Lessons Lost
I wonder how many chiefs actually read the reports on line-of-duty deaths or pay particular attention to the lessons learned from each fatality. If they do, how many chiefs themselves into believing that the unthinkable will never happen to them or their department?
I‘ve tried to pay close attention to several studies that have similarities with occupancies in my own area. The most recent of these is the Charleston report, issued just three months ago. But in my travels, I continue to see some of the same mistakes occurring over and over again at fire and emergency scenes.
Charleston‘s communications issues, especially in missing the multiple maydays, reinforced the need for command to operate in an environment that is free from the distractions on the fire ground and allows the IC to concentrate on the progress of the incident while evaluating the strategy and tactics being employed. I marvel at how many in command fail to use a vehicle even if it‘s just the closest engine company to run the incident. Worse yet is they continue to use portable radios from various locations on the fire ground while wearing nothing to distinguish themselves from other arriving officers. This practice is compounded when sufficient progress isn‘t being made and command tries to simultaneously work at the task level.
The Charleston report clearly indicated the failure of not having a single person in command who was attentive to monitoring the radio traffic. This lax greatly contributed to missing the maydays that in part lead to the firefighter fatalities. The problem remains that this situation is almost identical to multiple firefighter fatalities that occurred in Chesapeake, Va., and Patterson, N.J., 10 to 20 years ago. When will we get the message?
The Charleston report also re-enforced the value of a 360° walk around any structure, and the need to limit how far a crew should stretch into a big-box unsprinklered building without clear multiple exits. It emphasized that with drop ceilings it is imperative that ceiling panels be popped every few feet to check for overhead fire extension. Adopting these practices has already paid dividends to officers around the country, but many more still have paid attention to these lessons.
In one instance here in Wyoming, the initial company officer arriving at the scene of what appeared to be a smoky, heavily involved kitchen fire extending into the living room grabbed the thermal imaging camera and used it during a walk around. That brief reconnaissance made him aware that the main body of fire was in the basement, and that he was seeing the fire extending through the partially collapsed floors of each room. His tactics changed and he decided on alternate ways to attack the basement fire without endangering his crew on the weakened floors.
The bottom line is what are we learning from these tragedies? What will it take to get chiefs to alter their “business as usual” mentality; to become role models for safety to their firefighters which includes the chief wearing full PPE; to have adequate and enforceable SOG‘s and to get back to the basics of incident command. Until we heed these lessons, we have doomed more firefighters to similar tragic fates.
