Thinking About Fires – Part 2

AP Photo/Karl Mondon, Pool Carolyn Desmond receives a medal from by Harold Schaitberger of the IAFF during memorial services July 27, 2007 in Concord, Calif. Her husband, Engineer Scott Desmond, and Captain Matt Burton lost their lives attempting to save an elderly couple in a San Pablo fire.

The world has changed and these are not the fire departments of our fathers. We have to deal with unprecedented call load and unprecedented technology. We have to deal with building construction that defies logic and we have to now be experts in terrorism.

What can I do different? I can take the time to learn the why, to develop a new tactical approach to fires, one that acknowledges the staffing I have, not the staffing I wish I had. I can teach the younger members how to frame risk, what a back up line is and how it works, I can teach everyone to slow down just a little.

I took an exceptional class on rapid intervention a few years ago. The setting was just outside of Indianapolis. The lead instructor would say over and over, “take a minute to save a minute.” He encouraged us to slow the processes down, to evaluate what was before us, to develop a mental plan of action. His methods have probably saved more lives than any 100 LODD reports.

What can I do different? I can encourage the fire service to simplify the tactics, and to force the members to truly understand what fire is and how it behaves. It is sad that in this day and age we can’t even agree on taxonomies, on definitions of flashover and back draft. There is a lot of good research out there — what I can do different is to encourage you to read it. Ask yourself what is the optimal placement of a PPV fan to ventilate the seventh floor of a high-rise building. Don’t think for too long because NIST already published the answer.

We can take a hard look at our day-to-day operations and ask ourselves, are we simply the next people in line to have a report written about us? We are the next people if we keep thinking that the answer to our quest can be found in following some rule or policy. We are the next people if we continue to believe that better response times, increased staffing and strict adherence to the rules will be a panacea.

The solution to the LODD nightmare is to give up on our dominant, hierarchy-driven system that refuses to teach the people at the bottom of our charts, the people actually dragging the hoses and setting up the fans, what it is we really want. And, what it is that we really can reasonably expect them to accomplish. We have taught ourselves, whether we know it or not, that a single engine with four people, including the driver, can pull up in front of a house on fire, put that fire out, and rescue all the people inside.

I offer a quick, non-scientific test for all officers who think that all of their people are on the same page. Ask a few of your people, old, young, veterans or probies, what the job of the first attack line is and see how many different answers you get. Then ask yourself this: If your first engine passed command to someone who was not there and the chief were still minutes out, would your guys know what to do next?

I want four people on every engine just like everyone else but I also realize that diesel fuel is more than $5/gallon and soon enough we are going to be forced to choose between more people and more fuel. I want to see the rig manned properly. But even more than that, I want for those who come with two firefighters on their engine to learn how to adjust their tactical approach to optimize the use of two-person companies until they can afford the third one. I want to see the people with three-person companies learn how to operate in that environment. Staffing does not kill — failure to adjust your behavior to meet the limits of that staffing does.

As I wrap this up, I need to make it clear that I am not picking on San Pablo following the report into the deaths of the two firefighters. What happened there could have easily happened to me dozens of times. Where I fight fires, we are not better than them — just luckier. On many levels they did nothing wrong. Some might argue differently, but they did what they were trained to do. The old adage is that you fight the way you were trained and the evidence for poor training is in poor performance.

But, same as I don’t believe the firefighters set up that fan to hurt anyone, they did not “freelance” to get someone hurt. Those crews were simply doing what they always did, what they were taught, just like those nine guys in Charleston.

I am sure that I have said this before, but it bears repeating: The fire service must find ways to partner with the sociologists, psychologists, cultural anthropologists, and others of similar ilk to find meaningful ways of understanding why after so many reports the dying continues unabated. Yes, there is something wrong with how we are fighting fires — but there is something even more wrong with how we are thinking about them.