By FCC standards, the commission’s pace for acting on the public-private partnership proposal to build a shared wireless broadband network for public safety in the 700-MHz band has been lightning-quick compare to its usual glacial-like work rate.

Last year, in less than eight months, the commission took a proposal advocated by Cyren Call Communications and transformed it from a dead legislative idea into the cornerstone for auction rules governing the 10 MHz of commercial D Block spectrum.

Of course, this part of the auction failed to attract a bidder, and the FCC again embarked on an aggressive schedule to adopt new D Block rules and reauction the airwaves — adopt draft rules in late September, receive comments on the proposal into November and release rules by the end of the year. Logistically challenging, political realities seem to have made the schedule impossible to meet, as outgoing FCC Chairman Kevin Martin recently acknowledged.

As a result, the fate of the D Block apparently will be decided by a new FCC, and that likely means the matter will be delayed for some time, as justifiable delays are a natural symptom of a transition period that sees the commission reconstituted and employees in the agency shuffled to new posts. It’s hard to imagine that the FCC will be in position to tackle issues as complex as the D Block until May or June.

In general, a delay could prove to be positive. To date, the D Block has been considered in a rushed manner, so having some time to consider the various options out there could be helpful — this year, we should learn a lot more about the realities of 4G deployments, technically and economically. Certainly it appears that both the commercial and public safety industries need time to develop an internal consensus, much less points of agreement between the two sides.

Delay could allow other parts of the government to possibly lend a hand. Congress certainly didn’t seem to like the FCC’s approach to handling the D Block, maybe its membership would like to offer its own ideas — or pass a law that would enable the request-for-proposal concept advocated by Verizon and AT&T to become a reality. Meanwhile, a wireless broadband network for public safety would seem like something that would fit nicely into the new administration’s $44 billion broadband infrastructure program.

The possibilities are endless, and the government should take its time to get the D Block strategy “right.”

But two areas that need to be addressed in the short term are 700-MHz narrowband relocation and the role of the Public Safety Spectrum Trust, the licensee for public safety’s broadband spectrum in the band.

While there have been many arguments about the proper use of the spectrum, no one seems to question the FCC’s decision last year to change the band plan at 700 MHz. As we have stated in this space before, none of the broadband strategies will work until the narrowband systems are operating on their new frequencies, so getting the money to fund the relocation (government officials seem to avoid the word “rebanding,” even though that’s what we’re talking about) needs to be a priority. Congress, are you listening?

As for the PSST, the feds need to determine whether a nationwide licensee representing public safety is needed, and whether the PSST is the organization best suited for that role. If not, the license should be taken from the PSST quickly, to minimize confusion and wasted time, money and effort.

If the PSST is deemed appropriate to represent public safety, Congress needs to provide a viable funding mechanism that will allow the PSST — or another entity, if that’s the choice — to be an independent, competent representative of public safety.

For more than a year, I’ve heard critics of the PSST — inside and outside public safety — complain about the organization’s lack of outreach and its acceptance of millions of dollars in loans from its advisor, Cyren Call.

There certainly is legitimacy in these complaints, but the fact is that the PSST has not had many options. Outreach costs money, and the PSST doesn’t have any way to generate revenue to pay expenses — the organization’s only asset is an FCC license it cannot use on its own. At a time when a multibillion-dollar industry giant like Motorola has seen its credit rating downgraded to “junk,” it’s not surprising that investors aren’t exactly lining up to lend money to an entity with no collateral and an uncertain future.

With this in mind, the PSST arguably is lucky to secure the seven-figure loans it has received to date from Cyren Call, which has accepted a real risk that it may never be repaid. The amount of money is not enough for the PSST do conduct all the outreach and research it should as the representative. Public-safety entities have a lot of assets — most notably, tower sites and backhaul — that a commercial partner would like to leverage, but such possibilities need to be identified and inventoried prior to negotiations with a commercial partner.

Meanwhile, under the structure of the current proposal, the public safety representative needs to be financially solid when negotiating with a commercial partner, which almost certainly will have team of well-paid negotiators on its side. What public safety does not need is to be represented by cash-strapped organization advised by an entity that is perceived as desperate to make a deal, because failure to do so mean that both its multimillion-dollar loans and its hope for an ongoing contract are lost.

Unfortunately, without changes, that’s exactly the negotiating scenario the PSST faces in approximately a year, if the D Block is reauctioned and a winning bidder emerges.

Every elected official talks about the importance of public security and their commitment to ensure that the populace is safe. No one has questioned the need for an interoperable broadband network. If the federal government is willing to pay for such a network, the least it should ensure that the public safety representative in a public-private venture is financially sound enough to be in position to say, “No,” if a deal that is not in the interest of public safety is put on the table.

In short, if the PSST is to be public safety’s representative in this important endeavor, the government needs to make sure that it is well funded. That’s the least that public safety deserves.

What do you think? Comment in the box below.

At a recent conference in Washington, D.C., attendees discussed recent news reports about increased fire fatalities in residential homes equipped with smoke detectors.

There could be a number of reasons behind the statistics. Perhaps residents hadn’t placed detectors in the proper places or installed enough of them. Perhaps the detectors needed new batteries or were more than 10 years old and needed to be replaced.

While investigators work to determine why the smoke detectors failed to alert the occupants in fatal fires, you can do your part to prevent future tragedies by giving the gift of fire safety this holiday season. Pete Piringer, public-information officer for Montgomery County (Md.) Fire and Rescue, compiled a terrific list of fire-safe holiday gift ideas.

“Why not give a gift that can save a life and/or protect your family?” wrote Piringer.

His ideas include:

Smoke alarms. A smoke alarm should be installed on every level of a home and outside of each sleeping area. Your family is afforded the best coverage with both ionization and photoelectric technologies.

Calendars. Give a calendar with one day a month marked as smoke detector testing day, and include one day each year to remind your loved one to change the battery and vacuum the unit. Also choose two dates per year to practice home escape plans.

Fire extinguishers. Purchase a good fire extinguisher that can be recharged easily. Don’t be fooled by high-pressure door-to-door salespersons making unusual claims.

Flashlights. Encourage family members to use flashlights for emergency lighting instead of candles, to avoid the risk of fire from an open flame.

Escape ladder. This handy device will help people sleeping in a bedroom in a second or third story to escape when the primary escape route isn’t an option.

Sturdy candleholders. These can prevent tip-over when candles are lit.

Fireplace screen. A sturdy screen can keep embers out of the room.

Warm nightwear or bedding. Warm fabrics can help reduce the need for space heaters, particularly at night. Space heaters (fixed and portable) are involved in about 75% of home-heating fire deaths, and NFPA recommends they be turned off at night before going to sleep. Nightwear or bathrobes with tight-fitting sleeves will stay well away from cooking flames and hot surfaces like stove burners.

Large house numbers. Proper marking can help firefighters quickly locate a home at night in an emergency.

Carbon monoxide alarms. While these alarms won’t help keep your loved ones safe from fire, it’s something you should consider for home safety. Often called the silent killer, carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless gas formed when fuels such as natural gas, oil and wood burn incompletely.

Batteries. Batteries in smoke detectors need to be changed annually. And they make wonderful stocking stuffers.

In addition to Piringer’s list, one of my favorite fire-safe gifts is a battery-operated candle. Available through the Congressional Fire Services Institute and at many hardware stores, pillar candles with batteries are almost indistinguishable from the live-fire pillar candles.

The last fire-safe gift you can give your family is your expertise. Take time to make sure the homes you visit over the holidays have working smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. Also make sure loved ones have an exit plan and know where to meet in case of an emergency.

On behalf of the FIRE CHIEF staff, I wish you a safe and happy holiday season!

As the Internet evolves, so to does the way humans communicate with one another.

Most news media outlets that have a Web presence now have the technological capability to allow visitors to post comments about stories they read at the site. This provides near-instantaneous feedback from the public on issues of the day. In some respects, this is a sign that we are drifting back to the core of an ideal democratic society: one where issues are debated and the public arrives at a consensus decision based on the best-informed argument that represents the greater good of the people.

This comment function, which you’ll find at the end of this and every FIRE CHIEF article, also serves as a barometer of public opinion. There will be those who use the anonymity of the online comment posting to write untrue and outrageous things that they would not if revealing their identities were required. This is why many magazines and newspapers do not publish anonymous letters to the editor. Likewise, the same anonymity will give some the courage to write the truth that fear, perhaps of retribution, would have kept them silent on. This is why anonymous surveys are so revered. Assuming these extremes will more or less cancel one another out, you are left with a sense of where public opinion resides on a given issue.

Like many in the fire service, I’ve been following the events in Charleston, S.C., since nine firefighters died in the Sofa Super Store blaze in June 2007. The Charleston Post and Courier, and specifically reporter Glenn Smith, has done a very good job covering this hometown tragedy. The Post and Courier also has a comment section at the end of each story. And these comments can be as interesting as the story itself. Particularly unsettling, are the comments deriding the paper for continuing to run stories on the fire.

Following a story earlier this month about Charleston prosecutors weighing criminal charges, a person who logged in as Reality_Woman wrote that enough was enough and she was tired of seeing this story. Another commenter wrote that it was time to move past this story. And commenter going by SomeTruthPlease called the issue a worn-out news story.

When it works as it is supposed to, the news media provides a vital component to a democratic society. It gives information untainted by personal interest that enhances debate and ultimately leads to better decision-making.

There is a compelling argument that having the public revisit the Sofa Super Store fire via the media drags up pains that those closest to the situation are trying sort through, that it slows the healing process. However, a more compelling argument is that learning from this tragedy and taking measures to prevent others like it takes precedent over healing.

There is still much to be learned from the Charleston tragedy, and that knowledge can have a positive influence in communities around the nation. Allowing the story to die either out of desire to speed the healing process or out of a feeling of news overload, removes the information, lessons learned, debate and decision making from the public sphere. And that does not serve the greater good of Charleston, the fire service or our country.

Last week our buddy Chief Billy Goldfeder put the word out to his Secret List that Fire Chief posted its annual holiday list of addresses for military servicemen and women who are also first responders. Thanks to Goldfeder’s support, our double-duty list is full of soldiers that could use some cheer this holiday season.

It’s no secret that family, friends and fire departments across North America are missing those serving in the military overseas this holiday season. We received e-mails from chiefs, parents, siblings, uncles, co-workers and friends, each asking us to include a special someone who not only serves their local community, but their country at war.

Many fire chiefs wrote that they have a son or daughter serving overseas. Among them, Chief Paul Adams of the Avondale (Ariz.) Fire Department wrote to say that his son, Sgt. Frank Adams, is serving overseas as part of the B Troop 1-10 Cavalry. Chief Bob Rielage, Wyoming, Ohio, wrote about his son, CDR Dale Rielage, serving in the Navy’s Seventh Fleet.

Chief James P. Seavey, Sr., Cabin John Park (Md.) Volunteer Fire Department, wrote about his nephew, U.S. Army 1st Sgt. Michael Simmons serving in Iraq for 15 months and in his second deployment. Seavey wrote of Michael, “He is a very active firefighter/EMT with the Cabin John Park Volunteer Fire Department in Cabin John, Md.”

Couples wrote about their sons. Debbie and Al Dieumegard wrote that their son, Sgt. Eric Dieumegard is on his third deployment (first Iraq, second time in Afghanistan). Eric is an EMT/CC and member of the Community Ambulance of Sayville, N.Y. “Eric follows a long line of firefighters and EMTs in the family. We could not be prouder of him!” wrote his parents.

Pat and John Streppone wrote about their son, Airman 1st Class Vincent Streppone, who is a volunteer with the John Paulding Engine Co. #1, Sparkill, N.Y., and currently in the United Arab Emirate with the U.S. Air Force. In a second e-mail, Pat Streppone wrote, “I was scolded by my husband for not telling you that Vinny is not only a volunteer firefighter here, but also with the Air Force.”

I called Canadian Fire Chief Steve Cooke, Central Huron Fire Area, Clinton, Ontario. His son, Ryan, currently is serving with the Canadian Armed Forces in Afghanistan. Cooke said, “They have experienced six fatalities and several wounded in the last 10 days. I’m sure any words of support from the fire community would be most welcome. If you could add his name to the list, I would appreciate it.” Cooke added that Canadian military mail overseas is processed through Belleville, Ontario.

And I heard from Florida firefighter/paramedic Charlie Hatchett, who currently is serving with the Florida Army National Guard in Baghdad, Iraq. Hatchett is an Army medic with a unit from Camp Blanding just southeast of Jacksonville, Fla.

Hatchett wrote, “Yes, it is a little harder during the Christmas season, however, I do realize the reason I/we are here and the ‘big’ picture: protecting our freedom.” Hatchett included his mailing and e-mail addresses, adding, “Every bit of correspondence is always welcome…[and] greatly improves morale and sanity.”

I know it’s nearing the holidays, but if your department or kids could take the time to send an e-mail greeting and/or mail a holiday card to some of the men and women serving our country this holiday season, it would mean a lot to them.

Chief Billy Goldfeder has an incredible Secret List, that’s no secret and supporting our troops overseas shouldn’t be a secret. Please send an e-mail, card or note and, God willing, these military men and women soon will be back safely with their hometown fire departments.

By Charles Jennings

The U.S. property-insurance industry is a behemoth. According to the Insurance Information Institute, the industry collected $448 billion in premiums in 2007. As a powerful industry, it has a financial interest in how local governments spend their fire-service budgets. Presumably, higher expenditures by local governments could relate to lower losses for the insurance industry. The insurance industry’s chief tool for imposing its will on local fire services is the Fire Suppression Rating Schedule.

The Fire Suppression Rating Schedule persists as a relic of bygone days when insurance was a speculative and risky industry and catastrophic fires were commonplace. The insurance industry used to be actively involved in fire protection, operating the Fire Patrol, once an elite force predating paid fire services in urban centers. Long ago, the insurance industry socialized the costs of local fire protection and passed it along to taxpayers rather than putting its money where its mouth is. Using the FSRS and its predecessor, the Grading Schedule, it continues to impose its will on the fire service.

Today, the schedule serves as a convenient crutch for local fire services to justify resources. Despite the fine print saying that the schedule is not designed as a management tool, the wink between the fire services and the insurance industry continues to enable the schedule to exert undue influence over local decision-making. When challenged about expenditures, fire chiefs speak in reverent tones about the schedule and implications for insurance rates if its time-honored dictates aren’t followed.

Numerous studies have questioned whether compliance with the schedule is correlated with better fire services or lower losses. In the wake of the deaths in the Class 1 Charleston (S.C.) Fire Department, an embarrassed insurance industry trotted out proposed revisions to the schedule, which hasn’t been updated since 1980. In an effort to appease the fire service and shore up support for an out-of-touch and increasingly irrelevant property insurance underwriting tool, the ISO is proposing to revise the schedule to include such subjective criteria as firefighter health and safety and compliance with numerous NFPA standards long-championed by many in the fire service. There’s only one problem: these changes only make the schedule more arbitrary and more intrusive into local decision making for fire services.

Lacking the ability to base decisions on analysis of local fire experience, and with a vacuum of standards on which to base local decisions, the FSRS fulfilled a need just after the turn of the 20th century. In some sense, the ISO FSRS formed a template for American fire service deployment. As technology advanced, that template became wildly biased toward controlling insured fire losses and conflagration avoidance. Uninsured property and life were not explicitly part of the equation.

The result was an over reliance on manual fire suppression and equipment. No matter how much money is spent, the results don’t seem to change. The United States has reaped the terrible consequences of the unchecked bias toward property protection in an unenviable record of fire deaths and losses while public education, fire officer training and adoption of fire protection systems have been left to beg for resources.

The ISO FSRS predates breathing apparatus, apparatus windshields, NFIRS, computers, and widespread adoption of telephones for reporting fires. It is high time the FSRS goes the way of the hose jacket, and end up in the display case in the museum with the filter masks, cotton duck turnout coats and life nets.

The FSRS has degenerated from a tool to avoid conflagrations to a tool for justifying resources and equipment — a tool that benefits a particular industry. Enough is enough. It is time that fire service leaders step up and be willing to be judged based on their performance, and not on checking the boxes on an arbitrary standard, whether self-imposed or dictated by a powerful commercial interest. It is time we are judged based on outcomes, and not merely on effort, or good intentions.

If the ISO wants to help the fire service — it would increase the price differential for unsprinklered or unprotected properties and publish fire losses by community against local expenditures and community characteristics. Everything else is just a continuation of an outdated, paternalistic and flawed system.

Charles Jennings, Ph.D., MIFireE, CFO, is an associate professor in the Department of Protection Management at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York. He was formerly deputy commissioner of Public Safety for the city of White Plains, N.Y. He has served as a commissioner, officer and active member of fire departments for over 20 years. He does research and consults on fire service deployment and policy issues.

At some point, fire departments need new fire stations. Whether a department finds that it’s time to move out of someone’s garage or pole barn, needs more space and storage, or is making the transition from volunteers to paid members, Station Style Online is here to help.

FIRE CHIEF launched Station Style as a print supplement in 1999 to help chiefs make educated design decisions. A year later, the first Station Style Fire Station Design Awards showcased 33 fire stations, showing readers a variety of construction and cost options. The showcase has grown over time, and the 2008 awards included 76 fire stations among five categories.

FIRE CHIEF is pleased to bring you the newest addition to the Station Style line, a monthly e-newsletter with news, articles and tips for building your next public safety facility. Each issue will include feature articles by subject-matter experts, a station of the month taken from the 2009 Station Style Calendar, company news, new products, sustainability tips, and recently opened stations from across North America.

Designing and building public safety facilities to meet growing response needs has become more complex and more expensive. Public safety agencies are no longer exempt from environmental restrictions; EPA’s live-burn restrictions, 2010 engine emissions and ADA compliance must be considered when building or renovating a facility. And with the depressed economy, some fire departments are considering co-locating with other government agencies, while others are looking to renovate existing structures.

To that end, Station Style Online is looking to feature budget building beginning in January. Have you built a fire and emergency station for less than $500,000? Share your story.

The 2009 Station Style Conference will be held May 3–5 in Denver and we are adding a pre-conference program specifically for departments with smaller budgets. Details will be posted on our Web site.

There’s a carpenters’ reminder that says, “measure twice, cut once.” Perhaps it could apply to avoiding errors in building a new public safety facility.

Bentonville (Ark.) Fire Chief Dan White needed more space and had no money in 2002 when they started the research for a new station. When the two acres of property were donated, White and his team, including the architect and construction manager, were ready to move forward. With extensive research and due diligence well along, the Bentonville Fire Station No. 1 was able to overcome minimal obstacles and ended up winning the Gold Career Station Design Award for 2008.

Twice the research builds it right the first time.

This week I spoke with a volunteer fire chief who is trying to decide between an enclosed or open top-mount pump panel, each proposed by different members of his department. He asked me for the name of someone to help him who could be totally objective.

“We need to spend our money wisely,” the chief said. “This is a 10- to 20-year decision. I have not physically worked with one of these systems before and I want to make right decision before meeting with the city council next week.”

The first person I thought of was In Service Senior Editor Chris Cavette. Then I thought of a retired chief who had 30-years of hands-on apparatus experience. Who would you call for an objective recommendation?

FIRE CHIEF launched In Service in 1993 as a quarterly supplement designed to educate fire chiefs, officers and apparatus supervisors on the safe, efficient operation of emergency vehicles. The first articles covered preventive maintenance, liability issues involving poor maintenance records, and changing technology (then multiplex systems, anti-lock brakes and electronics systems). In Service provided need-to-know information to the leaders of the emergency services. Since that time, it has become a reliable print and online source of objective information not only for chiefs and officers, but for emergency vehicle technicians and apparatus manufacturers and suppliers.

Cavette joined In Service in 1998. He raised the standard through hard work and objectivity. He doesn’t include puff pieces or advertorials passed off as features. Rather, Cavette focused on articles that would be accurate for years to come.

After 10 years, Cavette is retiring. FIRE CHIEF’s December issue features his last In Service in print and next week will bring his final In Service Online.

In reminiscing about the past decade, Cavette said he’s seen a lot of changes, but it always goes full circle and comes back to the basics of fire apparatus: engines, tires, pumps, electrical systems and the like.

For those of you who don’t have Cavette on speed dial and still need an objective, no-frills resource on apparatus issues, I recommend the Fire Department Safety Officers Association’s Annual Apparatus Specification and Maintenance Symposium, Jan. 18–20 in Orlando, Fla. Executive Director Mary McCormack runs a tight program with objective, educational information. Offenders who sell rather than teach are thrown on the carpet.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’m on the FDSOA board and involved with the symposium program committee. I’m involved because I strongly believe that safe, well-maintained apparatus are critical for firefighter safety. The more objective information you have before specifying an emergency vehicle, the better your maintenance personnel will be able to safely and efficiently keep the vehicle in service.

Start your investment by doing your homework. If your rig’s not in service, ultimately you will be responsible. History shows it always comes back to the fire chief.

I’ve had two conversations recently that bear repeating. The first conversation was a formal interview with Mark McMullen, a senior economist for Moody’s Economy.com. McMullen’s area of expertise is government finance. I first interviewed him nearly a year ago when it seemed obvious that the economy hadn’t merely stumbled but was in recession. The U.S. housing market was in bad shape, driving down home prices. It was a troubling sign for fire departments that depend on property-tax revenue.

We didn’t realize just how deep the problem ran, but we’d soon find out. The number of foreclosures on homes bought with sub-prime loans indicated that lending institutions were in for tough times. Fuel prices were at record highs and several fire departments started cost-saving measures in anticipation of budget cuts or cost overruns. Then, of course, giant financial institutions toppled, banks became squeamish about lending to each other and almost anyone else, job losses ballooned, prices started on a dangerous deflationary path, and people on Wall Street and Main Street held tight to the money they had.

Early this year, McMullen said that one warning sign that fire chiefs should look for that the economy is worsening is a sharp fall in retail sales. That’s because it would be a double gut punch of lower property taxes and lower sales taxes. That, of course, happened and many municipalities are doubled over with the wind knocked out of their budgets.

My most recent interview with McMullen appears on page 88 of FIRE CHIEF’s December issue; a longer version of the interview will be posted later this month at firechief.com. He says the economy is now worse than most experts expected. Most fire departments already feel the pinch, some through staff reductions. McMullen expects the economy to bottom out in the second half of 2009. Recovery, he says, will be slow.

Here’s what struck me: In both interviews, McMullen said that fire departments are in a better position than school districts when it comes to competing for public money. He reasons that because there are fewer children in K-12 schools, there is less demand for building new schools. That, he further reasons, should free up money for fire departments. Departments, he said, should be in position to get a bigger chunk of the pie, albeit from a smaller pie.

The second conversation I had was with a progressive fire chief of a medium-size department. His city administrator asked how much the chief could trim from his budget. He told the administrator that he could cut as much as he liked. The only thing the chief needed to know was how much risk the administrator was comfortable accepting. In other words, what number of civilian deaths from fire or other emergencies could the administrator live with?

For his part, McMullen takes measurable facts and applies reason to understand a present condition and predict future conditions (fewer children need fewer school space, freeing more money for fire departments).

But public servants’ decisions, especially spending decisions, often are based on factors outside cold analysis and logic. And beyond political pressures, there is tremendous economic pressure right now to make deep budget cuts. Recent data from the National Conference of State Legislators shows that, collectively, state governments need an extra $100 billion to break even over the next 18 to 24 months.

It may be that federal money will bail out the states and that the states will funnel that money to municipalities and counties. Even so, chiefs will face a tough battle to hang on to the money they need. At the least, it will take combining cold facts with an emotional appeal, as did the chief I spoke with, to get the attention of those holding the purse strings.

The conversation between the chief and his administrator did not end in enlightened resolution. And I suspect those two will be having that same conversation several more times in the coming months. I also suspect many other fire chiefs are having similar conversations with their administrators.

If you are a chief and have not shaped your argument against extreme budget cuts, you need to do so. If you’ve had success in the budget process, please share your strategies with others in the comment section below. (Please log in or create an account to leave a comment.)

Recently I was asked to attend a three-day course entitled “School Shootings: Prevention, Response and Mitigation,” as a member of the fire service advisory committee at the local career development institute. Taught by both a retired police chief and several retired federal agents, the course gave the history, motivation and analysis of multiple-victim shootings at schools throughout North America, with special emphasis on the Columbine High School and Virginia Tech attacks.

Of the 35 attendees, only four were from the fire service. At first we had to overcome the learning curve regarding current police tactics in dealing with these shootings. Equally difficult to comprehend was the Internet subculture that instructs, openly discusses and borderline promotes school shootings as a way for a student to get “even” while forever making his or her name “infamous.”

As the course continued, it became obvious that the sooner responders started medical triage and treatment, the greater chance there was for victims to survive. The class discussion at times centered on how we first responders could better prepare and work comfortably in an ongoing environment that may be “contained” but not yet fully “secured.” For example, three volunteer EMTs at Virginia Tech (college students, not SWAT members) agreed to go into the stairwells with the SWAT team to triage and treat victims who were brought to them in a controlled setting while SWAT teams continued to sweep the area. No other victims died after EMTs entered the building.

After the course, we started a dialogue in our area on how to best respond and mitigate such carnage. This blog is as much an attempt to obtain input from those of you who have had similar discussions with your law enforcement counterparts as it is to raise your awareness that most of us are ill-prepared both procedurally and emotionally to handle this type of emergency.

I am not looking for every EMT or medic to be an armed SWAT member, but do some of you issue tactical vests and allow medics discretion to enter just after SWAT has swept an area? Is that somehow captured in your SOGs?

Are you prepared to handle a school shooting, knowing that on average that there is a victim every five seconds a shooter is in the building, and that those victims may be friends, neighbors or children of the responders?

If you haven’t squirmed in your chair by now, then know that I did for nearly the entire three-day class. But I also came out of those sessions knowing we must have this discussion to be better prepared to respond to the unthinkable in our area.

Last month in my recollections of the Our Lady of Angels school fire, I shared the concerns from teachers at one Chicago public elementary school about security bars that had been recently added to classroom windows. I contacted the Chicago Fire Department, which promptly sent a fire inspector to the school.

The bars prohibited teachers from opening windows more than 6 inches. According to the teachers, the fire inspector told them that the bars or limiters on the window were a hazard. Later, however, Chicago Fire Department responded that the inspector was wrong, and the limiters on the school windows were within Chicago’s codes.

Responding to additional queries and from the local ABC news affiliate, CFD Director of Media Affairs and Public Education Larry Langford responded with the following statement:

“… In Chicago, we now require that all schools, public and private, be hardwired directly to the OEMC fire alarm room. This alarm must be triggered by smoke and or heat rise as well as by manual pull stations. This alarm must be a direct wire, (or fiber) not a link from a third party alarm company. That link is under supervision 24/7 by OEMC and will show an immediate failure if the link becomes ‘open.’

“All schools in Chicago are equipped with fire alarm systems that will engage a local alarm simultaneously to the link activation to OEMC. All schools are required to evacuate without challenge to the alarm credibility. In addition, the Otis [Elementary] school is equipped with sprinklers.

“CFD response time to any school is under four minutes (closer to three). All Chicago Public School alarms are treated as automatic Still and Box alarms, which will start 19 fire companies and 58 personnel on the initial dispatch.

“Given the above facts, the need for a window rescue is HIGHLY unlikely (emphasis added). If a window rescue is required, the CFD has no problem accessing windows from the outside and removing them quickly with normal firefighting tools.

“Most Chicago Public Schools are multi-story. As stated before, the CFD will be on scene in about three minutes. Opening windows before CFD arrives to narrow or no ledges does no good whatsoever. Without a ladder or platform in place there is no place for occupants to go.

“The CPS also chose to balance the above resources from CFD and the alarm connection to OEMC with the need to make the windows safe from accidents that could occur if windows were allowed to be manually opened past the current limit point. This would include the possibility of a person falling from the window or objects of considerable size being allowed to fall from such windows.

“The Chicago Fire Department is satisfied that the overall safety of students and staff at the Otis school is not compromised in any way by the addition of limiters to the windows. In fact, we agree that the use of limiters enhances the safety of children by mitigating the danger of a person going out of the window by accident or intentionally. The windows as currently set up are NOT a violation of the Chicago Code… (emphasis added).”

Teachers should have the right to ask questions, particularly when it comes to the safety and security of students.

Reports from 50 years ago state that some nuns at Our Lady of Angels instructed students to remain in their seats and pray while smoke seeped under the doors. That Otis teachers went to the media about a fire-safety concern shows that escape procedures are not understood at the level needed in an emergency.