Fire Chief

For more than 30 years, fire departments across America have taught and encouraged individuals to learn traditional cardio-pulmonary resuscitation methods in the event they should witness a sudden cardiac arrest. That’s about to change.

The value of any department’s fire and life-safety program is rarely known, but recently we had a call that personally helped me measure the success of our public-education programs. While it turned out to be a fire with less than $100 loss, it was one where despite the adult resident, smoke detectors and proper actions made the difference.

It’s been a long time since we’ve had a multiple-fatality fire in Chesterfield County. A recent fire prompted me to think about the stuff that firefighters do every day to help make Chesterfield County a safer place to live: primarily smoke detectors and in-service training.

Exhaust fumes and air quality frequently are sited as a cause or contributing factor in firefighter cancers, and the list of possible carcinogens gets longer all the time, but a recent outbreak of skin disorders in one California fire station has raised another concern about how firefighters can get sick inside fire stations.

I’ve written many articles about the great need for fire sprinklers, but let me make it clear that I also strongly believe in the need for the three Es of fire prevention: education, enforcement and engineering. All three are very important, but if I had to put them in order of priority, I would have listed them just as I did.

Until a few years ago I was placing my entire retirement stake on my pension and 401K investments. After I began to work with a financial planner, my view and plan drastically changed.

While we all understand why there are separate federal agencies with known expertise that are planning within their own ESF, how do we avoid them planning in “silos” so they don’t exceed a combined realistic level of fire service response in these emergency service functions?

Sometimes the only people who can understand your devastation are those who have experienced it themselves. Their “I survived, so can you” attitude can offer the most hope to a person in a difficult situation.

The problem doesn’t start with the building; it starts with the construction codes. Our real enemies are the ones who allow such buildings to be built with little regard for the occupants’ safety and even less regard for the firefighters’ safety.

Increasingly, firefighters are responding to situations where the R-13 residential sprinkler system has done its job: early activation for quick extinguishment or substantial control of a fire in its incipient stage.