66 The number of 2007 firefighter line-of-duty deaths at deadline.
Every year, according the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), the American fire service responds to millions of calls - fires, emergencies, hazardous materials incidents, false alarms, EMS calls, "good intent," etc. A few weeks ago, my fire department responded on mutual aid to a four-alarm fire in a building under construction. The fire apparently was started by workers on the roof. A few days later, a few towns away, a fire ignited on the roof of a motel under construction. I read in a newspaper account of construction workers igniting a fire in a terminal control tower under construction at Miami International Airport. I even received a call from one of my firefighters vacationing in Las Vegas. He was looking out the 20th floor of his hotel and saw a fire begin on the roof of a building under construction. He called 911, and then called me.
How many times a day do the same types of incidents occur? In all 50 states, it must happen quite often. Just as there are no new ways to kill firefighters, there are not many new types of fires. They just occur over and over again, but because the fire service is so spread out we may not hear about all these similar type of incidents that occur each and every day.
In this month's Close Calls column, Billy Goldfeder relates what happened to one California fire company while it was conducting a standpipe drill. If the same thing happened during a fire, the results could have been disastrous. Having heard a similar story from the Bronx during a real fire, I asked Joe Berry, who was the company officer at the time, to relay the story. Here, there was a real problem and you can read what the firefighters learned from the incident. The main focus of the Close Calls column came from me. I explained to Billy Goldfeder that if a firefighter operating on a roof nearly falls off, and no one sees him or her, that person probably would not bring up the subject for fear of being ridiculed. Why can't we learn from the near misses and close calls and share the information with other firefighters who may find themselves in the same situation? When we launched the column, it was intended that fire departments would remain anonymous, so that no one would be embarrassed and that we could all learn from their mistakes and near misses. However, fire departments now are willing to identify themselves so that they can describe what happened and share the lessons they learned. It's become one of our most widely read columns.
Speaking of learning from others, I'm asking the readers of Firehouse® to help us by answering a few questions. Your answers will be detailed in future articles. By sharing information and lessons learned, and communicating with each other, we may be able to prevent near misses or close calls. I'm sure that none of the nearly 100 firefighters who die in the line of duty each year ever think they are going to die when they are responding to their last alarm:
Question 1 - New NFPA standards are updating self-contained breathing apparatus. If you were going to design a new SCBA, what would it include?
Question 2 - What do you do when you have water-supply problems on the fireground?
Question 3 - Do you receive sufficient training in your department? If not, in what areas would you like to have additional training?
Question 4 - Do you have a will, should something happen to you unexpectedly?
Please e-mail your answers to [email protected]. Thank you.
Congratulations to newly promoted Assistant Chief of Training and Safety Jim Crawford of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire, a frequent Firehouse writer and speaker. Congratulations also to recently promoted Assistant Chief of Operations Todd Harms of the Phoenix Fire Department, who often speaks at our conferences.
The executive board of the International Fire Service Training Association (IFSTA) selects one person who has made significant contributions to the training of firefighters to receive the Everett E. Hudiburg Memorial Award. Through the years, some of the nation's most notable fire service leaders have been honored with this award. In keeping with this tradition, the IFSTA executive board is pleased to announce that the 2007 award has been presented to Deputy Chief Billy Goldfeder. A tip of the helmet from your colleagues at Firehouse!
