A national mutual-aid system will ensure more effective use of resources

Dear Nozzlehead: I was in the Gulf Coast as part of a deployed unit after Hurricane Katrina; I returned over the Christmas and New Year holidays to help out again. Does the word “snafu" mean anything to you? FEMA keeps jerking fire departments around, writing and re-writing project worksheets. Work I did has been redone at least twice and is headed for a third time.

FEMA originally stated it would replace fire departments’ destroyed equipment with brand-new equipment. Now they say they will replace it with equipment from the same model year. This is bad news. Instead of providing safe, up-to-date equipment, FEMA is going to provide departments with equipment that may not meet current specs. Couldn’t this subject them to lawsuits down the road? Of course, the fire departments in that area should have had NFPA-approved equipment to begin with, but to put old equipment into service is just not wise. The federal government should promote safety and encourage the use of up-to-date apparatus.

The U.S. Fire Administration needs to monitor what is happening and get the other side of the house on board with safety. FEMA should project a unified message. When I returned to the area a second time, the fire department I worked with originally had received more equipment: two engines and two brush units. The 1.5" nozzle on the crosslay of one of the engines is busted. The toothed ring that makes the fog pattern is missing teeth, and you can’t adjust the flow rate; the crosslays look old and faded.

It seems to me no one is helping the local fire departments now. There are people filling out forms, but no one seems to care about the nature of the profession and firefighters’ responsibilities. They are just getting jerked around time and again. One fire department supposedly told FEMA personnel to just go away because they keep wasting people’s time.

Another issue: The fire department I worked with has been told its claims will be funneled through the county — a process that puts the funds in danger of being hijacked. If the county gets its hands on the funds, there is no telling how they will be used.

I don’t know how to fight these battles, but I think the local fire chiefs need to demand that their money be put in their own banks. People are afraid to publicly contradict FEMA, but I think that’s what has to happen. Fire chiefs need to move beyond FEMA’s field representatives and start working directly with the top levels of administration.

Not much has changed since I left the first time. The call volume for the firefighters is still high, including several large brush fires. Arson is occurring now, too: A school was set on fire while I was there, as well as another building.

I am frustrated and more importantly, the firefighters down South are frustrated. Is this all just a waste of time?
— Hairless Down South (I pulled it all out…)

Dear Hairless,
What took you so long? Your letter is so passé; FEMA-bashing went out quite a while ago … just a few minutes after most of the nation got fed up with the hurricane coverage and forgot about the storm-affected Gulf States … just moments after Mike “Outta Town" Brown asked his secretary if he looked good on TV … and mere seconds after FEMA-ites “rolled up their sleeves" because George “You’re doing a heck of a job, Brownie" Bush was rolling up his sleeves.

First, a quick and simple answer: I absolutely think fire departments should receive the safest replacement equipment possible, no matter what the age. Sometimes safety equates to cost, sometimes it doesn’t. That said, I have seen firefighters with the safest equipment possible act like idiots and not use that equipment to their advantage. But we’ll stay focused here…

When I first saw this letter, I thought it was from a firefighter who was going to whine and complain about signing up for those FEMA community-assistance teams. You know, the ones where they recruited firefighters to be used in non-operational duties? When the firefighters arrived, they were told to do community service-type work — assisting where they were needed.

FEMA’s recruitment of firefighters is one of my favorite issues. In this instance, FEMA was not wrong. Many firefighters who responded to the hurricane-torn areas saw the “Request for Firefighters" notice, and didn’t read what the job entailed. It was very clear — FEMA wanted firefighters (because we are generally more trustworthy than the last bunch of civilians/non-firefighters they hired to work in Florida following the hurricane prior to Katrina) to assist in non-operational duties. When the firefighters went down to the Gulf States — many of them bringing their bunker gear in case they got to do some emergency work — they found out FEMA was using them (as promised!) for non-operational duty. And oh boy, were they pissed off! Those firefighters acted as if they were lead-role players in that song by Meatloaf from a few years ago, “Paradise by the Dashboard Light." Remember? The young lad in the song was so excited, he would do and say anything to get what he wanted that fateful evening in his car. And then his young lass friend exclaims, “Stop right there! ... I gotta know right now! Before we go any further, do ya love me?"

Just like that young lad, many firefighters responding to Katrina just had to get involved, no matter what. Some were ready to say and do anything as long as they could “respond." Firefighters who took on non-operational duties got what they asked for: an opportunity to help. Not in the operational way they dreamed about, but in a way in which they were needed. But it made some of them very angry, and many of them sulked. They wanted to fight fires and save lives. Yeah, well — who doesn’t? It’s the same with some fire departments who begged their Congressmen to help them get deployed, or those who decided, “We are going — they need us." Maybe they do, but not that way.

Want to get deployed to national emergencies? Join a US&R team. Go through the background checks, the extensive and intensive training and then maybe — maybe — you will be qualified to be a part of a responding team. Sound like too much work? Think you are already qualified and should “get to go" on those big and bad calls? Get your freaking head examined. The last thing anyone needs at any large-scale emergency is a bunch of self-deploying, under-qualified yahoos who think they are so damn good that they are needed despite lacking the necessary training.

So what is the solution for those who are not on US&R teams but want to help as firefighters when other areas experience large emergencies? Training. Yep, training, training and more training. And then wait. Wait for those in charge to call you.

Even better: Support the International Association of Fire Chiefs’ (IAFC) efforts to develop the National Fire Mutual Aid Response System. Recently, someone said to me that there ought to be a law that no fire department can pass another fire department to get to a call. That way, we would have to get along and train together, our radios would have to work with one another … and all sorts of other fantasies might come true! The National Fire Mutual Aid Response System addresses exactly those kinds of issues. An IAFC task force of active fire-service leaders from all over the country recently met to create the “map" for the development of this new fire-based system. Exciting stuff: The fire chiefs taking charge.
 
It’s time for a national fire mutual-aid system. The feds can support it and help, if they can get from point A to point B on their bureaucratic map. But it’s time to do it with or without federal assistance. Why is the IAFC leading the effort? Because fire chiefs make the decisions at the local level; they are almost always in charge. They are the only ones qualified to set up such a system, not some bureaucratic “suits" in Washington.

Now, back to your frustrations with FEMA. Quite frankly, I think FEMA has gotten so big that it is nearly impossible to manage. How wonderfully governmenty! And what about Chief Dave Paulison, the Great Hope who is now in charge at FEMA? I happen to like Dave Paulison a lot. And generally, a fire chief, especially one like Chief Paulison, is more qualified than a horse association attorney when it comes to managing emergencies. But it took a while for the President to figure that out. Actually, it took several days following a hurricane, some very upset people and their dead relatives.

But Paulison’s title is acting FEMA director. Sure, he has been in the fire and emergency service for a long time, and he rode the back step, crawled down smoky hallways and learned what emergency management entails. (For those of you getting all excited because I called it “emergency management," calm down. Emergency management is what fire chiefs do, not someone in a Civil Defense helmet. Paulison was the emergency manager/fire chief for Miami-Dade in Florida. He commanded some significant emergencies, from commercial plane crashes to hurricanes, and he is now acting as the nation’s emergency chief.) Clearly, Paulison has the ability to fix what needs fixing at FEMA, but have you ever been in an acting position? You really cannot do much.

Without question, Paulison is working his best to make FEMA a more responsive and supportive agency. But until his position is made permanent by George W., Chief Paulison’s hands are tied — and some of the biggest problems FEMA faces cannot be fixed. Who’s causing the big problems? Some long-time federal employees who have totally lost touch with why they are there. Sure, there are some good folks who work for FEMA. But ask what frustrates them, and you’ll get the same answer multiple times: It’s the folks who have forgotten they work for, and with, first responders, the ones who help the citizens. The folks that you, my hairless friend, wrote about. If all the folks at FEMA truly “got it," we would all be a lot more comfortable when we heard someone yell, “FEMA is on the way!"

So what’s the solution? First, fire departments must be as prepared as possible to respond locally, regionally and statewide. We can’t expect anyone else to help us. Second, we need to support the National Fire Mutual Aid Response System currently under development by the IAFC. The mutual-aid system is a nationally coordinated effort of fire departments responding to help other fire departments in need. It’s been a while since I’ve heard a better idea. Finally, we must add the US&R teams and other support agencies and organizations to the National Fire Mutual Aid Response System.

It’s looking better already.