By Jamie Thompson
FireRescue1 Editor
DALLAS — The National Fire Fighter Near-Miss Reporting System has launched its latest “Near-Miss Big Book,” an initiative aimed at increasing safety discussion around kitchen tables in departments nationwide.
Staff from the organization promoted the document, which comes in two volumes, fire reports and non-fire reports, at Fire-Rescue International in Dallas.
It features nearly 600 near-miss reports from 2008 and aims to provide some “old-school learning” for firefighters.
“What we’ve found is that not everyone wants to or can read reports like these on the computer all of the time,” Project Manager Amy Hultman said.
“We’ve heard from company officers that if you can put it on the kitchen table, open it up and talk about it, then it’s a way of learning without being force fed something. It’s old-school firefighter learning, which is still an effective way to do things.”
Hultman said some training officers are using reports from the annual book in their curriculums.
“For instance, if teaching something about the need for proper maintenance of SCBA, then you could find a report on an incident where SCBA was not properly checked and maintained and use it an example of what could happen,” she said.
The National Fire Fighter Near-Miss Reporting System is a voluntary, confidential, non-punitive and secure reporting system with the goal of improving firefighter safety.
Submitted reports are reviewed by fire service professionals, with identifying descriptions removed to protect identities, with reports then posted at Firefighternearmiss.com for other firefighters to use as a learning tool.
For free copies of the 2008 Near-Miss Big Book, e-mail rgibbs@iafc.org.