As I have traveled around the country I have noticed that many fire departments are stepping up their training. In the past, some of these departments may have each had only one hazardous materials response team and only one urban search and rescue team. As we move forward, however, many of these departments are training all of their members in hazardous materials, urban search and rescue, confined space, high angle rescue and many other specialties. Instead of having one special unit, now the fire department and its firefighters are all specialists.
Constant training seems to be the key to handling additional responsibilities successfully. The development of new standards that highlight company staffing and response times is an objective that departments will strive to meet in the future.
In many areas fire departments - for a variety of reasons - don't have and probably never will have the staffing that is required to meet these standards. To meet that criteria is a good, accepted practice. It is a shame that many departments still are terribly understaffed. The need to rely on mutual aid, calling back off-duty members and closing companies daily is commonplace.
In this issue we are proud to present several timely articles from our contributing editors on the topic of firefighter safety. Last year, 95 U.S. firefighters lost their lives in the line of duty. In his Fire Studies column on page 18, Philadelphia Deputy Chief Jim Smith describes the role of the incident safety officer and the risk analysis that has to be made to ensure firefighter safety on the scene of an incident. In his "From The Officer's Seat" feature on page 50, Syracuse, NY, Captain Mark J. McLees explains the second part of the rapid intervention bag concept to be used by the rapid intervention crew to remove a downed firefighter from a dangerous area. He continues his look at this very practical idea.
In his Chief Concerns column on page 32, Seattle Assistant Chief I. David Daniels asks you to take a look at your organizational chart and see what it says about safety. Find out what he has to say about committing resources dedicated to safety and what the lack of resources says about your organization. In a related article, Dr. Harry Carter describes the post-operational critique, using the fireground as a training and educational experience - a proactive approach to improve your suppression operation.
Dothan, AL, Fire Chief Dennis Rubin presents the latest installment of his series on "Customer Service, Southern Style" on page 60. Rubin reports on the growing belief that there is a direct correlation between a fire department being customer focused and the support that the community gives back to its "hometown heroes." In "The Apparatus Architect," Tom Shand and Mike Wilbur discuss how to conduct meetings with apparatus vendors and how to make the time spent in these meetings valuable and productive for everyone.
Firehouse® is proud to present an exclusive interview with Chicago Fire Commissioner James T. Joyce, beginning on page 44. The commissioner of the nation's second-largest fire department met recently with Chicago-based contributor James J. Regan. The commissioner has held every rank within the department in his over 35 years of service. A wide variety of timely topics relating to the Chicago Fire Department were discussed.
