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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
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Permalink Reply by Curt Varone on
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Most of the guys who had high levels of cyanide in their blood complained of (1) headache, (2) fatigue and (3) nausea in that order.
Some of the anecdotal results of our testing has indicated that cyanide may at times be present outside of the visible smoke - and yet at other times not be present within visible smoke - even if the smoke is heavy (ie - it all depends on what is burning and off-gassing). Natural materials (wood, wool, and cotton) give off less cyanide than burning synthetics (plastics, rubbers, etc)... note I said less, not no......
Curt
www.firelaw.biz
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Permalink Reply by Dan Hoey on
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Iagree it should be worn but we all know thats not the case. fires out packs off seems to be the norm
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Permalink Reply by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on
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Any discussion on firefighter safety should include the 16 Life Safety Initiatives.
And doing it safely won't exactly appeal to those who are lured by the seductive powers of Fire's inherent dangers and the long tradition of FF funerals. Because as long as we have people in the service who believe that dying is part of the job, we will continue to see unnecessary risks being taken, whether that be at a scene or with the foods that we eat and the number of LODDs each year will remain static or even increase.
Throw in that mix of adrenaline junkies who join up for the excitement-real or imagined-and the state of firefighter safety is in a state of flux.
Yeah; I'm a cynic.
But I am more optimistic than pessimistic also.
TCSS.
Art
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Permalink Reply by Engineco913 on
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being able to pinpoint scba issues is one thing, not wearing one is completely differant. You can usually tell fairly readily whether you have a good seal or not (hand over regulator spot on mask) also when you start breathing air, a air bypass will feel colder than the rest of the area thats not leaking. (easy to pinpoint for strap tightening)
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I like how you termed it "more" optimistic LOL. Listen we all know that everyone in the fire service doesn't follow every safety precaution. So long as we do our jobs safely, and keep a keen eye on all others around us (unless your the safety officer or IC then your kind of locked in to everyone) we are accomplishing the goal at hand. Safety begins with training. One of the major components of taking unnecessary risks is the "risk vs gain" idea. All too often people are getting hurt by going too far, doing too much all for nothing. When your on a recovery mission (not a Search and rescue), or the building is showing signs of collapse and or rapidly deteriorating conditions, your only opening up a can of worms. It is not worth risking your life to save nothing. Insurance replaces possesions, it won't replace your life.
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So, then; you believe that many out there can read smoke, do a proper size up and assessment, know the differences that lightweight construction can pose, recognize the signs of early collapse and that everyone is running an appropriate accountability system?
Do it in percents. It helps with my optimism.
Art
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Just as an update for this... We just installed HCN sensors in our Scott "Scout." The sensor lasts longer in the scout than it does in a multi-rae and also checks a variety of other gasses. Check it out, it could save your life.
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Permalink Reply by Eric Dotten REMT-P,NCEE on
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Unfortuantely the RI folks learned the hard way about fire smoke, everyday firefighters and civilians are dying of fire smoke due to toxic twins. The CYANOKIT is the ONLY FDA Approve drug for both suspected and Confirm cynaide poisioning. Why isnt the awreness of cyanide in fire smoke the front page of every fire journal. Please check out the cyanokit.com website there even grant information to save lives.
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