| Editor’s note: The Stand Down began June 21 and continues until all subsequent shifts have been covered. The International Association of Fire Chiefs, along with at least 20 other fire service organizations, is asking all fire departments to stand down from the routine aspects of the job and focus on training, and procedures and tactics that can increase their members’ overall health and safety. The focus of this year’s initiative is emergency-vehicle safety; a large number of firefighters suffer major injuries and/or deaths every year in apparatus crashes. Resources: |
By Matt Kapko
FireRescue1 News Editor
Thousands of American and Canadian firefighters from Dothan, Ala., to Spokane, Wash., to Los Angeles are participating in the second annual International Firefighter Safety Stand Down.
The Los Angeles Fire Department observed the Stand Down by setting up an elaborate obstacle course including an area for apparatus drivers to train high-speed emergency driving. Click here to view a televised news report of the training.
Departments in Alachua County, Fla., conducted training exercises, simulating collapsed floors, as they worked blind. Further, firefighters on each shift have been learning about cardiovascular fitness, personal protective equipment, safe driving procedures and other critical safety issues during the Stand Down.
Firefighters in Spokane, Wash., are taking a different approach.
Brian Schaeffer, the assistant fire chief of Spokane, said his department used the opportunity to open up dialogue among everyone in the department, including representatives from the battalion chiefs and firefighters unions.
“What I wanted to do was set the stage for the process,” Schaeffer said. “For those of us in a collective bargaining environment it’s tough sometimes to convince everybody that we’re working together.”
Photo courtesy of Spokane (Wash.) Fire Department
The Stand Down provided his department’s members with the opportunity to get any and all questions answered in a “live, unplugged format without the closed door,” he said.
“With the unplugged format we were able to hit just about everything – from employee identity to vehicle accidents,” he said. “This was the first time in the history of the department, since 1884, that this has ever been done.”
Event organizers took it all even a step further by broadcasting the forum live via television to all 17 stations. Firefighters at each station were able to interact with the forum panel remotely and ask their questions from afar. The entire forum was videotaped and will be played for each subsequent shift until all 350 personnel have watched it.
So while firefighters in Spokane were not just focused on vehicle safety, the department did use the time to talk about the new ANSI safety vests it obtained for each of its members through a grant.
“One of the things we identified with the International Association of Fire Fighters highway safety program was the need for ANSI safety vests,” Schaeffer said. The department also implemented a new policy on safe vehicle operations on or near roadways at the beginning of the Stand Down.
“I just really enjoyed the chance to get out to the stations and spend some time with the crews,” Schaeffer said of the Stand Down.