Learning from the Past, Changing the Future
In this issue, we highlight several articles that we feel are very important to our readers. They focus on strategy and tactics, lessons learned from horrific fires, changing attitudes in regard to safety and new technology. All of these topics play a major part in saving lives and preventing injuries to firefighters and civilians.
It really doesn't matter whether a lesson-teaching incident occurs in your response area or across the country. What matters is how you learn from it and prepare yourself to handle a similar situation. It's like Monday-morning quarterbacking. There isn't a firehouse or fire station anyplace where the people involved in an incident don't discuss, argue, blame, replay or critique "the incident" for years. The decisions and orders made by command and company officers will make a difference in the safe and positive outcome.
In his Safety & Survival column, Vincent Dunn examines strategic errors and how we must ensure that the same mistakes are not made again. Beginning on page 20, he points out that if a football quarterback has a 60% completion rate during his career, he is considered a great quarterback. Similarly, if a baseball player hits the ball four out of 10 times at bat, he may be inducted into the Hall of Fame. An incident commander, however, must have a much better success rate, for failure could mean that a fire spreads or a fire victim is not found. Sometimes, everything that can possibly go wrong at a fire does go wrong. Hal Bruno's Fire Politics column on page 18 examines the horrible case of old lessons that went unheeded. Three years after a tragic fire in The Station night club, Rhode Island's fire and life safety code is being strengthened, including the elimination of grandfather clauses that exempt existing buildings from complying with new regulations.
In this month's installment of Close Calls, Billy Goldfeder relates tragic incidents in which firefighters have been struck, injured or even killed on the street or highway. Odds are, each of you knows of someone who was struck at the scene of an emergency. This month's column, on page 24, is all about being proactive and countering the old "it-won't-happen-here" attitude. What is of particular interest, Billy notes, is that the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) "Stand Down for Firefighter Safety" of 2005 played a clear role in this department's awareness and planning.
In our Incident Management Solutions section, Mark Emery looks at what he calls "Operations Overkill." Marks opens by asking whether you've ever heard an incident commander assign "operations" during a single-alarm building fire? He likens that to "assigning a Coast Guard crew to "lifeguard" at the local municipal swimming pool." It's overkill, he contends, and recommends ways in which current and future incident commanders can learn to make appropriate decisions about deploying manpower resources. See page 64 for details.
In his Fire Technology column, Charles Werner reports on the first Fire Service Technology Symposium, co-hosted by the IAFC and Microsoft Corp. Charles offers a list of technology acronyms, then challenges you to decide whether you are the problem in a technologically deficient fire department. He explains why it is critically important for fire service leaders to know what is available and how it can help a department operate more efficiently and effectively. See page 48 for tips that may help you embrace new technologies.
On Jan. 18, 2006, Mike Lombardo was promoted to commissioner/chief of department for the Buffalo, NY, Fire Department. Congratulations and good luck, Mike! The new commissioner will be speaking at the Firehouse Expo in Baltimore in July.
