While the acrid smell of smoke still permeates the air, nine families are preparing for funerals in Charleston, S.C. Wives, children, parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters, relatives, and friends — lots of friends — are in various stages of grief. The Charleston Fire Department and surrounding departments are preparing to bury these men with all the dignity and honor they can muster at a time when their hearts are broken.
National Fallen Firefighters Foundation Executive Director Ron Siarnicki and his team have responded to help the firefighters’ families. The International Association of Fire Fighters, the International Association of Fire Chiefs and the U.S. Fire Administration are in Charleston to assist the department. Rumors abound that President George W. Bush will attend the memorial for the nine fallen firefighters.
While every detail of the incident and subsequent investigation floods the media, the truth of what really happened will take longer. Right now, there is no right or wrong, only the task of burying nine firefighters and comforting their families and co-workers.
Last week in Command Post, I wrote about this week’s Stand Down for Safety, ending with the question: “Will we lose a firefighter or EMT during the Stand Down week that could have been prevented?” Well, we did. Nine-fold. Could it have been prevented?
This week during the Stand Down, you owe it to these fallen firefighters to take their last call to heart. Look around your town or neighboring communities. Do you have a super-structure like the one in Charleston that you would respond to in your area or as part of mutual aid? Have you and your crew walked inside this type of structure or anything similar and discussed tactics? What would you do? Who goes inside? When do you get- out? Who makes the call? Would your RIT respond? If these nine dead firefighters could speak in your preplanning meeting, what would they tell you?
In College Station, Texas, this week, the Texas Engineering Extension Service and FEMA’s Texas Task Force 1, in conjunction with the Department of Commerce’s National Institute for Standards and Technology, will conduct the fourth in a series of tests and evaluations of robots to determine their use for urban search-and-rescue teams. These human-transportable robots, designed for commercial and military use, are ground-based and will be tested in realistic scenarios including confined-space rescues and wall-climbing.
Will robots replace firefighters? Not in my lifetime, but they will become one more tool for a fire chief to use in situations that are too hazardous for a firefighter. It’s the same with commercial and residential sprinklers: one more tool in the toolbox. Until that time, that’s a mighty, heavy gold badge you wear, my friend.
Our deepest sympathies go out to the families, friends and particularly to the Charleston Fire Department for this devastating loss.
The store in Charleston was only a building with stuff for sale. No building with stuff is worth a firefighter’s life — not one firefighter and definitely not nine firefighters.
June 22nd, 2007 @ 3:10 pm
Excellent job, Janet. You hit it right on the head of the nail with your final comment. I asked myself the same question: Were they in there to save “stuff” or did they think there were more people in there? It pains me to see this happen time and again to save “stuff.”
My heart goes out to the families and the one guy who was the only one to return to the station. That poor guy will be haunted to the end of his days.
Keep up the good work.
June 22nd, 2007 @ 3:31 pm
I’m certain everybody is thinking about what happened to the firefighters in Charleston this week. It has been pretty hard to fathom losing nine at one time.
I was the lead instructor at the South Carolina Fire Academy when Capt. Mulkey came through the recruit firefighter school. He was a young man full of life and wanting to make the fire service his life-long career. I could tell even back then he would do well in the fire service. It was hard for me to believe that I was seeing them bring his lifeless body out of that building. I thought back to how many times I told that class, “You have to learn the basics to have any chance of staying alive out there in the real world.”
It seems like every time something like this happens, somehow the basic rules of firefighting were for some reason not followed. I hope and pray this is not what happened in this case. I guess time will tell. The truth will come out. I pray we learn from this horrible event that we must always be mindful of the need to continue and strive to protect ourselves and the public.
I’m sure FIRE CHIEF will be in the lead trying to help spread the word about this tragic event. Thanks for your continued good work to the fire service community and fire chiefs across the country and beyond.
For now, we mourn and pray for peace for the families.
June 22nd, 2007 @ 3:38 pm
The Last Alarm
The spirits drift up through the smoke
Silently their pain’s revoked
The Last Alarm has come to call
Their soul caressed as Angels weep
Comrades battle the Reaper’s grip
As Guardian Angels line the path …
The Firefighter reminisces, faces flash past
Of heroes long past, at last we are together
Earthbound Angels no more …
But A Firefighter Forever
June 22nd, 2007 @ 4:06 pm
Great job, Janet.
You all remember the late Francis Brannigan’s (whom I admire immensely) statement: “When a combustible structure is involved in fire, the building is the enemy, and you must know the enemy.” He also had a famous column, “Know Your Enemy.”
It was a catchy title, but I believe rather inaccurate. I must say, though, that I disagree with Brannigan. The building is an object, not our enemy. I believe our real enemy are the ones who allow such buildings to be built with little regard for the occupant safety and absolutely no regard for firefighter safety. It is time to face that enemy and change our construction codes to better protect the occupants and our own. We must engrave this message in every firefighters mind: “Fire Sprinklers Save Firefighters’ Lives, Too.”
June 23rd, 2007 @ 1:08 pm
We have all been taught to attack the fire at its base. Maybe we need to rethink surround and drown and use it more often. No life is worth stuff.
June 25th, 2007 @ 12:38 am
Risk little to save little, risk a lot to save a lot. I feel that we as leaders may not understand risk management as we should; maybe we the leaders in our profession need to concentrate more on our middle management, the lieutenants and captains. We need to find a more effective means of teaching risk management; our subordinates need to fully understand what the risks are and how they affect the people we are asking to complete the task.
Yes, we need to redirect our focus on new construction codes and find new technologies that in some cases can remove the human responders from harm. Yes, sprinklers do save lives, if the occupant doesn’t exceed what the system can handle. But in all cases it will never take the place of pulling a line and putting water on the fire, either directly or indirectly.
It is my opinion that we as managers need to start doing just that, managing. It is a tough call to say, “All units must stay defensive, because any life inside that building is gone at this point.” We all feel it is our calling to save lives and have been taught in some cases “no matter the cost.” As managers we are given the responsibility as well as the authority to make calls that are tough, and yes we could be wrong, but when the day is done we must make that choice. I feel it must start with education, from our tip-top management to the first-day rookie. We are no longer America’s knight in shining armor — the only thing that shines are the chrome bumpers on our equipment. AMERICA, WE ARE NOT YOUR HEROES!
We as a profession must start to be slow and methodical in our approach to fire attack and rescue, or we will continue to kill a hundred of America’s firefighters a year. The timed response and drills need to go away forever; the only thing that they are doing is getting firefighters killed. Because we rush into buildings without applying basic risk management, only to have a collapse that sets the department back for decades training new firefighters to replace the dead ones. How can we train the experience lost?
We have known for years that lightweight steel trusses kill, yet we continue to allow firefighters to enter large commercial buildings, on fire, that we know have this configuration only to die in a collapse. Then we ask ourselves, “What went wrong?” How can this be prevented? I say stop sending firefighters in to die in cases of known deadly hazards. If we know first-hand that a life CAN be saved, then by all means risk it all; although if it is not first-hand knowledge then we must go defensive, keeping our community’s largest investment, firefighters, out of harm’s way.
June 25th, 2007 @ 2:11 pm
Gentlemen, all of your comments are very good and to the point. The point is well-taken, but don’t judge the actions of others untill you have all the facts. Yes, mistakes were make, but let’s wait until all the facts are known before we past judgment.
June 26th, 2007 @ 12:42 pm
One small tool we can all ask for is fire-safe cigarette legislation in all states. Many fires where we lose people are caused by careless smoking. Twelve states now mandate fire-safe cigarettes, If all states pass this model legislation as offered by the NFPA, we will see fewer fire deaths and that’s guaranteed. The research is in — the laws work. God bless my brothers in South Carolina.
June 26th, 2007 @ 5:36 pm
This was an excellent article by Ms. Wilmoth. She raised some critical questions. Please read my letter to the editor in the June 26 “Opinion” section of the Daily Breeze newspaper in Torrance, Calif. I am a retired Police Officer in Torrance.
June 27th, 2007 @ 4:31 am
Janet Wilmoth writes: “The store in Charleston was only a building with stuff for sale. No building with stuff is worth a firefighter’s life — not one firefighter and definitely not nine firefighters.”
I couldn’t agree more. But let’s put this into perspective because the firefighters were reportedly in there to search for occupants and were equipped to suppress the fire as a means of protecting themselves. I have heard the police tapes and this appears confirmed.
The lessons are these:
Deepest condolences to all those involved in this tragedy in Charleston, S.C.