The Fresno (CA) Fire Department has released an internal report on the 2015 fire in which Captain Pete Dern was critically burned after falling through a roof on the fireground.
From the report overview: On March 29, 2015, while performing vertical ventilation on a residential garage fire, Fresno Fire Department truck company captain Pete Dern, due to penetration of “roof decking burn-through” with direct flame impingement of the lightweight truss, fell into the well involved fire compartment. Dern sustained critical burn injuries, but fortunately survived.
On FirefighterNation: Fresno Injury Report Calls for Culture of Safety
On April 6, as a result of this incident, the Fire Chief assembled a “Serious Accident Review Team” (SART). The Chief authorized the team to review the incident. In her words, “the primary purpose of this report is to educate and prevent any future injury or death to the department members.”
As the team began to investigate the incident, it became evident that the contributory and causal factors were not unique to this incident. In fact, many of the factors and recommendations have appeared for years in NIOSH Firefighter injury and fatality reports. The SART, feeling frustration as a group, began to ask why. Why, with these factors being common in so many serious injury and LODD reports do we choose to ignore them as an industry? Or worse yet, why do we acknowledge them but fail to act? We have years of these investigative reports with documented factors, recommendations, as well as more scientifically proven, modern firefighting methods, that can and do make this profession safer for our people, yet we continue with business as usual, or simply write firefighting off as just being a dangerous profession.
According to an NPR report, Fresno Fire Chief Kerri Donis says the accident review focused on policy changes small and large that are necessary to prioritize safety for firefighters on the ground. At nearly 300 pages long, the independent review says the department’s internal culture has for too long accepted unnecessary risks at the expense of safety. The findings include the need for better training on modern firefighting practices, the lack of organized command at many fires, and too many firefighters who don’t always wear the recommended safety gear.
The complete report can be accesed HERE.
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