The tones go off. You pull on your gear, hop in the truck and buckle your seatbelt. And then nothing happens. The fire truck won’t start. Now what?

Firefighters don’t think about apparatus maintenance and emergency vehicle technicians when they turn the key or back a rig into the bay. But when something doesn’t work, suddenly the people in the shops become important.

Since 1993, FIRE CHIEF has worked to educate chiefs and officers about the importance of training and certification of emergency vehicle technicians, the need for preventive maintenance, and the legal liabilities of unsafe apparatus. Working with the IAFC’s Apparatus Maintenance Section, we created the Emergency Vehicle Technician of the Year Award to recognize the integral role EVTs play in the fire and emergency services.

The first EVT of the Year named was Jimmy Hydas, an independent contractor in Ooltewah, Tenn. One of the first members of the IAFC’s Apparatus Maintenance Section, Hydas was a soft-spoken technician with years of experience fixing fire trucks who was dedicated to sharing his knowledge and learning about evolutions in apparatus.

In 2005, the award went to Robert F. Heraver, Gurnee (Ill.) Fire Department’s head of apparatus maintenance. He was nominated by Chief Fred Friedl, who wrote, “Bob strives to encourage safety and education; assuring that each vehicle technician maintains standards for certification. He is well respected by his peers and often sought after for advice by other local departments.”

2007 EVT of the Year Mike Stankus, King County, Wash., encouraged other technicians to get as much schooling as they can and teaches apparatus drivers how to keep the vehicles in better working order. “Drive at a safer speed and not do hard breaking,” he said. “Don’t go in [to an intersection] at the last minute and dynamite the brakes.”

Last year’s recipient, Don Dominick of the Stillwater (Okla.) Fire Department, has his master certifications for fire apparatus, ambulances, automotives and trucks. “Job experience is good, but any education people can get is tremendous,” he said.

Two companies with a history of training and supporting technicians, Spartan Chassis and Allison Transmissions, are co-sponsors of the 2009 EVT of the Year Award, which will be presented at the IAFC’s Apparatus Maintenance Section Workshop, Aug. 26–27 in Dallas.

Did your apparatus or ambulance start last night? Did you respond and return safely this morning? Take a few minutes to recognize the efforts of the technicians who maintain your vehicles. Nominate your mechanic or technician for the 2009 EVT of the Year award.

As one of my favorite EVTs used to remind me, “Without us, the pride don’t ride.”

It’s been nearly eight years since 9/11, and I wondered if New York was prepared for another large-scale incident. So I called New York City Fire Department Chief Salvatore Cassano and asked him point blank: Can the city respond to another terrorist attack?

Cassano said the FDNY will operate at full capacity if the city again is the target of a terrorist attack. He said a lot has changed since 2001. Overseeing all incidents in the city wasn’t an option pre-9/11 because technology was not in place to support large-scale emergency operations. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, the FDNY command center consisted of only a couple of phones and a couple of screens, he said. Response efforts also were hampered by a general inability to share information across local, state and federal agencies.

“It just was totally inefficient to handle any type of large-scale event. It was basically a notification center, so if something happened they would notify people but that was it. There was no major system,” he said. “We had very little information to send to the site at the World Trade Center, and I was getting very little information from the site to us to see what we could do for them. So we realized that it was totally inefficient — we knew that we needed a much better, improved state-of-the-art operations center for future events.”

Even if such technologies had been in place, it was the on-the-fly decisions that had to be made that was the most challenging aspect of that day, Cassano said. The city’s public-safety officials had only 102 minutes to make decisions. In that time, two planes crashed into two 100-story buildings, causing their collapse. Just think of the myriad decisions that had to be made during such a short period of time.

So the department made changes over the last eight years. Two way radios often fail because in-building coverage is insufficient. Now teams carry 25-pound, 45 W radios into high-rise buildings that officers use to communicate with command. In addition, the city has invested $18 million to build a new emergency operations center, where the chief can oversee operations within the five city boroughs and monitor each incident from a centralized location. The operations center connects all of the stations, as well as the FDNY to local, state and federal agencies. It also controls an advanced vehicle location system that tracks all fire department apparatus and stores that information at headquarters. The chief now can tell where all of his units are deployed and the type of incident — across the entire city — from one location. The EOC lets the chief get the most accurate, real-time information out to his field officers and firefighters at incidents, Cassano said.

The department also holds joint drills and table-top exercises.

“We have learned a tremendous lesson in interagency cooperation, sharing of information, being able to talk to each other,” he said. “We’ve been doing it for seven years so if an event happens the response will be automatic.”

Cassano hopes New York City won’t suffer another terrorist attack, but if it does, “we will be ready,” he said. 

Recently I wrote an article about how Prince George’s County Fire Rescue had its budget restricted and, consequently, wasn’t repairing out-of-service apparatus.

Last week, I spoke with department spokesman Mark Brady, who explained that as one of the largest combination and volunteer departments in the country, PGCFR has about 90 pumpers that are currently in service. Proportionately, they have fewer ladder trucks and rescue squads, but were confident that in the event of a major disaster, the department was ready to respond.

Brady contacted me this weekend to say that acting Chief Eugene Jones ordered critical financial issues related to emergency operations to be addressed immediately. After considerable review and re-evaluations of all programs, several items have been approved, including repairs to frontline fire and EMS apparatus.

“Our highest priority is the safety and well-being of our firefighters, EMTs, paramedics and civilian employees while we continue to provide the very best in fire and emergency medical services possible to our citizens, residents and visitors,” Jones said in a statement.

While we live in tough economic times, the safety and maintenance of fire and emergency service apparatus must not be compromised. Fire chiefs have a responsibility to make sure department personnel are responding in safe apparatus.

“Whether you have the money to fix apparatus or not, those problems still exist,” said Jim Juneau, attorney for the Fire Apparatus Manufacturers Association and the Fire and Emergency Manufacturers and Services Association. “If it impairs the unit, the standards for taking a unit out of service don’t change. Every time a mechanic has a unit that is deemed unsafe, it puts the department personnel and the community at risk.”

Juneau recommends technicians document the condition of the vehicle. “If it has a safety issue, all that really affects is when can be put back in service,” he said. “If you don’t fix it, then you have an obligation to keep it out of service.”

According to Juneau, it’s a Catch 22 for the mechanic. “For the mechanics, the rules wouldn’t change. You may be overridden by someone and it goes back in service, so document what the problem is and what the potential risks are. If cities want to cut back on the funding, they have to be prepared to get those vehicles safely back on the road. They have a commitment to their taxpayers to provide service, but you never put people’s lives at risk; it’s not worth the money.”

Most fire departments run on tight budgets, but running unsafe apparatus is not an option.

I received a lengthy e-mail in December in response to FIRE CHIEF’s annual request for names and addresses of first responders serving abroad in the military.

This chief wrote that his son had served twice overseas and recently had returned home. This time, however, his son had suffered some emotional trauma from life in a war zone. The chief thought some good wishes might help if his son, showing him how much firefighters supported the soldiers of war.

The chief’s good intentions yielded an outpouring of concern for his son’s health. But a few days later, the chief e-mailed again to apologize and ask to take his son’s name down from the Web site. The son was quite upset that his father had put his name forward with those who actually were serving overseas.

This approaching Memorial Day had me thinking of this father and son again. My father served in the Pacific during World War II and later was actively involved with the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Dad instilled a strong sense of patriotism and appreciation for our armed forces in us kids.

Memorial Day was created to remember fallen soldiers, but must we wait until soldiers die to honor them? There have been too many stories of combat soldiers who may have returned physically, but their spirit is gone. How do we remember those who have given a part of their body or their mind?

Many soldiers return, some in a coffin and some broken. This weekend, remember them and their families.

The first decade of the 21st century has seen no meaningful changes to the fire service culture’s tolerance of fire deaths, injuries and property loss. Yes, I said “tolerance.”

American has known it’s had a fire problem since at least 1948, when President Harry S. Truman received the Report of the Continuing Committee of the President’s Conference on Fire Prevention and Education. Our 33rd president responded to the report by stating:

“The serious losses in life and property resulting annually from fires cause me deep concern. I am sure that such unnecessary waste can be reduced. The substantial progress made in the science of fire prevention and fire protection in this country during the past forty years convinces me that the means are available for limiting this unnecessary destruction.”

The authors of that report, along with the participants at the five Wingspread symposiums since — Wingspread Conference on Fire Service Administration, Education and Research (1966), Wingspread II (1976), III (1986), IV (1996), and V (2003) — have all said the same thing when it comes to addressing the fire problem in America:

“Fire prevention and accident prevention employ same technique. – Over the years, the approaches to the accident problem have been popularly designated as the Three E’s of Safety – Engineering, Enforcement, and Education. These ‘Three E’s’ are equally applicable to fire prevention and protection.”

So, where are we today? According to the U.S. Fire Administration, an average of 3,695 people suffered fire-related deaths in the United States between 1998 and 2007. (Those numbers do not include those who lost their lives on 9/11.) In a decade we lost the population of a small city —36,950. And thousands more suffer fire-related injuries and the property losses reach into the billions of dollars.

If we’re serious in our profession about ridding the United States of this “epidemic of fire,” I propose the following manifesto for every community in the United States.

Engineering:

• Require residential sprinklers in all newly constructed one-and two-family homes. Period.
  
• Change building codes so that all building materials must pass fire resistance performance standards, not just “gravity-defiance” standards.
  
• Change building codes in the wildland-urban interface to prohibit the use of combustible building materials. Mandate the use of block, concrete, stucco and other non-combustible materials.
  
• Mandate fire-safe cigarettes.
  

Education:

• Require that all residential property in a locality — rental and occupant-owned — has a copy of the locality’s fire-prevention code do’s and don’ts, written in plain English and other applicable languages for the community.
  
• Require fire departments and school systems to jointly deliver a standard fire prevention curriculum in elementary, middle, and high schools every two years.
  
• Require completion of fire prevention course of study as prerequisite for obtaining a residential lease or buying a home.
  
• Require insurance companies to inspect rental and occupant-owned residential properties before insuring the property. Require policy-holders to submit an affidavit to their insurance company stating that they comply with the fire prevention provisions of their policy and their locality every year as a condition to renew their coverage.
  

Enforcement:

• Investigate all fires and issue a court summons to the building occupant if a fire is determined to have been caused by their negligence. (Just like a traffic accident: if you’re at fault, you pay the price.)
  
• Bill the occupant for the cost of fire suppression services when a fire is determined to have been the result of occupant negligence.
  
• Fine builders and contractors when a fire investigation reveals that improper building materials or building practices (a) started the fire or (b) contributed to the spread of the fire.
  
• Fine rental-property owners who do not maintain their rental properties and whose properties are not in compliance with the locality’s fire prevention code.
  
• Incorporate a locality’s level of fire protection and history of fire loss into the financial processes that financial institutions use to determine a locality’s bond rating.
  

Sound rather harsh? Sound unrealistic? Consider for a moment what has happened since 9/11 to fight the “war on terror” — creation of DHS and TSA, hundreds of billions of dollars spent, laws adopted and changed, new training, new equipment, new ways to do our jobs. With all that and more, we’ve not suffered a single terrorist-related death or injury on United States soil since that day. We have, however, lost a “city” of 29,560 people in that same period. What are we waiting for?

The pre-conference program, “Incident Command Approach to Fire Station Design,” at the 2009 Station Style Conference brought together four architecture firms from across the country to share insights on beginning a fire station design.

Presenters included Dennis Ross, AIA, and David Pacheco, AIA, Pacheco Ross Architects, PC; Mary McGrath, AIA, Beverly Prior Architects; Brian Harris, AIA, and Eric Schaer, AIA, TCA Architecture Planning; and Lynn Reda, AIA, and Paul Erickson, AIA, LeMay Erickson Willcox Architects.

The team found parallels between fire station and the Incident Command System. Perhaps the single most important message from the architects was to start planning early and communicate effectively.

“Your station is every bit as complex and difficult as a major incident,” Pacheco said. “Firefighters don’t rush into a burning building without a coordinated plan of attack or the necessary expertise, so why approach facility design any differently?”

The team developed “10 Building Design Rules of Thumb” for fire stations. Among the rules are:

• Design so the path of travel to bays is direct.
  
• Locate spaces based on operational protocol.
  
• Identify clear demarcation between public and private spaces and security.
  
• Plan for future expansion in the design.
  

Presenters also discussed sustainable goals during budgeting, programming and site selection.

This year’s Incident Command Approach pre-conference program ended with one-on-one meetings with the team’s architects. One chief from Alaska exclaimed, “I can’t wait to go back and show the department the drawings I have from my meeting with the architect!”

How would you describe the perfect fire chief?

Would you talk about a chief who rose through the ranks after years of fireground experience? Would that chief have EMS experience, as EMS totals to more than 70% of calls for service? Would you consider the size of department or the challenges faced? Would this chief have sought higher education, chief fire officer designation or other prestigious credentialing? Do these things matter, or do you believe being a good chief is about being a leader and having the respect of the department and the community?

It’s hard to determine specific criteria for a perfect fire chief, because every department presents different variables. A chief can grow and develop one fire department, but not repeat that success at the next department. Likewise, a chief can be visible and active on a state or national level, yet his/her department is in shambles.

So while it’s true that no chief can be perfect, they can inspire.

FIRE CHIEF introduced the Fire Chief of the Year Awards in 1996 to recognize one career and one volunteer fire chief for their contributions to the fire service.

John Buckman of German Township, Ind., received the first Volunteer Chief of the Year honor. He had just emerged on the national scene and had been a dedicated force for improvement in Indiana. Buckman subsequently served as president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs and of its Volunteer and Combination Officers Section board and participated in countless committees and organizations to further the professionalism of the fire and emergency services. Buckman also contributed many articles on volunteers and leadership.

A few years later, someone expressed concern that that only nationally recognized chiefs would receive the awards. But over the years, we have presented the award to a number of fire chiefs who were not prominent in the national scene, but who were integral to the advancement of the fire service in their locale or their region. For example, 2003 Volunteer Chief of the Year Phil Sayer helped drive Missouri’s firefighter training, particularly for rural firefighters. He’s credited with successfully lobbying in the state legislature for firefighter benefits and with helping to establish a state memorial for fallen firefighters.

The editorial advisory board selects the recipients, and each year outstanding nominees make that selection difficult. But if there one common trait to all the recipients, it’s that they were not only dedicated and committed to their departments, but to the fire service industry on local, state, region or national levels. These individuals weren’t recognized because of one incident, but for years of hard work to improve the training and safety of emergency responders.

Nominations are open for the 2009 Fire Chief of the Year Awards, once again sponsored by Pierce Manufacturing. Do you know a fire chief who deserves recognition for a standard of commitment and dedication to the emergency services? Nominate that person now. Nominations are due June 15.

Roughly a dozen years ago, I was involved in a very nasty car accident. A knucklehead tried to race through the intersection two blocks from my home before the light turned red. He badly mistimed the effort and slammed into the front passenger side of my vehicle, which had just crossed into the intersection. My car was beyond totaled; the impact bent the frame into a V-shape, according to my insurance adjustor. Worse, my son’s head was split open through his eyebrow — like a melon hammered by a mallet — because it collided with the airbag at the wrong angle. The wound required 60 stitches, artfully applied by a plastic surgeon, to close.

I thought about that incident for the first time in a very long time after participating in a webinar a couple of weeks ago on mobile broadband data for first responders. The wide-ranging discussion eventually found its way to the proposed nationwide broadband network for first responders that would operate in the 700-MHz band. Panelists Steve Jennings, the chief information officer for Harris County, Texas — in which Houston is located — and Jon Fullinwider, the chief information officer (retired) for Los Angeles County, both spoke of the wondrous new capabilities that this network could spawn.

That’s what got me thinking about the crash. I started to contemplate how such a network might have helped my son had his very serious injury been life-threatening. In such a circumstance, would his treatment have been aided had the emergency medical technicians been able to transmit photos of his wound to emergency-room doctors? Would those doctors have been better able to monitor his condition if a medical telemetry system had been in place?

Both Jennings and Fullinwider believe the federal government needs to step up to the plate to get this network built, as has been suggested by Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility — the nation’s two largest wireless operators. Both carriers are calling for a separate stimulus package to underwrite the cost of the buildout, which largely would leverage existing commercial infrastructure in a network-of-networks approach.

“If this is a national imperative, the feds are going to have to throw some money at this,” Fullinwider said.

What they throw the money at is an equally important consideration, according to Jennings. “They need to fund a national infrastructure,” he said. “It’s a blatant waste of money for the feds to build their own systems independent of state and local systems. At a major incident, the feds can’t communicate with the state, the state can’t communicate with the locals, and the locals can’t communicate with other locals. It just doesn’t make good sense.”

When I asked whether it would be folly should this network never be built, both panelist answered — virtually in unison — “absolutely.”

As the victim of a horrific car accident, I couldn’t agree more. And, as a taxpayer, I’d be perfectly happy if the feds threw some of my hard-earned cash at an initiative that indeed should be a national imperative.

What do you think? Tell us in the comment box below.

I just returned from FIRE CHIEF’s fourth annual Station Style Conference. This year, presentations ranged from finding the right concept to choosing construction materials to remodeling and erecting interim facilities.

One highlight was the panel discussion, “Experience Speaks,” moderated by Abbe Berns, assistant director of fire services for Ventura County, Calif. Fire chiefs and architects engaged in a lively discussion of lessons learned while building multiple emergency response facilities.

Johnny Fong, an architect and engineer for Reno (Nev.) Fire Department, started at the beginning of a project, addressing site-selection concerns. “Site selection might be the most difficult step for a department,” he said. Many times it’s out of your hands and you get what you’re given.”

Chief Mark Wallace of the McKinney (Texas) Fire Department took site selection a step further. “We’re going from open land for site selection, but need to look at what’s going to be developed down the road,” he said. “Free land is not necessarily free.”

The panelists also discussed the idea of an owner’s representative. “Who does the project management on a project? Do you use the architect or do you use a third party to watch out for your interests” Berns asked. She suggested an independent management firm to review the drawings and ensure value engineering and said that she stipulates in her contracts that she owns the drawings.

Wallace explained that McKinney’s owner’s rep is a third-party architect/civil engineer and works for the city manager and is tasked with watching out for “project creep.” “Our construction manager has saved three times the cost of the construction by going through the specifications,” he said.

Panelists agreed that hiring a construction manager makes a lot of sense and to hire one as early as possible in the process.

At the end of the day, the success of a fire station construction project depends on personalities and honesty the panelists agreed. Interviewing architects was a crucial step, early in the process.

Fong cautioned architects who are new to designing fire stations to be honest about that. “If you are not a fire station expert, don’t advertise yourself as one,” he said. “Hire a consultant who is experienced in fire stations. Just because you are an architect doesn’t mean you can build any type of building.”

Besides personality, panelists suggested asking an architect what conferences they attend and find out if they are familiar with the new technology and equipment as fire departments evolve. Are architects aware of the need for areas for decontamination and area access to apparatus?

Ed Mishefske, a retired fire chief who is on staff at SEH Architects, cautioned departments to pay attention to the placement of driveways at fire stations. “We try to get in before the site selection and give chiefs an idea of what response time is all about,” he said. “You don’t want volunteers coming in where fire trucks are going out.”

“Fire chiefs are pretty pragmatic,” said Mishefske. “If something goes wrong, tell them right away, don’t cover it up.”

Recently, I attended the 21st Annual Executive Fire Officer Program Graduate Symposium at the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Md. Previous graduates of the EFOP — I’m from the EFO class of 1989 — can mingle with recent grads to discuss topics that both find pertinent. It is also a time when the best and the brightest present their outstanding applied research papers, which this year centered on topics such as the physiological effects of inadequate firefighter hydration and the development of timed standards for 10 operational evolutions on a fire scene.

The symposium is one of the best-kept secrets in the fire service and it is designed to put daily problems on hold, recharge our batteries and refocus our interests.

One of the highlights of the symposium was a day-long trip to the nearby Gettysburg battlefield, where we compared and contrasted the leadership qualities of four major military players: generals George Gordon Meade, Daniel Sickles, Robert E. Lee and James Longstreet. Led by five battlefield guides, the group learned that while both Sickles and Longstreet disagreed with the battle strategies of their superiors, Meade and Lee respectively, Longstreet carried out Lee’s orders and plan, while Sickles either ignored or continually misunderstood Meade’s orders and initiated a plan of his own — what today we might call “freelancing.” There was considerable discussion as to whether Sickles’ actions left the Little Round Top unprotected and subsequently led to the decisive battle on the second day of the action. The group also used this opportunity to compare each general’s leadership styles and how their decisions impacted the outcome of the three-day battle, as well as which style might be most appropriate for major decisions on the fireground.

Away from the study and lectures of the symposium, the National Fire Academy lends itself for reflection and exploration. There is ample time to explore the campus and discover the enhancements that have been made to make this one the foremost facilities for advanced study of the fire service. It was while wandering the campus one afternoon that I rediscovered the other best-kept secret in the fire service: the Learning Resource Center. The LRC serves both the National Fire Academy and other programs such as the Emergency Management Institute of the National Emergency Training Center. When it was founded in the 1980s, the LRC was envisioned to be the repository of knowledge for research that affected the development of the U.S. fire service. The LRC has more than lived up to that goal.

In talking with Edward Metz, the librarian of the LRC, I learned that there are now more than 160,000 documents on file, but more importantly, that the majority of these documents are accessible for downloading via www.lrc.fema.gov. This includes more than 100,000 journal articles and 30,000 reports or dissertations, nearly 18,000 books, and 10,000 EFO research papers. Most are available through a simple online word search.

The LRC also has an advisory service, the Really Simple Syndication or RSS that anyone can subscribe to that will automatically inform you of new documents or updates on a subject available online. The bottom line is that you can use the LRC for a variety of practical needs, not just educational uses such as the EFO Program. If you need the latest stats on response time studies, or issues such as the 48/96 staffing model, station design, disaster mitigation or the use of compressed-air foam systems, then the LRC is your one stop source for the latest information.

Such a repository is only possible with a dedicated staff that for the past two decades had the vision, drive and resources to make it happen. These folks feel successful when more of us use the system they’ve developed to better enhance our capability and our resources. In today’s tough economic times when money may not be available to hire a consultant, the knowledge, ideas and documents housed at the LRC may make a huge difference for you, your department, and the fire service as a profession. And that should not be kept a secret.