When I entered the fire service in 1975, little did I know the profound influence Frank Brannigan would have on my career. Concurrent with my fire service involvement, I also began my academic pursuits at the Syracuse University School of Architecture. Here I was a student of architecture, learning how to design & build buildings and a firefighter, learning how to limit the destructive effects of fire within these very same structures. To say the least, I was looked upon in a variety of ways by my professors and fire officers alike. But it would be Frank Brannigan who in the ensuing years would provide the catalyst to comprehend the value of these combined professions and the true message that he professed over his subsequent sixty years of service towards firefighter safety.
The mid to late seventies were considered the "war years" throughout many jurisdictions around the country, during which time the frequency and magnitude of working structural fires and service demands, quickly sharpened our skills and proficiencies as firefighters, company officers and incident commanders. At the same time, our nations fire service line-of- duty death and injury rates were at staggering proportions, as they first started to be complied and published.
As I diligently balanced my fire service training and architectural studies, an astute Captain (who would eventually became Chief of Department) introduced me to a variety of theories and practices on strategy and tactics, through authors such as Emanuel Fried, Lloyd Layman, John O'Hagan, David Gratz, William Clark and subsequently Frank Brannigan. Brannigan's Building Construction for the Fire Services, first published in 1971became one of the most prominent fire service text books soon after it was published. The quintessential text for a student of fire suppression, I began to clearly understand the relationship of the built environment, firefighting and safety survival.
My finely worn first edition of Building Construction for the Fire Service claims a prominent spot in my library to this day and is testament to the constant use it had received in those early years and the direct and in-direct influence it had during numerous incident operations these past thirty years.
Through Frank's writings, it was crystal clear that the building was in fact our enemy. An enemy that could be controlled; through knowledge, awareness and predictability, with the right course of strategic and tactical actions to safely implement combat fire suppression operations within the variety of buildings and structures that comprise our communities.
He understood and professed with passion what the "right stuff" was in leading as a fire officer or commander; that it was OK to withdraw from an involved occupancy as predicators of imminent danger from collapse or fire extension were identified or not to enter at all based upon the inherent dangers of the building, its structural systems, construction or features.
Frank told it like it was, and never was at a loss for words. Words filled with wisdom and insights borne on historical incidents, passing along the lessons learned from those before us, with the hopes that those incidents with less than desirable outcomes would not be repeated again. Frank Brannigan strived to tell the stories of events, of structural collapses, of firefighter fatalities, injuries and near misses, so they would not be repeated, so we would learn something and stay out of harms ways; so that everyone could go home, after the alarm.
Frank Brannigan's devotion to the fire service, his visionary insights, commitment and life long dedication towards firefighter safety, survivability and risk management as it related to fire operations in structures and occupancies were so evident in his lectures and through his prolific writings. In subsequent years, I found myself a student in many of Frank's on the road seminar presentations, lectures at FDIC and numerous other hosted seminars and courses around the country.
Frank had the unique ability to correlate technical engineering information and relate this to the average firefighter while further instilling human performance measures, risk reduction methods and plain old common sense perspectives on the built environment around us and the effects of fire within the "compartment". Frank provided the fire service with a new way at looking at buildings, understanding the correlation of fire suppression, operational safety, command integrity and tactical perspective integrated with the science of building construction, engineering, architecture and fire dynamics and design.
The thousands of slides we viewed in his presentations left indelible images in the backs of our minds, only to have them recalled in an instant as we compared our knowledge base with what we were seeing while operating on the fireground-remembering the messages conveyed from Frank's lecture. We became better firefighters, effective company officers, and knowledgeable incident commanders. Our safety margin was the knowledge and insights he instilled upon us through his teachings.
I had the honor to first collaborate with Frank in 1982 during the early years of the National Fire Academy, in Emmittsburg contributing on some developmental work with him on the Building Construction training program series. Thus began over twenty years of periodic collaborations, numerous impromptu discussions on the floor, in the corridor or in the classroom at FDIC, Firehouse Expo, IAFC Fire-Rescue or the NFA. It was always a special time to sit a few moments or a spend a long afternoon with Frank and other colleagues and share insights on construction techniques, regional construction methods, fireground operating experiences and the lessons learned from our respective communities and organizations.
I can vividly remember the first time I presented at FDIC and having the
