Memos state that no more live burns will be held off academy grounds
 
By Annie Linskey
The Baltimore Sun
Copyright 2007 The Baltimore Sun Company
All Rights Reserved

BALTIMORE — After initially disputing labor department charges that the Baltimore Fire Department knowingly violated safety rules during a fatal live-burn training exercise in February, the city has withdrawn its objections and outlined plans to prevent future violations, according to documents obtained by The Sun.

In two memos, the Fire Department states that it will no longer burn buildings outside the fire academy grounds and that safety officers will be present during large-scale training exercises - even those that don't involve fires.

Liz Williams, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, said the response was sufficient to abate her agency's charges. "As long as they do everything they say in the letter, then they are fine," she said.

Fire Chief William J. Goodwin Jr. verbally ordered an immediate halt to off-site live burns after the exercise that killed cadet Racheal M. Wilson on Feb. 9, and none has been conducted outside the academy grounds since then. But it was unclear whether his decision had been codified.

"I know it was in the process of being put in writing," said Rick Binetti, a Fire Department spokesman.

The Baltimore Fire Department was one of the few metropolitan departments to train cadets by lighting fires in condemned buildings. Supporters of the practice say it's the only way to provide realistic preparation for trainees, but detractors argue that a blaze can easily burn out of control - and that the training value is not worth the risk.

Labor department officials spent five months investigating the fatal training blaze in an abandoned Southwest Baltimore rowhouse. The agency found that Fire Department commanders breached 33 safety rules and issued a charging document June 26.

Violations included selecting a dilapidated building for the burn, setting too many fires, failing to properly prepare cadets to extinguish the blaze and failing to provide all instructors with radios, the charging document alleged. The state gave the city 15 days to respond with a memo explaining how it would avoid repeating the violations.

The document laid much of the blame for the fatal exercise on three commanders - the safety officer, the instructor in charge and the head of the rescue team. The department has identified them as former training academy head Kenneth B. Hyde Sr., Lt. Joseph L. Crest and Lt. Barry P. Broyles, respectively. Hyde was fired, and the other two have notified that they will lose their jobs.

It is unclear why the city initially disputed the charges. Susan J. Schuder, the city's top safety officer, said Goodwin made the original decision, but Binetti said that the fire chief was not involved in that decision.

Anthony McCarthy, a spokesman for Mayor Sheila Dixon, said her office did not participate in the decision to contest the charges, either. "That decision was left to the Fire Department and the safety officer," he said.

Ultimately, McCarthy said, the mayor left it to the Fire Department to respond to the state's charges.

The Fire Department response included an all-staff memo issued two days after the labor department charges. That memo requires that everyone who participates in the live burns at the fire academy be familiar with national safety standards and follow them.

It also says a safety officer must review plans for all training exercises that involve handling equipment. And it says a safety officer must be present at those exercises.

A second Fire Department memo, responding specifically to the state's charges, asserted that 91 members had undergone additional safety training. It said eight people have been added to the department's safety office, and that additional radios had been purchased.