Firehouse World kicked off in Las Vegas on Tuesday morning during a low key opening ceremony featuring a primary focus on advancing tactics and implementation of water suppression.
A quick welcome to attendees came courtesy of new Clark County Fire Chief John Steinbeck, who has been in his position for just a few weeks following the recent retirement of Chief Greg Cassell, who oversaw the massive response and recovery to the Route 91 Harvest Festival mass shooting on the Vegas Strip in October 2017 that claimed nearly 60 lives and injured hundreds.
After a full day of preconference classroom sessions at the Las Vegas Convention Center on Monday, Firehouse Editor in Chief Peter Matthews took the stage to officially open the conference with a $2,000 donation from Firehouse presented to Corey Whitlock, a vice president with the Professional Fire Fighters of Nevada. The donation was dedicated to help build a memorial honoring firefighters who have fallen in the line of duty in the state. You can learn more and contribute here.
This year's keynote address was delivered by Dennis LeGear and entitled "Hydrants to Nozzles: Knowledge & Understanding are Essential to Critical Flow." LeGear, a fire service veteran and owner of LeGear Engineering F.D. Consulting, pulled no punches in his assessment of how the industry is approaching water suppression on both a tactical and educational level, saying that many fire department leaders are failing their people and their communities.
LeGear's ideas center around what he calls the "gold standard water stream," which incorporates three main components: knowledge, training and equipment. Combining a knowledge of all aspects of water flow from delivery infrastructure to pumper capabilities with continual training amid a resource-rich and innovative manufacturing and research environment will lead to better outcomes across the board.
Where LeGear sees fire service leadership failing when it comes to water suppression is when decisions are made without input from academic researchers and rank-and-file firefighters who do the heavy lifting on the fireground. LeGear repeatedly urged rank-and-file members of the fire service to stand up and speak out when they have ideas to contribute or see best practices in water suppression and search that aren't working on scene.
The most challenging moment of the keynote was when LeGear addressed the deaths of nine Charleston, SC, firefighters in the Sofa Super Store fire on June 18, 2007. While maintaining a tone that honored the sacrifices of those firefighters, LeGear challenged the audience to think about how the city's fire department had adhered to water suppression tactics that had worked in the past but were obviously ill-suited to the circumstances of that particular fire.
"Even water done wrong often works," was a key phrase offered by LeGear because he far too often sees complacency develop around a particular tactic when the outcomes are positive. LeGear said that just because everyone walks away from a fire does not mean the entire operation was a success, so honestly assessing performance and welcoming outside input can benefit all fire departments.
"We are obviously better together than we are apart," LeGear said. "Outside perspective in invaluable."
John Kosik
John was the managing editor of Firehouse after joining the Firehouse team in April 2017 after spending most of his career in journalism writing and editing sports and music content for the Associated Press in New York City. Transitioning into coverage of the fire service industry was a move close to his heart with several friends and family members serving in the FDNY. He lives in Chicago.
