This is in reference to “Anti-Fire Photography/Social Media SOP” (Letters to the Editor, February 2011). The standing operating procedure (SOP) to which Robert Angulski is referring is from the Broomall (PA) Fire Company (BFC). It is entitled “Members Taking Pictures While at Incident Scenes” and became effective October 20, 2010. Its purpose, stated in the SOP, is as follows: to “manage photographs and electronic images taken by BFC members and to guarantee professionalism and the privacy rights of department personnel, patients, fire victims, and the public we serve.” The SOP’s objective is “to establish clear protocols for the taking of pictures at incident scenes and the distribution of such pictures.”
Our all-volunteer fire company has many operational SOPs, each crafted to ensure consistency in the safe and efficient operation of our firefighters when engaged in incident mitigation. Before adoption, all SOPs must pass muster with the organizational divisions directly involved, including Safety and Legal.
The BFC prides itself in being aware of and adaptive to change when it is appropriate to the mission of the fire department, be it operational or administrative. Change is chaotic, and sometimes it takes a long time for organizations to react. We studied the picture-taking issue for nearly two years before we developed an SOP. Before we published it, our attorney told us the same things as Attorney and Counselor at Law John K. Murphy wrote in reply to Mr. Angulski’s letter in the February issue.
Carl E. Drake
Chief
Broomall (PA) Fire Company
Following instincts, reverting to training saved lives
Recently, our assistant chief was involved in the rescue of two people from a house fire, a child and a teenager. The fire occurred across the street from his residence; however, the fire was not in his fire district. He ran over to the one-story, single-family residence with smoke and fire showing. It was the middle of the day during the middle of the workweek. No cars were in the driveway. Neighbors were in the yard saying no one was home and that they had knocked on the door just to be sure, and there was no answer. The family that lived there never left their children home, according to the neighbors.
With this information, the chief could have simply stood in the front yard waiting for the first apparatus to arrive and relay the information he had been told. Keep in mind the department that covers this response district is a small department with limited staffing during the middle of the day and also that aggressive interior searches are not prevalent. Despite all this information, the chief reverted to his training and conducted a 360° survey of the structure. On his lap, he noticed movement in the blinds of one of the windows and then the sudden appearance of a child’s face. He promptly took the window and helped the victims out.
Now, take this scenario and run it back. How many of us would have done a 360° walk-around given the information the chief received on arrival? What if the child’s face had not become visible in the window on the walk-through? What if the children had already become unconscious from the smoke conditions? What if the first truck arrives and there aren’t enough firefighters for two-in/two-out or a rapid intervention team? There is no perceived rescue.
Everything being crammed down the throat of the fire service says we don’t make entry—risk a little to save a little. This new fire service “wisdom” might have killed two young people. How many of us could live with ourselves if that happened? Wouldn’t a much better option be to train hard, know fire behavior, know when you can go and when you can’t, and then do your job? Safety comes from training, not standing in the front yard.
Thanks to Assistant Chief Brandyn Smith of the Winterville (NC) Fire Rescue-EMS Department for his instincts and sticking to his training on the above run.
Justin Tart
Engineer/Fire Service Instructor
Winterville (NC) Fire Rescue-EMS Department
Fire departments serve the international community
This is in regard to the Letter to the Editor in the April 2011 issue from Oklahoma Senator Tom A. Coburn, M.D., in which he states his opposition to S. 3267, the Fire Grants and Reauthorization Act of 2010. The one-sided logic behind his opposition is based on his belief that states and local municipalities should bear the burden of funding fire departments and their operations. He even cites the U.S. Constitution in his defense of not providing federal dollars to improve staff, equipment, and training for our nation’s fire service.
What he fails to recognize, or what he ignores, is that fire departments all across the United States send urban search and rescue teams to aid the lacking federal government in times of disaster. They cross state boundaries to provide assistance to their neighbors; mobilize to fight wildland fires on U.S. Forest Service lands; deploy overseas to locations such as Japan and Haiti when those countries ask the United States for emergency aid; prepare for a nuclear, chemical, or radiological catastrophe at one of the numerous facilities that the federal government has placed in our backyards; and responded to a bombing of a federal building in his home state of Oklahoma. Does this extraordinary service by career and volunteer fire departments not warrant financial aid from the U.S. Government?
Tom Taylor
Chief
Moses Lake (WA) Fire Department
I’m both surprised and pleased that you published “a senator’s view on Fire Grants”! I, too, believe fire service funding should be a local responsibility. Whatever funding the Federal Government provides via the “free money” grant route is never enough in the eyes of many fire service organizations.
Local funding will eliminate the overgrown rigs, duplicate equipment, and bloated inventories that have become the norm.
Harvey Eckart
Volunteer Firefighter (Ret.)
Berwick, PA
Fire Engineering Archives
