The Social Network & Community JUST for Firefighters
Firefighter Safety
As we all know, firefighter safetly is our primary concern in the fire service. We have all heard the term you cant help anyone if you are dead yourself. As true as this statement is, lets take a deeper look into all entailed. Firefighter safety starts well before you have your first alarm. You have to ensure you have the proper equipment and training to ensure your probability of staying safe is better. Without the correct PPE or SCBA you run the risk of serious injury or death. Face it, how many times do we read stories of people inside the building with incomplete fire gear or no SCBA. The chemicals you can't see are just as bad as the smoke and fire we do see. (example the Providence RI fire department had an engine and ladder company all treated in the hospital for cyanyde poisioning) the fire was out when they took the SCBA's off but the smoldering childrens toys was enough to make issue for the firefighters. In this case, they removed their safety netting aka the SCBA. No air quality checks were done to ensure proper safety.
Training is just the foreground of safety. Without the proper SOP's in place to safeguard the membership, and the proper line officers to enforce them, firefighters can tend to become lax in their duty to ensure their own safety. Adreneline is a major player in making some non intelligent decisions. Forgetting to turn the SCBA on all the way, putting on wet gloves (steam burns are terrible) not snapping or zipping up the coat all the way, are all minute examples of things that can lead to injury.
For volunteer firefighters (myself included) the next issue is driving skills when your pager goes off. Again adreneline kicks in, and you at times make brash foolish decisions while enroute to the scene or the firehouse in your POV. Yes, having a light gives you a little flexability, but look closely. The laws are still there to be followed. Nowhere does it say in the law that you have the right to speed (yes we all do) or blow through traffic lights and stop signs. Face it, you break the law and get someone hurt, your responsible, and your department will take a hit in negative Public relations. We all need to take a step back and be more vigelant to ensure our own safety and the safety of those around us while responding to the scene.
Next the safety is in driving the apparatus to the scene. Sometimes there can be issue with not enough training to ensure the safe movement of the apparatus, or enough pump training to ensure constant water flow. In my opinion, a driver/operator should be able to troubleshoot any problem (other than mechanical failure) to ensure the people inside the building never lose water. How frustrating is it to have an officer called from the scene to go fix a pump when it turns out to be something simple. (strainer on hard suction hose not there, or clogged; valve not opened, trying to draft with drain open) the lists are endless to the small problems that seem huge under pressure.
Next building construction. Knowing your building types, and whats inside of them is something we all should be keenly aware of before entering. Differant materials burn at differant temperatures, and have differant chemical byproducts caused by the smoke. We should be doing walk throughs of some of the major buildings to get a lay of the land to make sureyou have some sort of idea whats happening inside. Our respective fire prevention in house should also be providing planning for the firefighters to be able to go through to ensure proper techniques are used when entering the building.
This is just a brief example of where we are, and this is before actually starting fire suppression. Stay tuned will post firefighter safety block 2 in a day or so.
GOOD LUCK AND BE SAFE OUT THERE!!!!
Training is just the foreground of safety. Without the proper SOP's in place to safeguard the membership, and the proper line officers to enforce them, firefighters can tend to become lax in their duty to ensure their own safety. Adreneline is a major player in making some non intelligent decisions. Forgetting to turn the SCBA on all the way, putting on wet gloves (steam burns are terrible) not snapping or zipping up the coat all the way, are all minute examples of things that can lead to injury.
For volunteer firefighters (myself included) the next issue is driving skills when your pager goes off. Again adreneline kicks in, and you at times make brash foolish decisions while enroute to the scene or the firehouse in your POV. Yes, having a light gives you a little flexability, but look closely. The laws are still there to be followed. Nowhere does it say in the law that you have the right to speed (yes we all do) or blow through traffic lights and stop signs. Face it, you break the law and get someone hurt, your responsible, and your department will take a hit in negative Public relations. We all need to take a step back and be more vigelant to ensure our own safety and the safety of those around us while responding to the scene.
Next the safety is in driving the apparatus to the scene. Sometimes there can be issue with not enough training to ensure the safe movement of the apparatus, or enough pump training to ensure constant water flow. In my opinion, a driver/operator should be able to troubleshoot any problem (other than mechanical failure) to ensure the people inside the building never lose water. How frustrating is it to have an officer called from the scene to go fix a pump when it turns out to be something simple. (strainer on hard suction hose not there, or clogged; valve not opened, trying to draft with drain open) the lists are endless to the small problems that seem huge under pressure.
Next building construction. Knowing your building types, and whats inside of them is something we all should be keenly aware of before entering. Differant materials burn at differant temperatures, and have differant chemical byproducts caused by the smoke. We should be doing walk throughs of some of the major buildings to get a lay of the land to make sureyou have some sort of idea whats happening inside. Our respective fire prevention in house should also be providing planning for the firefighters to be able to go through to ensure proper techniques are used when entering the building.
This is just a brief example of where we are, and this is before actually starting fire suppression. Stay tuned will post firefighter safety block 2 in a day or so.
GOOD LUCK AND BE SAFE OUT THERE!!!!
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Mary Ellen Shea on
-
well, it's going to take more than a LODD because we have PLENTY of those as a result of this type of behavior and it doesn't seem to have much efficacy in changing those attitudes.
-
Permalink Reply by Mick Mayers on
-
Nice post- this is important stuff and people need to read it.
-
Permalink Reply by Engineco913 on
-
I am not sure if the pump operator had it or not. I believe it was 28 firefighters from 2 fire scenes that showed symptoms of similarity (attributed to cyanide poisoning.) If you click this link http://www.local799.com/docs/pfdcyanidereport.pdf it has a report that was conducted by the Providence fire department on the matter in question. Perhaps if Curt Varone (Assistant Chief of Providence) has a moment he can bring us all a little closer on the perspective of Cyanide Poisoning.
-
Permalink Reply by Curt Varone on
-
Hi folks
The cyanide problem in Providence did coincidentally effect 2 pump operators - including one who suffered a heart attack - but the investigation revealed that they were exposed while doing structural firefighting, not running the pumps. However, about half of the members who had high cyanide levels in their blood were outside the building when they were exposed. Mind you they were immediately adjacent to the building - as in pulling soffits, cutting through roll up doors, and performing ventilation. Nevertheless - todays smoke is LOADED with all sorts of chemicals that were not there 20, 30, 40 and 50 years ago..... better living through chemistry..... but we have to deal with it.
Curt
www.firelaw.biz
-
-
For those who don't know, Curt was on the panel who investigated the incident and made reccomendations to change the policy for Hydrogen Cyanide.
-
-
all the more reason to wear your SCBA during overhaul, every single time.
-
-
I do agree that SCBA is critical for overhaul, but I am only using this reference to the cyanide poisoning incident as a reference, not calling out PFD. I have seen PFD in action they are a very efficient department full of top notch officers and firefighters who get the job done.
-
Permalink Reply by Danny on
-
great post..safety can not be overlooked..its an on going process all the time..the other night at drill was the start of our wildland training and we were going over LCES and risk management. You can use LCES at any time while responding or while on scene of any incident.
Look outs
Communications
Escape routes
Safety zones
We are always on the look out for hazards or safety problems thats what the saftey officer does and we do also to keep ourself's safe. The pump operator also can be a great look out.
Communications are always a factor. Some of the ways of communications are face to face by sight with hand signals, touch with your partner, and by radio. We are always communicating...sometimes its hard with everyone on the radio so we have to find other ways to get the message across.
Escape routes When your driving to the station or responding to the scene your always looking for escape routes. what happens if a car pulls out or cuts me off whats my escape route will ya take the median or take out the shrubs. We are always looking out. When we are in the structure whats my escape route maybe a ladder at the second story window or down the stairs I came up.
Safety zones. Some may see it as this but if the building collapses are you going to be in the line of fire of debri and other stuff. But if your out and away from it your in the safety zones anything outside of the fall zone your in your safety zone.
So over all LCES is not just for wildland firefighting but every day responses..specially those on major busy roadways working MVA"s it helps to have it in place try it sometime...
-
Permalink Reply by Dan Hoey on
-
People need to remember how much all this means bad habits complacency and apathy are all words that mean the end of careers and lives!
Money should not be in the way of safety as well as ego. If you have seen it all and done it all then there is no hope for you. Over 20 years and I know I have not seen half or know half but I never stop learning. I had a couple of probies ask me a few weeks ago ata class why I was there I know this stuff, my answer was simple you never know this stop you can just practice it. Why do you think doctors call it practicing medicine? because the knowledge never end. Kepp safe and take any class you can read and look. How amny can even name the simple threats in your own district or what you may get called to help with? How many wire truss buildings do you have? strange chemicals? Take a look and be safe.
Education will save your life!
-
Permalink Reply by ILDisasterEMT on
-
A couple of people now have mentioned the "blue light syndrome." Knowing that I was heading into the fire service (and may well be running on medical/rescue/MVA calls during fire school) a relative spent a good deal of money and purchased a really great LED blue light bar that is now stuck with suction cups just above the dash of my car in the center of the windshield. Ive not used it yet, but I placed a call to my local Illinois State Police barricks and asked what exactly the laws are for using the blue light responding to the station or the fire ground. What I was told was the following:
1. Of course, BLUE light only.
2. Of course, no siren.
3. You may not run with your POV's hazards on.
4. The light may flash or chase (that is the light itself can move from side to side, but the light apparatus cannot) but may NOT strobe.
5. No siren or use of horn as a siren. You are also not allowed at a red light to honk to try to get someone to move out of your way.
6. The blue light in Illinois is an understood signal of an emergency volunteer responder. However, as has already been stated, you cannot use it to go through traffic, ignore speed limits, drive on the shoulder or up on the sidewalk (hey, Ive seen it done). You also may not go the wrong way in oncoming traffic even through our non volunteer EMS, Fire and LE brothers and sisters may do this in certain, carefully defined situations. I have done it while running with a paid EMS agency and the risk simply is not work the 5 seconds it may save you, the lives you may cost or having to change your pants when that semi bears down on you.
7. You may not wire your head or tail lights for "wig wag" (alternate flashing). Nor may you alter the function or your head, tail or fog lights in any way. This also means that you cannot use colored filters on your fog lights. We actually had a local volunteer get in serious trouble from wiring his fog lights to wig wag and putting a blue bulb in one and a red bulb in another.
8. Amber lights are a no go.
All of this being said, I live about 6 blocks from my station. Am I likely at 0300hrs to step on the accelerator just a little harder as I see the truck bay doors open? Probably, as my adrenaline kicks in. But we have very strict rules that you first try to get to the station to go to the scene on the rig. If you cant do it, you follow behind the rig with blue lights. If you were slow enough in response (no harm in that) that you cant see the rig, activate your blues, monitor radio traffic and get to the scene as quickly as you legally and safely can.
I kind of look at it as being like the same reason that we dont get out of an ambulance and run into a house or toward an accident. If you take a header on the wet pavement and smack your skull, you have become a patient that you partner MUST tend to, effectively taking you out of service for the call your were dispatched on. I think it would behoove us all to remember the safety flow chart taught in EMT school:
Priority of safety:
1. Yourself
2. Your partner
3. Your patient
4. Everyone else.
Remember: you cant put the wet on the red if your dead.
-
-
Because we were talking about cyanide and cyanide derivatives which are so common in so many structural products both as a primary and a by-product, I thought it might be a good idea to know what to look for in cyanide exposure. We recently covered this in an IMERT domestic preparedness course. We spend about two hours on it, but here are some of the basics:
The one we all know about is that cherry red color taken on by mucus membranes. Watch for it in the mucosa of the eyelids, nose, mouth and you can even see it in the beds of the finger and toe nails.
Shortness of breath.
Fatigue.
General feelings of being "un-well"
Unconsciousness, altered mental status, altered LOC including the inability to stay awake as the cyanide and cyanogenic compounds leach oxygen from the blood and starve the brain. You might also see slurred speech, mucus membrane bleeding, etc.
Nausea and/or vomiting
Inability or difficult standing or walking.
Also remember what we started calling the canary in the coal mine theory. If you see a fire fighter who is outside and may or may not be wearing his SCBA go down for seemingly no reason, you need to start thinking IMMEDIATELY that there is some out-gassing or something particularly bad. I know we all know the fire fighters who smoke like chimneys and say "what difference does it make with all we breathe in anyway" but when things can be avoided and and signs and symptoms are easily recognizable, we can reduce fatalities from this garbage. Also, remember to check the seals on your masks. In IMERT we were told that an SCBA with a seal that is even slightly worn or cracked is NOT a functional SCBA and that you can often hear when this is the case. We were taught you want to hear that good ole Darth Vader sound. And hissing or whining as O2 goes in or leaks out is bad and that SCBA is not safe for use.
-
-
Another concept that relates to this is what is called "choke points" incident command. Basically these are either "naturally occurring" blocked avenues of escape or entrance like narrows streets, Jersey barriers, etc. But its seems to me that in FF we need to sort of be aware of whether or not we are creating out own choke points. Yes, we need to bring that hose, ventilation, etc in, but when we start laying things out, can we take the extra few seconds to make sure that its not blocking us in if we need to get out in a hurry. Be aware that choke points can even be caused by where folks decide to drop their crash ax or halligan. You can always get in, but can you get out again?
- ‹ Previous
- 1
- 2
- 3
- Next ›
© 2024 Created by Firefighter Nation WebChief.
Powered by
