1. Size-up
2. Call for help
3. Rescue
4. Protect exposures
5. Locate and confine the fire
6. Extinguish the fire
7. Overhaul the fire

The seven fundamental strategies must occur sequentially while the strategies of salvage and ventilation are implemented anywhere those strategies are needed to support the other seven.

We've now arrived at a point — probably arrived a while ago, but didn't fully understand it — where we must add a third parallel strategy: illuminate the scene.

The American National Standards Institute and the Illuminating Engineering Society are a couple of the organizations that develop information and standards regarding lighting, and workplace lighting in particular.

ANSI is a federal agency, while IES is a collegial community dedicated to improving the lighted environment.

The emergency scene is our workplace and it only makes sense that we should view it as such and make it more safe by improving the quality and consistency of our illumination efforts. This also will improve firefighter efficiency and effectiveness.

Delivery of the necessary useable light commensurate with the tactical requirements of the incident action plan is the scene illumination benchmark. ANSI and IES define useable light as the minimum level of light necessary to perform a task safely, effectively and efficiently.

By achieving the scene illumination benchmark early in the incident, we can have a more positive influence on tactical operations. Here are four areas where proper illumination will influence the scene.

• Improve ongoing assessment of the incident scene
• Reduce reflex time — the time between arrival of personnel and their engagement in assigned tasks
• Improve apparatus and equipment positioning
• Improve tactical operations' execution

A quick physics refresher is probably helpful before moving forward. Wattage is the measure of the rate of energy conversion or transfer, that is, the power required to operate a fixture or appliance. Lumen is the measure of the total amount of visible light emitted by a source.

According to R.O.M. Lighting Systems, there are two common myths regarding useable light: increase the wattage and you increase the useable light; and increase the lumen rating and you increase the useable light.

Both are inaccurate according to the First Law of Thermodynamics. In its simplest form, the First Law of Thermodynamics states that neither matter nor energy can be created or destroyed. Since available wattage is converted to both light and heat during an operation, the only way to increase the amount of useable light from a given wattage is to improve the ability of the fixture or appliance to convert wattage into light rather than heat.

R.O.M. commissioned a third-party test using IES standards comparing its emergency scene lighting equipment to that of its competitors. Not surprisingly, the results reported favored the R.O.M. products.

According to those results, a 900-watt fixture can deliver more useable light than a 1,500-watt fixture. It does this by reducing the heat buildup in the fixture, using a lens that is 100% transparent and using a housing that maximizes the outward direction of light energy rather than allowing the housing to absorb that light as heat.

For the fire officer tasked with illuminating the incident scene, the necessary equipment includes — but is certainly not limited to — portable lights, support stands for those lights, electricity supplies, power cords and junction blocks.

Scene illumination equipment manufacturers are responding to the requirements of today's emergency responders with products that go beyond lights using power cords running back to an apparatus-mounted generator. These products are light-weight, portable, and designed for quick deployment anywhere on the emergency scene and extended operating times.

Some of these new free-standing technologies include:

• Pole light combinations powered by rechargeable, 12-volt sealed lead acid batteries using Light Emitting Diode (LED) technology. These units weigh 25 to 30 pounds, can deliver 2,000 lumens and have eight to 15 hours of burn time between charges.
• Tripod-mounted pole light combinations powered by rechargeable Li-ion batteries, weighing 20 to 30 pounds, and capable of delivering 4,000 lumens. Some of these units have both spot- and area-lighting capabilities.
• Generator and light and frame combinations that provide a stand-alone units that are still portable — weighing 50 to 70 pounds depending upon the weight of the generator — yet capable of delivering more than 20,000 lumens. These units are capable of powering one or two pole lights and have run times of more than 10 hours without refueling.

The inability to clearly see the incident scene, and properly evaluate that scene for potential risks, has to become one of the primary risks that we address early in the incident lifecycle rather than later.

Illuminating the incident scene should be the third "concurrent incident management strategy" taking its rightful place alongside salvage and ventilation. If we can't see the risk, we can't address the risk.

This year's grant application narrative requirements are different from previous years, so be sure to read the Narrative Assistance Guide that FEMA has put together.

This year there are five narrative components required in five different sections in the application as opposed to years past with four components in a single narrative section.

The five components are: Organization and or/community you serve, Financial need, Project description/budget, Cost benefit and Statement of effect.

You will need to be prepared to thoroughly explain, document and provide background information on each of these areas.

Be sure to use this guide as a reference tool when you start your application.

When Izard County (AR) Judge Rayburn Finley's grandson was injured in a four-wheeler accident last summer, Finley instinctively dialed 9-1-1 on his cellular telephone. But instead of reaching his county's dispatch center some five miles away, Finley spoke with a dispatcher in neighboring Sharp County more than 25 miles away.

Photo 9-1-1 Magazine
Izard County dispatcher Shane Farmer uses Google Earth on his computer to pinpoint locations of 9-1-1 callers using cellular telephones. Access to online sites like that, in addition to the inherent capabilities of the agency's new Vesta Pallas 9-1-1 system, give dispatchers an information edge they can pass on to responders.

Because Izard County didn't have Enhanced-9-1-1 service, cellular telephone calls were diverted to surrounding counties that have the service. Rayburn's grandson was not seriously injured, but the response time was delayed as Sharp County dispatchers had to call Izard County to send emergency help.

Now, the rural county has joined the legion of other Arkansas counties in upgrading its emergency services. It will be the first time the county has any 9-1-1 service. In the past, emergency calls were fielded by dispatchers for the sheriff's office, assessed by priorities and then sent by radio communications to whichever deputy was patrolling the closest to the call. Izard County officials have installed the AT&T Vesta Pallas 2.3 system and hope to be fully operational by the first of 2009, enabling dispatchers a way to handle cellular calls. The PBX-based system provides such services as mapping, incident tracking, Computer Aided Dispatch, digital logging, and third-party applications.

The system can also handle administrative duties such as receiving faxes, voice mail, prerecorded messaging, and routing. Dispatchers began training in the first week of October after the system was installed in September; AT&T representatives conducted brief, but successful, field tests to try out the new system a week later.
A majority of emergency calls come from cellular telephones, Izard County Sheriff Tate Lawrence said, because the county's rural roads are well traveled.

"We're a very rural county," Lawrence said of the 13,249 who live there. "We're challenged to protect the lives of everyone here. This will help us do that."

The county hopes to add landline telephones to the system in early 2009. Horseshoe Bend, a town of about 2,500 in eastern Izard County is a retirement community; Lawrence said a 9-1-1 system for home telephones in that town will assist those with medical emergencies. The county received the Vesta system with a $100,000 grant from the Arkansas Commercial Mobile Radio Services/Emergency System Telephone Board.

Cellular telephone customers in Arkansas pay a 50-cent surcharge on their monthly bills to help fund such grants. The money is disbursed based on needs to counties which apply for the grants, said Renee Pressler, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management.

"The grants have helped a lot of counties who couldn't otherwise afford such services," she said.

In a move to help strengthen the fund, Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel ruled in November 2007 that prepaid cellular telephone services had to pay the monthly fees for its customers as well. He ruled that "commercial mobile radio service included any wireless two-way communication device, including ... cellular telephone service, personal communication service, or a network radio access line."

Of the 75 Arkansas counties, only two now do not have the Enhanced-9-1-1 system in place. Calhoun County in southern Arkansas plans on installing one in 2009; Newton County, one of the most rural Arkansas counties in the northwest portion of the state, has no plans for such a system.

In Izard County, four dispatchers rotate 12-hour shifts. A part-time employee and a jailer help during busy times, said Dispatch Center Administrator Cathy Schaufler.

The center averages only seven to 10 calls per shift, she said. But each call could be a life-and-death situation and time is critical, she added. "In the past, we've had people call and say, 'I don't know where I'm really at,'" Schaufler said. "They may be nervous, or hurt, or excited. We can pinpoint their calls without them stuttering around."In Izard County, cellular telephone calls were picked up by Sharp County to the east, Independence County to the south, Stone County to west, or Fulton County to the north.

"Our system was nothing more than a telephone system with caller ID," Lawrence said. "This system will give us mapping capabilities, and we'll send that information to our deputies' computers in their patrol units."

The Izard County dispatch room is located in the center of the sheriff's department and the detention center. There are two terminals at a work station along with several video monitors that's how scenes of the jail cells.

Dispatcher Shane Farmer worked at one terminal during a day shift recently and showed the locations of recent calls. The system incorporates Google Earth, a satellite mapping system that allows computer users to see actual aerial photographs of land. He zoomed in on the detention center and showed the winding roads that traverse through the county.

Dispatchers have already received some cellular telephone calls through the system. Cellular telephones that have service with AT&T and Cingular Wireless are already online, Schaufler said. Other services such as Sprint and Verizon are expected to be accessible by early 2009, she said.

The Vesta system was delivered to Izard County on September 11. It was fitting, Schaufler said, because the date and the service they added shared the same digits – 9-1-1. "I thought that was really appropriate," she said.

The Vesta system is stacked on a six-foot-high metal rack in a storage room near the center of the facility. Schaufler's office is nearby. She hopes to add digital recording equipment by the end of the year. The extra equipment needed to handle landline telephones can be added to the rack easily, she said.

Meanwhile, County Judge Finley is overseeing the county's conversion to physically addressing every street and road in the county to be ready for the full 9-1-1 conversion.

"We'll put every address on our Global Positioning Systems," he said." A lot of people have lived in [rural] areas here all their lives and they've never had street addresses.

"This is going to be a huge benefit for every person in our county," he said. The county has more than 2,500 miles of gravel road, Lawrence said. There are only 10 deputies working for the sheriff's office who protect nearly 550 square miles.

The county is diverse in its topography, too, he said. The White River, which is prone to dangerous flooding in the spring, edges the county on the west and south. Hilly terrain and lonely, curvy roads make up most of the county, making it rife for vehicle accidents. Deputies were delayed early this spring when responding to a vehicular accident because the caller did could not pinpoint where the incident occurred. A car traveling on Arkansas Highway 56 left the road one night in April, Lawrence said. A woman spotted the accident and dialed 9-1-1 on her cellular telephone.

The woman saw a road sign indicating the Izard County town of Franklin was ahead and mistakenly thought she was already in Franklin. Her emergency call went to Sharp County where dispatchers forwarded it to Izard County.

After searching near Franklin, Izard County dispatchers finally found that the accident occurred across the county line in Sharp County and notified authorities there again with the correct location. The vehicle's driver was not seriously injured, but had he been, the time it took to sort out the accident location would have been critical, Lawrence said.

The new system would have greatly benefited Izard County deputies last February when a devastating tornado packing winds in excess of 100 miles per hour ripped through the center of the county.

Two people were killed when the twister struck Zion, about five miles south of Melbourne and the county's dispatch center. A second twister ripped through Ash Flat and Highland in Sharp County, tying up dispatchers for hours.

"It was total confusion," Finley, who lives in Zion, said of the emergency response. "It was awful. A lot of the [cellular telephone] towers were downed, but some people could call out."

He said he drove the rural roads around Zion with a chainsaw, cutting toppled trees out of the way so ambulances and emergency personnel could drive to the scene.

"We were hauling people out of house one after another. Sometimes ambulances took two or three at a time," Schaufler said. "With this system, when people call in trouble, we can find them," Finley added. Lawrence said deputies' computer terminals in their patrol units will be equipped with a program to help locate callers' locations once the system is fully incorporated. The terminals will use both mapping and Google Earth.

"We'll be able to pinpoint people now," he said. "It will be one step further in helping our people.

"It will eliminate a lot of confusion," he added. "Before, when someone called in, we would try to get them to describe their location as best they could. The problem was enhanced at night when everything looks the same.

"Now we can get there quicker and we'll definitely save lives," he said.

Kenneth Heard is the Jonesboro News Bureau chief for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

This article first appeared in the January/February 2009 issue of 9-1-1 MAGAZINE. 9-1-1 MAGAZINE is the magazine for the emergency communications and response industry, serving law enforcement, fire, and emergency medical services. 9-1-1 MAGAZINE provides valuable information to readers in all aspects of the public safety communications and response community. Visit 9-1-1 MAGAZINE online at www.9-1-1magazine.com.

Years ago, when I took my first search and rescue class, the instructor talked about the six-sided review of a building or incident. "Look up, look down, and make sure you look all around before committing yourself," he told us.

Over the years, I have thought of that simple saying on many emergency incidents and have passed it on to thousands of my students during training. The bottom line: Don't get sucked into something before you give it the old once over.

It's easier said than done sometimes, especially when lives hang in the balance and quick action will affect the outcome of an incident. But what about all of those other occasions when you may have the time to do it right?

What is your approach and thought process when you come across a technical rescue or any type of rescue for that matter? Is it a well executed series of steps or a fly by the seat of your pants operation?

Good team members, the right tools and practical training shouldn't be under valued, but that doesn't replace mentally being on your game.

To do that, you have to do something that most people hate or are too lazy to do Rescue is a thinking game you need to play the "what if" game. "What if a car goes over that edge, what if that building falls down, what if that place blows up, what if I have to cut that guy in half to get past him, what if I have to crawl in that hole to get that victim?"

It's not enough to just know how to use the tools, or be well practiced or to have a cohesive team. Rescue is a thinking game, and the people who can plan ahead, see something coming and be ready for it are worth their weight in gold.

Organized chaos
You're always behind before you get there, that's a given. But how far ahead of the incident are you when you arrive? I used to work for a battalion chief who would say, "You don't bring a crisis to an emergency." Sure it's organized chaos at some scenes, but your level of organization and the ability to achieve the required levels under the most impossible circumstances is the real key.

How many of us can say that we are "masters" of our craft and how many want to be? Chances are, if you're reading this column, you're already a student of the trade, which makes you a cut above the rest. But there is a lifetime of learning to be done and every day is a school day in our profession.

If you think that you know it all, have seen it all or have it done it all, we're all in trouble and chances are you're probably a liability at a significant incident. Confidence should never be replaced by arrogance.

Rescue is a thinking game. The best people who have seen a thing or two tend to mostly be humbled by the experience — they don't say much, but when the going gets tough they often get going.

I love watching new firefighters, they have so much energy and so much enthusiasm, and they're great to be around. It's also fun to watch them expend all of that energy to no successful end sometimes. But with age and experience comes wisdom!

The veteran firefighter may not always be as enthusiastic, but that tempered approach, years of real world experience and knowledge of the tricks of the trade often carry them through most calls.

But to be in the class above, you have to love it a little more to be really, really good at it. Superstars train harder, practice longer and are very, very focused.

So what does it take to be a master of disaster? Out of the box thinking, the ability to write down your first 20-30 moves on any type of rescue with a twist and a constant desire for perfection. And don't forget the lifetime of learning, listening and talking about the "what ifs" of our job.

New York City and its 8.4 million residents are 5,600 miles from Mtskheta. Yet earlier this month, the two cities became forever intertwined. Mtskheta dedicated 3,000 square meters of land — just under two square miles — to house a marble sculpture and 343 evergreen cypress trees in honor of those firefighters who died in New York during the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Photo by Ron Gruening
The Republic of Georgia's 9/11 memorial spreads across 2 square miles.

Representing the United States at this dedication was Ron Gruening, president of the International Fire Relief Mission — and with good cause.

Gruening and his team were in the Republic of Georgia to deliver a donated fire truck to the Mtskheta Fire Department. He also led a trip to that city in Nov. 2010, where IFRM delivered a 40-foot shipping container of donated firefighting and EMS gear — enough to outfit about 300 firefighters, including all of Mtskheta's firefighters and those of several neighboring towns.

"It was a very moving ceremony," Gruening said of the 9/11 memorial dedication. "It was quite humbling for me to be here and be part of this dedication."

In the interest of full disclosure, I serve on the IFRM board of directors and was part of the team in Georgia in 2010. The Georgians' appreciation for the donated gear was as genuine as any I've seen in other countries we've visited.

Mtskheta firefighters sought help from IFRM after a military conflict with Russia left their only fire station destroyed. The city rebuilt the station, but had no way to supply it with SCBA, PPE, hoses or other firefighting gear. When I was there, the department had one working ladder, no turnout gear, no SCBA and limited hoses and nozzles.

The gear IFRM delivers is donated from fire departments across the United States. For the most part, the gear has good service life left in it but no longer meets NFPA requirements.

IFRM sends a team to each country to ensure the gear makes it into the hands of firefighters and to instruct those firefighters on the equipment's safe and proper use.

The Mtskheta Fire Department also had only two barely working apparatus. On this trip, IFRM delivered a 1981 Pierce pumper on a Ford chassis donated by the Dodge Center (Minn.) Fire Department. The truck was fully stocked with equipment donated by several departments and Rosenbauer America.

Photo courtesy of IFRM
IFRM President Ron Gruening (left) and Mtskheta Fire Chief Avto Tsiblshvili wth the donated apparatus.

During the dedication ceremony, Georgia's State Deputy Governor Givi Maisuradze thanked IFRM for the donations from the United States. He also paid tribute to New York's fallen firefighters.

"Dear guests, with great sorrow I would like to remind you that the terrorist attacks in the U.S.A. of Sept. 11, 2001, brought pain and sorrow not only to the American people, but it was great pain for everybody," Maisuradze said at the dedication. "Unfortunately, together with thousands of victims, 343 firefighters from New York perished heroically performing their job during the act of terrorism.

"It's very important that this memorial garden and monument is dedicated not only to heroically perished firefighters, but it is a symbol and a demonstration of friendship between the American and Georgian nations."

Make no mistake, the Georgians are very motivated to further develop favorable relations with the U.S. government. But it is hard to imagine that this monument and park will carry much international political capital or that such capital was a main driver behind this effort.

Giorgi Atashvili, deputy chairman of the Mtskheta Municipal Council, said the marble spiral memorial is a symbol of fire and smoke. Atashvili served as liaison for the IFRM team and translated Maisuradze's remarks.

"It was an experience of a lifetime and a memory that I will always cherish for the rest of my life," said Iowa City Firefighter Brandon Pflanzer of the memorial dedication. Firefighter Pflanzer made his first trip as part of an IFRM team.

"That it is truly a moving gesture when a country 5,000 miles away is willing to put up a memorial honoring the American lives lost … and that people in America are already forgetting about the events that happened on Sept. 11, 2001," Pflanzer said. "It really drives home that no matter where you are in the world, firefighters are brothers and will always be there for each other and never forget."

For IFRM, this is by far the largest but not the first 9/11 memorial dedication where the group has represented the United States. Similarly, the former Soviet Bloc country of Moldova built a monument to all fallen firefighters and paid special tribute to those from New York during its ceremony.

When he returned from Georgia, Gruening brought with him a section of the ribbon from the memorial dedication ceremony. He's looking to deliver it to FDNY in the near future.

"We are working now with several organizations to set up a formal ceremony to hand over the ribbon from Georgia's 9/11 memorial," Gruening said. "IFRM is a conduit for donated equipment. It seems fitting that we can also be a conduit for the goodwill that flows back from those countries to the United States."

What's your best tactic for rescue or knocking down the fire? An aggressive attack on the fire! Go fight the fire with your resources. In the process you will get the necessary boxes checked off on the rating sheet, could put out the fire and get a top score.

Yes, you want to cover all the bases to make sure the boxes are checked off on the rating sheet, but again, isn’t the best tactic for extinguishment and rescue an aggressive fire attack?

However, concentrate on a solid plan. Many candidates put too much into play out of sequence early on in the exercise and make the problem bigger than what the raters have actually given them. Often, candidates will give assignments to units to place positive pressure ventilation, a crew to pull ceilings, assign more than one unit to carry out search rescue and other tasks, call the canteen truck, and add a rescue problem that wasn't given to them.

This is before they have the first line on the fire, a RIT team assigned, utilities pulled and a crew sent to the roof for ventilation. The fire gets away from them and they are out of equipment and resources before they realize what happened. How long can you tread water?

These are major areas the raters will be checking off on your scoring sheet that can rack up big points. You must come out swinging. Once you have proven you can handle the call from the beginning, you're nailing it. As soon as the raters know you got it, they will help you over the top to that next badge. It's a beautiful thing when it happens.

Have a plan
Here's a simple example of a fire problem: You give an on-scene size up at a fire involving a residence with fire blowing out a bedroom window. You order your engineer to hook up as you and your firefighter start pulling lines. If you followed this sequence, you have just lost the fire!

The problem here is you went from size up directly into tactics. Most candidates start off on the right foot with a size up of the fire. Then they make a fatal mistake in going directly into tactics without a plan. They confuse tactics with a plan. Once given the fire problem, focus all your energies on developing a plan.

Without a plan, you are out of control. What was your plan on this fire problem? By just taking a few more moments, you would have one. When confronted, candidates that go immediately to tactics regroup and say, "My plan is to confine and put out the bedroom fire." O.K., but if you didn't say it, you didn't have a plan. Size up, plan, and then tactics.

Anytime we need to do a job, we look for tools to help us do it more efficiently. However, these tools also need to help us do it reliably. If a tool causes us to get wrong information, then it is not a very good tool. This is particularly the case in medicine — and remember, EMS is medicine.

One of the challenges of the EMS provider in rehab is to quickly do intake and assessment as a company or group of firefighters enters the rehab area.

If the firefighters have to wait 10-15 minutes for anyone to see them, they very well may wander away. We need to engage them quickly, not only to make sure there is nothing life threatening occurring with their condition, but also to "get them in the system" and make sure they stay in rehab for the appropriate amount of time.

Usually one person will be getting their name, age and company. This "scribe" can be anyone — it does not need to be an experienced medical provider.

They could be a cadet, a new member to the organization, even a spouse or friend that got sucked into a major event because they were out with an EMS provider that had a responsibility to respond to the incident. Obtaining this information can occur at the same time other activity is going on.

I usually like to get the firefighter to sit down and get their gear off, so the cooling down process can start. Next, we need to get baseline vitals. This is a mildly controversial area.

My former Division Chief, a very experienced EMS and fire physician, prefers to wait 10 minutes and then get a set of vitals. His view is that it does not matter much what the initial vitals are at the start, and that it is much more important what the vitals are at the time that the firefighter may be released.

I think there is some validity to this, however I would prefer to know if there was a problem sooner rather than later. If a firefighter's heart rate is 200 because he is in a dangerous arrhythmia, I don't want to miss this, even for only 10 minutes.

If their blood pressure is extremely low or extremely high, I also need to keep a better eye on them. While in most circumstances they should have either a complaint or physical appearance that should clue us into this abnormality, this is not always the case.

I think both approaches are reasonable — discuss with your medical director which is better for your department.

I have found that obtaining vitals is often the bottleneck in the initial rehab evaluation. There are two vital signs I definitely want immediately — heart rate and blood pressure.

A third vital sign that I think is reasonable to obtain sooner rather than later is a carbon monoxide level. I am not concerned about the temperature because it is my opinion that getting an accurate core body temperature is not feasible in the field.

Doing so requires taking a rectal temperature, something neither I nor the firefighter are much interested in doing. The other, non-invasive methods of getting a temperature are not very reliable, and an elevated temperature is almost always associated with a significantly elevated heart rate.

So how can we get these vitals quickly?

The pulse can be obtained by the good old fashioned method of feeling a radial pulse and counting, but we can also use a number of other tools, such as pulse oximetry, a heart monitor or a carbon monoxide monitor.

have found that either feeling and counting the radial pulse, or using CO oximetry, is the most efficient in obtaining a pulse rate. Using CO oximetry allows us to get both a heart rate and a CO level with one action.

The concern is of course is whether it is truly reliable. I believe it is, but if you are concerned, feel for a pulse at the same time and compare the results. This will likely not add much time to the task.

The blood pressure also needs to be obtained quickly and reliably. Now I am generally a fan of automatic blood pressure cuffs. In the hospital, these work fairly well and allow us to trend the blood pressures — follow them over time.

However, in the field, I have found that they are becoming more and more of a problem. Too often the machine pumps up the cuff and then slowly goes down. And up. And down. And down some more. And then back up. And then down. And then fails to give a value.

EMS providers end up staring at the screen awaiting this important vital sign. So, I think the best way to get a BP in the field is the manual sphygmomanometer and stethoscope.

If a firefighter is found to have a significantly abnormal BP, and they become a patient, then using the automatic machine to confirm and trend is reasonable. But I bet most EMS providers can take a manual BP faster.

Once you have these vitals, and assess the firefighter's appearance and any physical complaints, they can then be sorted into the medical sector or just to the rest and refreshment area.

But we need to have these vital signs to do so, and we need them quickly and to be accurate. Remember we call them vital signs for a reason — they are important.

Stay safe (and hydrated!)

A quick search on any such Web site for the term "firefighter" turns up several pages of folks. The vast majority of information posted on these pages simply answers the question, "Who am I?" or "What is my profession?" And to be clear, I have absolutely no problem with that. However, some of these Web sites show firefighters thumping our chests as if to say, "Look at me, I’m super cool because I'm a firefighter." Some of these sites even feature stolen copyrighted photos, and some firefighters are pictured holding their children while wearing dirty bunker gear.

Some of this stuff seems like it doesn’t matter these days and, to a certain extent, it doesn’t. Down the road, though, information posted on these profile sites will come back to haunt you. If you post inappropriate material (or even just allow someone else to post something about you), you could lose your job. AAA has fired 27 people because of inappropriate postings; a Florida newspaper reporter lost her job for items she posted on a Web site; and many teachers have lost their jobs because of posted material. And don’t forget, if you've applied for a job, your prospective employer can easily "Google" you as a part of the background search, and they'll likely find your Web page.

The bottom line: If you post information on a personal Web site or something like MySpace.com, be smart. Don't ruin your career just to show off.

Note: This is it for me for a while. It has been my privilege for you to read my article. I've made some good "online" friends through the Note to Self columns, and had a few disagreements with others. In each case, there were productive give-and-take discussions. Numerous factors are in play requiring my attentions elsewhere for a few months.

Regardless of my response two facts remained.

The first is that she asked the question. I mean really? Do you think a lot of business owners even give this consideration? And since she had considered it, and she had decided that the value of the property and its contents didn't warrant our entry, who were we do decide differently?

This building had a nice-sized parking lot and plenty of room between the B and D exposures. It had a metal truss roof and, due to the narcotics, had some very serious locks and security devices that would have slowed horizontal vent or entry.

Quite frankly even a low heat but smoky fire would have destroyed the contents, and any fire generating high heat would have likely destroyed or at least damaged the trusses. The building would be torn down with any significant fire.

Plan beyond the building
I'm not suggesting we write off all pharmacies. I am suggesting putting some forethought into the pre-incident plan that involves not just the buildings, but the intent and desire of the community.

What is your community willing to loose? How far are you willing to push? Are the two thoughts in sync? If not, you have some discussions that need to occur.

Too many departments collectively strut around stating that they can arrive with a certain amount of staffing and perform a certain amount of fireground duties. And quite frankly they are lying to themselves and their community.

And, that's not OK. They aren't going to show up with the right staffing or training to carry out what they suggested to the public, and themselves, they can do.

Knowing who we are
There are departments in my state that simply don't do interior attack. If you have a fire, they will attack it from the outside untill it's flooded, then ask a mutual aid department to head in and mop it up. Some departments do this intentionally, some simply don’t make the push.

For those departments that intentionally choose this path of attack, there are many who would chastise them, but there's something to be said for their honesty. They don't march around claiming to be something they are not

They are good honest members of the community doing the best they can with what they have. And interestingly, because they are honest about what they do, their training plans, equipment and activities reflect it. They are good at it and they meet they safety requirements for what they do.

We run into trouble when we are not honest, when we claim to be something where not or trained to be. When we are no longer doing this for the community we swore to protect, that's when we ask, who are we doing this for?

It is the officer's and driver's responsibility to plan ahead with respect to what operations will be needed so that they can park the apparatus in an effective manner. Let's look at some simple points with respect to how ineffective parking can hinder our operations thus handicapping ourselves.

This video shows how positioning the apparatus can influence ground-ladder operations. Truck and engine companies sometimes have their ground ladders stored in the apparatus' enclosed compartments; the ladder must be pulled completely from the compartment.

A 24-foot extension ladder will be 14 feet long when bedded, thus needing about 15 feet to be pulled off. In the video the space between the two fire apparatus is enough to allow the ground ladder to be pulled off without any problems.

If the space were a little closer, the ground ladder could not have been pulled off, rendering it useless. Ensure you leave enough room between fire apparatus so that ground ladders can be pulled off.

The same spacing requirements hold true for ladders that are affixed to remote arms that bring the ladder down from the top or from the side. They need to have enough space to operate and enough space to pull the ladder off.

Portable water tanks have similar space requirements. In this photo you can see the portable water tanks located on the side of the fire apparatus. One style uses a remote arm to bring the tank down. However, some water tank is stored inside the compartment of the fire apparatus.

Knowing the length of the water tank will pay off when parking the apparatus behind another one. Enough space will be needed to be able to pull off the water tank.

If using an aerial apparatus, enough space will be needed for the outriggers to be deployed. If two fire apparatus are parked side by side with one of them being an aerial device, there will need to be enough space between them both to allow for the outriggers to be fully deployed. Knowing the distance the outriggers take will help in this area or remove the possibility altogether by not parking the two trucks side by side.

Parking the fire apparatus too close to the edge of the roadway or too close to the emergency scene can sometimes hinder our ability to operate. When the roadway has a steep drop on the shoulder, parking the apparatus too close to the edge will limit our access to the equipment on that one side. When we park too close into the scene, we sometimes become a part of the scene.

It is important to remember that other vehicles that may need access to the emergency scene, such as police, EMS, or utilities vehicles. How the fire apparatus is parked may block access to these other vehicles, which may prevent an ambulance from getting close enough to render fast care to a fallen firefighter or rescued civilian.

Occasionally, it is fire apparatus that is blocked by other vehicles from gaining access to an emergency scene. Be sure it is not the apparatus that is doing the blocking.

When we are arriving on the scene of our emergency, take the extra second or two to plan out where you are going to park the apparatus so that we remove the dominos leading us to becoming handicap.

The workshops have started, and it won't be long until the 2012 AFG Grant application period opens.

Is your department adequately prepared to assemble a competitive application, or will this be another year of chaos and a last-minute attempt to get funded?

I recently attended the AFG workshop that FEMA held in conjunction with FDIC. FEMA representatives informed the audience that the majority of the AFG applications are filed in the last 48 hours of the application period.

They went on to say it is obvious that some of these applications were thrown together at the last minute. Some of these last-minute applications simply had placeholders for answers to some of the questions.

Other applications had blanks inside their narratives, and still others gave incorrect answers to informational questions.

In the past, emphasis was on the narrative portion of the AFG application. In recent years, the application has changed, and now the narrative and the informational questions are scored equally.

Remember, your application is first subject to computer review, where the answers to the informational questions are scored against the AFG priorities.

If your application scores high enough, it is sent to peer review. At this stage, your narratives are read and scored. The two scores added together become your final score.

What can you do to avoid a low scoring application? If you haven't planned for this year's AFG, begin immediately. Start by conducting a review of your department's operations over the past few years. Look at your call volume. Has it increased? Are you responding to more of a certain type of call? Does your current equipment allow you to respond to this type of incident adequately?

Examine the demographics of your area. Are you experiencing increases in population? Are these increases occurring in certain age segments? Again, do you have the proper equipment to respond?

If your analysis indicates that you need new or additional equipment to respond to alarms, then your next focus is to review your department's finances. Does revenue allow for the purchase of this equipment? If you are thinking of applying for a grant, will your current revenue allow you to meet any mandated financial match?

After completing this review, you should have a good idea of your department's needs for developing your application.

AFG will open soon. Begin planning now so your department doesn't receive one of those dreaded turndown letters this year. Good luck.

But is that what we should be doing? When displacing the vehicle glazing materials, usually referred to as glass management, we want to remove the glass in an orderly, managed process.

Before one window is shattered, it is important to know the types of glass firefighters will encounter and the additional forces that can be present at a motor vehicle accident. The two types of glass to which we have become accustomed, laminated and tempered safety glass, are still the most widely used.

Laminated glass is a sandwich, a series of layers of glass and plastic laminated together. Tempered, or safety, glass will break into small granular fragments when shattered.

However, there are a few new variations in use. Enhanced protective glass is basically a form of laminated glass found in the side and rear windows. Dual-paned glass and polycarbonate glazing are also used.

Some of these materials require a change in our methodology and tools for removing such windows.

And factor in the issues of rear glass hatches in SUVs and minivans. These glass hatches have a nasty habit of flying apart when broken because of the tension placed on them by the multiple hatch struts and the energy absorbed by the vehicle during the crash.

Laminated glass is found in windshields but is increasingly found in the side and rear windows as well. This type of glass must be cut from the vehicle to be removed, which can be facilitated by cutting the peripheral edge with an axe, a glass saw, or even a reciprocating saw.

This operation produces glass dust, which is a respiratory hazard. For this reason, we must add dust masks to the personal protective equipment for glass management.

Tempered glass is usually found in side and rear windows. To break this glass, use an impact tool that imparts a large amount of force into a small concentrated area. Then clean out the window opening by pulling the glass onto the ground with a tool, not with gloved hands.

Vehicles can load the glass with energy from the crash; when it’s broken it can almost explode when that energy is released. We must protect our patient with a protective cover and use hard protection to funnel glass pieces away from the patient.

Photo David Dalrymple

Make sure your eye protection is in place and you are wearing a dust mask. Also, watch out for glass in hatches of vehicles.

It can have up to four gas struts pushing on the glass and creating even more tension. This too might explode when broken; be aware that the struts may also push toward rescuers.

Ideally, the laminated glass that was cut and removed should be folded and slid in under the vehicle out of rescuers way. If at all possible, tempered glass should be removed to the outside of the vehicle, away from the patient and the interior rescuer.

However, some vehicles — especially SUVs and minivans — might have a lot of windows or a rather large window, which produce many glass particles.

Glass particles can be slippery, almost like marbles. It is a good practice to sweep these under the vehicle so that rescuers are not walking on it and stabilization devices are on not on it.

There are two new materials available to help rescuers manage glass. One is Packexe Smash and it is available in North America from ESI equipment. It is a clear film dispensed from a special applicator. The film adds enough strength for tempered glass to be cut.

On the flip side, laminated glass dust can be greatly reduced by applying the film first and then cutting through the area where the film is applied. If the glass is wet, it can be wiped dry with a microfiber cloth before the film is applied.

The other material is an extrication wrap made by Protecto. The wrap material is an adhesive rubber compound on one side with a smooth brightly colored film on the other side. The material comes in a roll that firefighters can pre cut or cut-to size on scene.

The up side to this material is it can be used as sharp-edge protection as well. Both of these materials really can make a difference in glass-management tasks. And both materials can handle glass management and sharp-edge protection.

Whether or not you invest in glass-management products, it is critical to invest the time to plan and execute how you approach removing glass at vehicle collisions. A smart approach protects both rescuers and patients.

Last week my fire department was dispatched to assist to a neighboring department with a house fire. I happened to be at the firehouse so I quickly proceeded to don my gear and grab a jump seat — for once I didn't have to drive! The rear of the ladder truck soon filled with four other members and we turned out down the street.

One of the members sitting across from me was a newly promoted lieutenant. As with many volunteer departments, a line officer is often found riding in the back seat when another line officer has already grabbed the front — we can argue that practice at a later time. I noticed that this new lieutenant was not wearing his seat belt. I immediately said "Dude, where's your seat belt?" Motioning at the retracted seat belt as he glared at me, he replied, "Right here."

My response? "How 'bout you put your seat belt on so that if we crash this thing you don't come across the seat and kill me?" Somehow I went from scoring a coveted jump seat en route to a working fire to the middle of a stand-off. Grudgingly, he put his seat belt on and we continued on our way.

As we pulled up to the scene, this newly minted lieutenant snidely plucked at his seat belt strap and said, "Is it all right to take this off now?" At that point, I felt I'd had enough. Having spent several years as a line and chief officer, this lieutenant for me was setting an extremely poor example for the younger and more impressionable members riding in the rig. I then proceeded to explain my feelings to this lieutenant — perhaps a bit harshly — until another senior member put the discussion to rest by simply stating, "At this station, we wear our seat belts." End of story.

Epitomizes problems
So why do I share this story? I do so because this 3-minute episode epitomizes the problems that we face in today’s fire service on many different levels. The title of this year's Safety, Health and Survival Week is "Committed to Long-Term Results." But how can we commit to long-term results if those in positions of leadership and power won't follow the rules themselves? How is it possible that a line officer can not only get away with not wearing a seat belt, but can then argue the issue with someone who tells him to put it on? Have we learned nothing from those who have given their lives before us?

Imagine this scenario: A fire apparatus rolls out the door with two young firefighters and a line officer. One of the young firefighters sees that his officer isn't wearing his seat belt and figures he doesn't need to wear it either. The truck crashes and the young firefighter is ejected and killed. Who is at fault? The reports and the scuttlebutt will all say that if this young firefighter had just put his seat belt on, he would still be here today. People will question his poor judgment and shake their heads at what they believe was a rookie mistake. But was it?

In reality, that same line officer who set a silent example by not wearing his seat belt is largely responsible for this hypothetical fatality. Like it or not, when you pin a fancy gold horn on your collar or put that shiny white front piece on your helmet, you’ve become someone that younger members look up to and follow. Even when you don’t realize it, these members are emulating you and following your example. Senior firefighters, line officers and chiefs all create a culture that younger and more junior firefighters will learn to live by. It is this culture that can save or cost a life.

If the fire service truly wishes to bring about long-term results, it's time to start holding people responsible for their actions. It seems that every time one of us is injured or killed, the rest of us are hesitant to ask questions or pass judgment. As a result, this culture never changes. How do I know? Look at the number of firefighter fatalities over the past 20 years. Does anyone really see a difference?

So how should we hold people accountable? It's time to start wielding a big stick. Fancy posters and cute little stickers telling you to wear your seat belt haven’t worked. Every year there are still numerous line-of-duty deaths that are a direct result of someone not wearing their seat belt. Want to make a difference? Start randomly stopping your rigs and checking to see that everyone has their seat belt on. If someone doesn't, suspend them. More than three infractions, show them the door. Maybe it's time to have the cops start citing people who can't get the message through their heads. After all, not wearing your seat belt is against the law!

Until these types of attitudes change or people are held responsible for their actions, I don’t believe we will ever reduce the number of line–of-duty deaths, especially those that are a direct result of vehicle crashes. Unless those in charge begin to lead by example and create a culture in which reckless driving, poor attitudes and lack of seat belt use are no longer tolerated, the culture will never change and we will be doomed to repeat our mistakes over and over again.

To those who have already begun to move this ship in a positive direction, my hat is off to you. And to those that refuse to help the rest of us reduce the number of firefighter fatalities by continuing this reckless culture ... I say maybe it's time to go.

First and foremost is recruitment and retention. Volunteer organizations need to think about recruiting volunteers today, and developing a pool of potential recruits. Think outside the box!

Have you recruited "non-traditional" volunteers? These include retired individuals that can be used for support staff to release other volunteers to emergency response. In addition, persons with impairments can serve their community in a variety of roles.

These roles include dispatching, fund raising, clerical, maintenance and other roles. Time for a history lesson: During the American Civil War (1861-1865), wounded Union soldiers that may have been otherwise unable to serve were utilized for light duty assignments such as guard duty, escorting prisoners, etc.

More than 60,000 Americans served in the Veterans Reserve Corps during the war, releasing other troops for front line service.

How can you best use the "non-traditional" volunteer in your community? Emergency services are labor intensive, and all types of people can serve. I have worked with many older Americans serving their communities as volunteers.

Some of these had been volunteers for years, so it only makes sense to use their skills and experience in a support role. These roles have included Fire Police, pump operator, safety officer, filling SCBA cylinders, rehab/support and other duties.

A retired truck driver with a commercial license may be an ideal candidate for support water tender operator. Retired nurses and other medical professionals can easily staff ambulances, depending on their capabilities or assist in medical billing and other support functions.

Obviously there are limitations that must be considered regarding safety and capabilities. However, the advantages of utilizing non-traditional volunteers is real.

The potential for impact on response capabilities is considerable if traditional volunteers are released from other responsibilities. With work, family, and other responsibilities, our volunteer responders need a respite from other duties.

It is difficult to ask your family for more time away from home for non-emergency functions. The volunteer emergency services have no choice but to obtain as much help as possible from a variety of individuals, or service delivery will suffer.

How does your organization recruit volunteers? You would be amazed how many people do not even know that there are volunteer emergency services in their communities.

This leads one to believe that we are not doing a very good job of marketing our organizations. In today's society, marketing is everything. You need to work hard to get the word out, not only for recruitment, but for fundraising and other support.

These include:

• Use word of mouth to get information about your organization to your community
• Develop a web site for your department
• Register with FireDepartmentDirectory.com as a quick way to get information out
• Use free business listings on the Internet
• Use local TV and radio announcements
• Have local newspapers cover your events

Some departments utilize fire explorer posts with the potential of recruiting these young people as volunteers once they reach the required age for being a volunteer. Why not adopt or work with another youth organization such as school or church groups to get volunteers into your organization?

The possibilities for recruitment are endless. Have you approached your local high school to address the graduating class and encourage them to join your ranks? Why not?

Additional recruitment and retention information is available from the National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC). Some states have been proactive in recent years and are participating in initiatives including the SAFER grant program to assist in recruiting and retaining volunteer firefighters. Contact your State Firefighters Association or State Fire Marshal's office for additional information.

Remember, as volunteers we are required to follow consensus standards. These include NFPA 1720 Standard for the Organization and Deployment of Fire Suppression Operations, Emergency Medical Operations and Special Operations to the Public by Volunteer Fire Departments and OSHA Standards including the two in/two out rule for interior structural firefighting.

Failure to follow these standards creates severe firefighter safety concerns, as well as opening your department up to litigation should a loss occur.

In the information age, we should also take advantage of technological solutions on the market that help in decision making and improving response times, particular in the areas of firefighter accountability and response coordination and planning.

The bottom line to all of this information is to recruit and retain a variety of volunteers, capable of meeting your organizations mission, and improving the service you provide safely to your community.

That is even more relevant for first responders who, with the ever-growing use of fire, EMS and police apps, are becoming increasingly dependent on these pocket-sized computers to do their jobs.

For civilians, a broken smartphone means an interruption in their quest to defeat Angry Birds. For first responders, a broken smartphone could mean a lost life or a hamstrung investigation.

OtterBox, with their heavy-duty Defender Series cases, has created a level of smartphone protection that will keep your mobile device well protected through month after month of heavy-duty daily use.

OtterBox sent me a Defender Series case to try out with my new iPhone 4, but they also manufacture models for Blackberry, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, HTC, and LG smartphones, as well as the Apple iPad.

The effectiveness of the Defender Series comes from its layered design. Instead of a simple plastic or rubber case that clips around your phone, the Defender has several layers of protection to keep the phone safe from drops and scratches.

The first layer is a polycarbonate shell that clips snugly around the phone. A plastic membrane on the front of the shell offers durable screen protection, making an adhesive screen protection film unnecessary.

Installing the shell took less than a minute and, once in place, it felt totally secure; pulling on the front and back of the case didn't offer any give.

Surrounding the base shell is a silicon cover that smoothes over the base layer's hard edges and creates another level of shock protection. The silicon layer has flaps that cover all the iPhone's ports and clip securely shut, but can easily be pulled open for access to the charging port, headphone jack, and volume buttons.

With the first two layers in place, the protected iPhone then clips into a polycarbonate holster that holds the device face in or face out.

The holster is, essentially, a case for your case, and with the phone clipped into all three (polycarbonate shell, silicone layer, and holster), the phone feels extremely secure.

It's bulky, but not overly so, and for the day I wore it clipped to my belt it never felt intrusive or uncomfortable. Firefighters, Medics or cops — who are used to having gadgets hanging from their utility belts — won't notice the added bulk.

But the real question when it comes to smartphone cases is: How far can you drop it?

I tested it for myself, dropping my Defender-wrapped iPhone from waist height, and then chest height. No damage whatsoever. I was tempted to drop it off our balcony, but the memory of replacing the glass backing of my iPhone a few months ago stopped me.

I asked OtterBox' Public Relations Specialist Kristen Tatti about the case's dropping capability, and she said their rule is "Three feet to concrete," meaning you can drop it from your pocket without risk of damage.

Tatti added that local firefighters in Fort Collins, Colo., (OtterBox' home) have been outfitted with the cases, and all have raved about the Defender's durability.

"They say it's nice to have something sturdy so they don't have to worry about their phones," she said. "With more and more firefighters getting emergency pages on their smartphones, a broken device can really ruin your day."

OtterBox also makes lines of cases more sleek than the Defender, including the "Commuter" (a simpler polycarbonate and silicone combination) and the "Impact" (just a silicon shell). Visit OtterBox' website to learn about all their smartphone and tablet cases.

Once she realized it was the smoke alarm sounding, she grabbed her 7-year-old son and headed outside. A fire broke out in a bedroom just one door from where she was sleeping.

Months prior, her son attended at a fire-safety lesson put on by the local fire department, and part of his homework was to make sure the smoke alarms in the home worked. They didn’t, but new batteries took care of that.

Had the smoke alarms not been working, the result of this fire could have been much worse.

A fire in New York broke out in the den of a large ranch style house. A retired teacher was woken from her nap by the smoke alarm sound. She saw the smoke, woke up a visiting friend and they both made it out of the home safely.

The cause of the fire was a candle lit the night before, but never put out. The candle heated the couch when it dripped, and the fire took off from there.

Recently in Illinois, a smoke alarm sounded, allowing a sleeping family of four to escape from their burning home in the early morning hours. While the cause of that fire is still under investigation, the fire captain on the scene was quick to credit their safety with working smoke alarms in the home.

Similarly, a Rhode Island home caught fire from heat spreading from the chimney in a renovated living area. This fire also broke out early in the morning when occupants were sleeping, and the smoke alarm woke them up so they could leave the home safely.
The above scenarios are all real. You may have responded to calls just like those.

Stories that matter
It is important to use real stories about how people misuse common items in their home that result in fires with deadly consequences. It also is important to use stories, like those above, where safety devices worked the way they were designed to work, and deadly consequences were averted.

Do whatever it takes make those in your community take fire safety seriously. Use the stories above to start a discussion with your local homeowners associations, business groups or seniors.

When you research fires and fire statistics, you see that fire deaths in this country have decreased during the past 40 years from an average of 12,000 per year to about 3,000 per year. Much of this decrease is due to the widespread use of residential smoke alarms.

They have become less expensive and more sophisticated. Long-life batteries and integrated CO detectors make them almost a "turn it on and forget about it" device. Of course, they respond to smoke from fire, which is the most important function for those fast asleep.

After warming up your community group with stories of tragedy or narrow escape, it is a great time to talk about smoke alarms. While some say that we talk about that all the time, we still need to teach and reinforce those messages to our community.

Proper use
Smoke alarms should be placed on the ceilings, away from the corners and walls of a room where air does not circulate for periods of time. If residents cannot install them on a ceiling, high on a wall is the next best option, but stay away from the highest part of the wall to avoid that dead air.

Most smoke alarms have batteries that need to be replaced at least every year; for most of the country — change your clocks, change your batteries.

Instruct residents to test them once a month and have the adults include the entire family in this exercise. Family members who are familiar with the sound of a smoke alarm will be less disoriented if awakens them.

Encourage families to practice a home escape plan that includes meeting at a predetermined place a safe distance from the home.

The level of preparation is often the difference between good luck and bad luck. When it comes to fire prevention, your community members can bet their lives on that.

This will also potentially lead to more rapid occupant removal and fire extinguishment.

In training firefighters, I frequently remind them to practice continual size-up and safety on the fire ground. Safety should not cripple or slow operations. In fact, acting safely in a well-planned, coordinated attack is often more rapid and at times appears more aggressive.

Roof operations are dangerous by nature. You are often working over the fire load on an elevated surface that is in some cases pitched. That is why firefighters on the roof must operate with full protective clothing and SCBA.

When possible, use an aerial ladder or aerial platform. On a pitched roof, an aerial ladder will often be insufficient; in these cases use a roof ladder. Whenever a crew is operating on the roof, be sure there is a second form of egress.

As is with our typical size-up considerations, incident command will need to assess the roof structure before operating in and around them. Be on the alert for truss-type roofs. These roofs are particularly known for early collapse without warning.

Take note of flat roofs that appear to be heavily loaded. Some will have mechanical systems, water towers, or other structures that, when under a fire load, may increase the likelihood of collapse.

Be aware that if a building has had a substantial renovation, it may now have an inadequate roof structure.

Understanding basic roof structure and framing will not only help you make proper vents, it will help you know the time you have available to operate. It will also give you a good understanding of how to approach the various type roofs and where to make the appropriate cuts without causing or promoting collapse.

Various National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and National Fire Protection Association reports claim that it is unsafe and unnecessary for firefighters to conducted operations on a roof that has self-vented.

Specifically, the May 4, 2003 NIOSH report says, "It is not safe to assume that the roof is satisfactory as a working platform until definite signs of collapse are evident. The basic assumption should be that the roof is questionable, until valid information to the contrary is determined, either from the pre-fire plan or fire ground observation. . . . While time-to-failure cannot be accurately predicted, the time the structure has been burning must figure in the fire ground commander's thinking. . . . Once the structure itself is involved in the fire, it is deteriorating in an unknown manner and rate."

In that particular fire there were issues sited with the placement of the vent holes. The best possible vent hole is directly over the fire.

This also means the firefighters making the roof vent are in the area most likely to collapse because the framing members are being compromised by a fire load.

While on the roof, use wind direction to help place your crew on the proper side of the vent hole to limit additional exposure to heat and smoke.

Consider the weight of your crew. Firefighters operating on the roof will add to the live load of the roof. Also, the hole size, depth, and location can also lead to premature collapse.

When considering roof operations, roof pitch and weather can also lead to issues. Clay tiles, slate, and metal roofs can be particularly slippery with minimal rain or snow. As the pitch of the roof increases the risk of falls and accidents also increases.

Calculate the risk vs reward component before placing firefighters on the roof. Remember, when operating on the fire ground with roof operations as a component, continual size-up and assessment of the operations is critical. Fire departments should also have standard operating guidelines in place for vertical ventilation procedures.

So lawmakers have given emergency responders what they want and the question becomes: Now what? To find out, I talked to one of the fire service's top guys on the frontlines of this issue.

About Chief Jeff Johnson

Chief Johnson retired after a 32-year career in the fire service, 15 of that as chief of Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue near Portland. He is a past president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs and serves as CEO of the Western Fire Chiefs Association. For the past 10 years he has been the statewide interoperability coordinator chair for the State of Oregon.

How does the D Block change interoperability?
The most important thing about FirstNet (First Responder Network Authority) and the D Block is, and this is not an overreach by any measure, it is the most significant development in public safety in modern history. It will change everything except what happens from the gun out and the firehouse out. It will move emergency services in total into the modern century from a technological perspective.

We can't even contemplate some of the changes, but it is going to be vast and revolutionary. At some point, after the conversion of land-mobile radio to over-broadband radio, which is 15 years or so out, the word interoperability won't mean what it means today. Interoperability is a way we talk about patching together dissimilar systems.

None of us with an AT&T phone who calls someone on a Verizon phone refer to that as being interoperable. It is a single architecture and two networks are engineered to work together from the get-go.

What will the buildout involve?
Congress has allocated $7 billion for the construction of the network. Most people involved with deployment of large-scale networks know that ideally we would have more money. But the reality is, we have $7 billion, so we are going to have to figure out how to get the most out of that.

How long it will take is kind of unknown. We do know certain steps of that, but do not know precisely how long to build the network. A lot of that depends on what the First Net board does. If the FirstNet board chooses to pair with existing commercial wireless providers — cell-phone companies for example — then I expect the money would be spent much differently and the rollout time much shorter than if it were to opt to do a ground-up construction. I think we are going to see meaningful progress in the two- to three-year timeframe.

What will be the municipalities' burden?
I don't know that there will be any burden at the municipal level. There will be decisions to be made at the state level. The legislation calls for the FirstNet board to present the design proposal and how it will be deployed in each of the 50 states.

Once that is done, the governor of each state has 90 days to accept the FirstNet proposal, and FirstNet will go ahead with deployment. Or the state can choose to opt out; then they would be required to build their own network to the same technical standards. That is the biggest and most obvious benchmark associated with rolling out at the local level.

When does the switch need to be made?
When we talk about the switch, most of us at the local level think about our land-mobile radios and our legacy systems with our push-to-talk radios. There is no anticipated date at which that device will change over to radio-over-broadband.

First, there is no mandate that it does. And second, there is no predicted date. Most of the experts say that it will be 10 years or more before the land-mobile radio devices have undergone the required engineering, have been manufactured, have had all the appropriate testing done, and are available no the market to run on the data network.

FirstNet is first and foremost a data network. It will evolve to radio and voice over the broadband network. But, its purpose is mission-critical public-safety data. Really, that is the piece that does not exist at the local level today — data does, but not mission-critical public-safety data.

Will this have any effect on radio clarity or range?
Depending on what band you are currently in, there will be changes in signal propagation — it might be better, it might be worse. We know that there will be a lot of enhanced functionality that comes with the new network.

Just like you are experiencing changes today with your land-mobile radio technology as the FCC requires you to narrowband and as you convert from analog to digital, there are inherent changes in propagation and the technologies themselves that go with each.

One thing that the law did that was very wise was make it mandatory that commercial technologies be built into the new devices that will operate them. Basically, you take the kind of technology that exists in our smart phone, and rather than manufacturers having to make a small quantity just for public safety, that same technology will be leveraged for public safety that will be ruggedized and all of the things we expect.

It saves a lot of cost on manufacturing. What is likely to happen well into the future is that the cost of our current devices will come down. Conversely, like our cell phones, we are probably going to be more likely to replace them more often to stay up with the network.

What will the data capabilities mean for smaller fire departments?
Mission-critical data will mean different things depending on the size and complexity of your organization. Some of the things it can do is give you real-time drawings of existing buildings you are responding to. It may give you an up-to-date inventory on hazardous materials or risks.

There will be advantages built into the automatic vehicle location. Today, many incident commanders can see traffic cameras. They could use that and control it so they could see the complexity of a motor vehicle accident before they get there.

There could be profound advantages for rural EMS providers. The doctor can get streaming patient data and a real-time view of what is going on with that patient from heart arrhythmias to oxygen levels in their bloodstream.

These are things that can make a difference in patient care and extend the reach of an emergency room doctor to the furthest-most reaches of America. Those are the kind of things that will make a quantifiable difference.

What will be the result of giving back the T Band?
It will mean that 13 areas in the United States operating on 824 licenses within nine years will need to plan to move from T Band to other spectrum; within 11 years, will need to actually move.

While that might be inconvenient the 13 areas, and they are the largest metropolitan areas, the good news is that they are most likely to be moving to 700, which is contiguous to the FirstNet broadband spectrum. And it is where the FCC has set aside spectrum for first responders.

That really reduces the problems that we've had with voice narrowband interoperability. The financial impact has been muted by the federal government agreeing to pay for the wholesale move of all of the people off T Band.

That is enormous. When it is all said and done, it is going to be very, very positive.

How secure will the new network be?
Cyber security and security of the network is a preeminent concern during the design process. While no one has contemplated that yet because the first board is not seated, I do know from people in the industry that that will be a major area of focus.

Could this rule have been made better for first responders?
If we all had a magic wand, we'd have liked to see the $7 billion be a bigger number. And the T Band jurisdictions would have like to have been left alone. Overall, I don't have any buyer's remorse with the legislation.

It had been debated for such a long time, that every nook and cranny had been explored. We really came out of this bipartisan effort with something that will work. Now, afford us the opportunity later to identify problems, because that is inevitable.

Today they are not visible. I'm hoping we look back in the future and say what we are saying today, and that is that there are very few issues.

My read as a first responder is that the architects of this did very good job of contemplating a profoundly complex issue. It really was an anomaly (the bipartisan nature of it). The reality is that the politics of the times complicated what otherwise would have been a relatively easy issue to move.

What happens to responders in areas without broadband coverage?
It was a very important issue to the legislators, both Republican and Democrat. The FirstNet board will actually be held to account for improved broadband coverage in rural America. It is a big deal.

Now, whether it is ambulance service or a cellular phone company, the more sparse the population the harder it is to make a return on your investment. The rural parts of America will always struggle to get the same level of service.

However, depending on what the FirstNet board chooses to do, they could make big strides here. If they pair with wireless providers whose primary business focus has been rural America, you could have a model with some percentage of deviation that if you have smart-phone service today, you would have FirstNet service in the future.

Then the money could be invested to create even greater rural coverage. Those are choices the FirstNet board will make.

What are some of the trouble areas you see in the implementation?
The biggest risk right now is that the FirstNet board has to be the right First Net board. It has got to be people that work together well, see a common future, embrace partnerships and find a way to leverage the money. They must be folks who never lose sight of the most important thing we are trying to do here is to get mission-critical high-speed data to first responders.

If that board is the right board, they will avoid a lot of potential problems. I am optimistic given the diligence I am seeing from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration right now and the Obama administration; they are being careful to make sure that they get people who are going to work well as a team.

How will the board be appointed?
The Secretary of Commerce will appoint the board. There are 15 members; three members are permanent: Janet Napolitano, the DHS secretary; Eric Holder, the attorney general; and the director for the Office of Management and Budget. The other 12 are split up according to the statute between first responders, state and local government representatives, manufacturers and private sector wireless providers.

Any closing thoughts?
A lot of change will occur in the coming two to five years, change in the form of the dialogue we have about public safety communications, the technology that will be coming our way. There will be a period of uncertainty for those of us with retiring land-mobile radio systems are tying to get a definitive horizon on the when the new technology will be available, because we are all trying to make prudent investment decisions.

One of the FirstNet board's responsibilities will be to try to create as much clarity as possible. There are so many public-safety systems out there and when people get ready to replace their systems they will be asking what are the options and what are the costs of those options.

It's 0300 hours, you're in the front right seat of the first due engine on a multi-story residential structure fire with several exposures. As you climb out of the truck and start your size-up you've got about 10,000 things going through your head.

How many personnel are responding to this fire? Is that enough? What units are responding? Is that enough? Should I call for an additional alarm? Or two? Where should I position the ladder when it gets here? And dozens more. The number and complexity of those things you'll need to consider won't really start to dwindle until the clean-up is over and units are returning to the station.

One of the many things being considered during this process is that of personnel accountability. Who's on the scene, where are they and what are they doing? Another issue is incident development. How long has this fire been burning? How long have we been at this offensive interior attack? Is it time to switch tactics to a defensive exterior attack?

Well let's take a moment to discuss an often overlooked resource that can assist an incident commander with personnel accountability and monitoring incident progress — the communications center. An adequately trained and staffed comm center can assist incident commanders in a multitude of areas beyond the traditional dispatch, information management and resource tracking.

PARs in the fire service
Let's start with accountability. Conducting personnel accountability reports (PAR) during an event of any size has become second nature to the fire service. Effective department accountability programs should incorporate PARs on incidents of any size and of any nature.

A PAR is a tool that allows incident commanders to ensure all personnel on scene are safe and accounted for. This action can easily be carried out by the comm center and many jurisdictions have done just that by training their comm center personnel on how to conduct PARs and how to relay the PAR's findings to the IC. One less action needed to be carried out by the IC.

Another tool that comm centers can provide an IC to assist with personnel safety are regular time checks during an incident. Time checks can be designed so that beginning at a certain point in the incident — say 10 minutes after the first unit arrives on scene or the IC announces that knockdown has begun — the comm center staff will notify the IC every 10 to 20 minutes.

We all know that 10 minutes worth of free burning in a traditional structure fire can make the difference between a successful knockdown and leaving nothing but the foundation. Also, most departments have limits to the amount of time they will allow personnel to remain inside a building during interior attack modes.

This "heads up" from the comm center allows the IC to monitor the passage of time during an incident without having to actually watch a clock themselves. One less action needed to be carried out by the IC.

Emergency evacuations
Another area that allows for comm centers to assist ICs during an incident is playing a role in a department's emergency evacuation process. Many agencies across the country have developed emergency evacuation plans that incorporate steps such as having the comm center make evacuation announcements over primary and tactical channels and even activating pagers and radio alerts on scene.

To accomplish this, the comm center personnel must be trained in the department's evacuation plan and the plan must be tested regularly. In addition, comm centers that serve multiple fire departments should encourage all departments to adopt similar evacuation procedures to prevent confusion should a department need an evacuation announcement made during an incident.

All of these actions combined with routine responder safety actions such as monitoring the radio for Mayday calls or other unexpected traffic can increase the level of service and assistance your local comm center can provide to your department.

To accomplish this though, the comm center must have a highly trained and professional staff equipped with the most current tools and resources available. It is the responsibility of every firefighter and officer to encourage your local comm center to ensure their personnel are trained and equipped to the highest level. Because as the old saying goes, "the life you save may be your own."