratz, NPQB chairman. Delegating these functions to regional resources can be a less expensive way for states to assure that certification is available across a large geographic area, he explains.
In another action, the NPQB accredited the Chanute Air Force Base as the first certification agency for hazardous-materials technicians. Chanute has been providing several levels of certification to military personnel since 1985. Since that time, notes the NPQB, “Chanute has produced more nationally certified personnel than any other accredited agency” in its system.
The NPQB has adopted NFPA 472, Professional Competence of Responders to Hazardous Materials Incidents, and has stipulated that candidates first must be certified as a Firefighter I to be eligible for certification as a haz-mat responder and certified as a Firefighter II to be eligible for certification at any level above first responder.
Halon debate continues
Several controversial areas have surfaced in the campaign to find halon replacements for fire service use. The first issue involves increasing the present 25-cents-per-pound excise tax to S25 a pound in 1994. This proposal is being opposed by several organizations, among them the National Volunteer Fire Council, whose legislative committee chairman is asking the House Ways and Means Committee, the Congressional committee with jurisdiction over taxation issues, to postpone the increase. “The feeling within the industry is that the tax would put halon manufacturers out of business, and it could stifle the industry’s efforts to recover and recycle halon,” notes Joseph Ziemba of the National Association of Fire Equipment Distributors. A S1 to S2 a pound tax might be acceptable as long as halon is kept on the market until a new agent has become available as a substitute, he explains.
“There is a big effort to stall the tax,” observes Peter G. Sparber, Washington, D.C. consultant and author of Fire Engineering’s Capitol Connection column. “It’s widely recognized that the tax would place a burden on the industry.” The fire service depends on halon for life safety, and its members are looking for an orderly transition from halon to a substitute agent, he notes. Even if a substitute were to become available soon, widespread use of the new agent still would be a few years away, considering the testing that would be needed, Sparber says. Efforts to find a satisfactory substitute for halon have been underway for several years, Sparber adds.
On another front, the Environmental Protection Agency has announced that it plans to include residential halon fire extinguishers as a “nonessential use.” Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) and other members of Congress are working to counteract this move *
