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Is it the gear, or lack of training ???
There has been some talk that the better gear we have now is hurting and killing FF by letting them go deeper and stay longer in the fire. There was an article in the last Fire/Rescue magazine i just recieved. It stated that it may be a lack of training. I have a tendacy to believe lack of training. We all know that things are made from differant materials than 10-20 yrs ago. It burns faster and hotter and gives off alot more deadlier gas. Things like this change the tactics that some have used years ago. I believe that we as FF need to stay up on our training as times change. Like the art of reading smoke. Knowing whats burning....I believe this may have more to do with the safety than the better equipment we have. What is all your take on this???
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Sheri Caelwaerts on
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Ok Bull, you know I "bubbled" a helemet during a training excercise. I remember my first words to my Chief as I was explaining it to him....."I NEVER felt it get hot".....( this was under the instruction of my tech college instructor during a live burn...it kinda didn't go "as planned" according to the instructor.....) I think there's a couple of things at work here. Yes the new gear is awsome, but it does give us a false sense of being able to walk right thru the fire. Also, training is a big part. But one thing we all need to have is common sense.....and....a some people seem to check that at the "door" when they go into a fire!!! Let's face it...we all know them!!! If you respect both the gear and the fire itself, you'll get out alive, unhurt and in one piece even!!!
Keep your head and stay safe out there!!
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Permalink Reply by Bull on
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Hello Sherri, how have you been ??? Good points you brought up. Especially about the tech instructors we sometimes get. When one of the new kids on CFD melted their sheild last winter at a training burn I advised the instructor this was his first time on the nozzle. Well....the instructor let it get way to far. I was the 3 man on the line and told the nozzleman he needed to hit the ceiling with a short burst, well guess what he did....yep, he panicked and hit the base, and brought it all down on us. The Instructor was to busy talking and looking at the nozzle man instead of watching the fire. It would have flashed on them. They should have never let it get that far for a new guy. 3 differant instructors fried like 5 shields that day on 3 differant attack crews. Ever notice when we do a live burn with no tech guys, nobody ever burns a shield. Keep in touch, its about time I see you on here...LMFAO.....I know your busy, but I just dont get to see you anymore to give you a hard time. Take care....
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Permalink Reply by John on
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Its both the gear and the training, The gear does not let the newer guys(gals) feel the heat like they should so they do go further than they should in a fire, but at the same time the training has to be there to teach them that they only have so much air in their pack and to keep one eye on it.
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Permalink Reply by Paul Montpetit on
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Boy this one can go anywhere....I really don't see how one can attribute just one factor to the equation.....Yes, equipment has gotten better and yes it has given some the false sense of security and allowed them to go in too deep.....YES, training need to be better so people can prevent the situation in the first place...ie...know YOUR limits as well as the limits of your gear....But if you look at LODD's you will see Trauma and Cardiac as #! and #2 causes....trauma being MVA's with ejection from vehicles is right up there.....THE most important peice of equipment we have sits upon the top of our shoulders...we need to use it...!!! And yes I classify "experience" as training.....kind of like learning the hard way but a valuable tool as well.......Stay safe and remember to keep the faith......Paul
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Permalink Reply by Chaplain Robert A Crutchfield on
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I think lack of training is probably the biggest part of it. And when I say training I don't just mean the hose crew. If our firefighters are going to far into the fire, or anywhere else they shouldn't where's the oversight ? Where's the indident commander ? The safety officer ?
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Permalink Reply by Jenny Holderby on
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Ok - 20+ yrs ago when I became a fire fighter I had a cotton duck coat and rubber roll up boots. There was more boot than I had leg. I was given Chieftan helmet that by today's standards looked like a toy with a 1/4 face shield and a thin strap that buckled or hooked that would never stay on. Those big orange rubber fire ball gloves were hard to contend with but kept your hands dry. Nobody used SCBA because we didn't have SCBA & when we did it was for interior attack only. You didn't need it to do overhaul & you didn't wear it unless you were on the nozzle. The bottles were heavy & they only lasted a few minutes. Getting them refilled was a real pain as well. If you weren't wearing SCBA you couldn't stay in long because your lungs didn't allow you to, your eyes burned & usually when you came out, hot, tired & black from soot & smoke, you went somewhere & threw up. BUT!!! You knew when you were too close to the fire when you got your eyebrows singed or your nose scorched.
Today, a room & content fire has more carsenogens, more petroleum, more EVERYTHING that makes it a hotter more toxic fire than the wood & plaster, fiberglass, cotton & wool that furnished homes forever ago. Building construction is different. Years ago fire burned up through the roof & vented itself quite easily.
As far as PPE - We are a lot smarter these days. The fabric today's gear is made of gives us more protection but is lighter than the old rubber lined duck. EVERY body wears full PPE on all fires & SCBA is part of that. We need to be protected if there is a flashover or explosion or what ever. PPE is rated to withstand temps of between 1800 & 2200 or 2400 degrees depending on what you buy. Hoods & helmets & gloves & all that stuff leaves nothing exposed. The new bottles are lighter, the packs are lighter & hold more air so you can stay in longer. You can't tell how HOT the fire is which could get you into trouble.
Now here is where I get in trouble. The ONLY reason to be IN a fire that hot is a rescue. If there is no viable life, and I mean VIABLE, if someone has been in a fire so long that you know it isn't a resuce but a recovery, why do we put ourselves in that much danger? Why do we put ourselves in a building that could have burned through the floor or the ceiling or the roof that has structural damage from heat & fire, then do more water damage & STILL put crews in there? To test fate? To see if we can so we have stories to tell?
In "protecting" us more, does that make us braver? Or does it make us forget that we are not superhuman?
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Permalink Reply by Mark DeVille on
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I think you are right for the most part regarding training as a whole. As the art of firefighting evolves we have to evolve with it or people die. The reason I say this is the fact that we as FFs aren't getting the "fire time" as my dad did in his day. He always said " if your not doin you better be trainin". We're doin alot more EMS, hazmat, rescue, etc. calls. This is not a bad thing. I will come back to the gear debate, sorry for goin on a tangent. Our new gear gives us a new realm of FF abilities yes, so with our new abilities comes a new concept, REHAB. We are still doin the hero thing by goin in bottle after bottle with no brakes. We aren't giving rehab a fair shake here. We need to implement a rehab procedure in our operations and make sure our brothers and sisters aren't goin back in or doin more overhaulin when they should be resting. Having a BLS ambulance crew on standby taking vitals and ensuring rehab is followed is essential in my opinion. Adopt this into your SOP's everytime. You can only deprive your body for so long before it makes you sick resulting in the ever so common MI(heart attack) after the fact. Take care of ourselves now and live to tell about it. Little "longwinded", very passionate about rehab. I think we'd be stupid to get rid of the new gear. WE just have to train and take the time for rehab. I also have to comment about physical conditioning of ourselves, implementing a physical conditioning procedure or level of for front line FFs is the way to go, in my opinion. And again, training, training, training.
Cheers!
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Permalink Reply by Walter Messer on
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how does the Physical well being have anything to do with the "Heat related injuries" I think he meant burns like happened this week in CA.
I believe it's both gear and training and knowledge of both
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Permalink Reply by Jeff Cole on
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I don't think we need to blame "the gear" at all. And alot of training nowdays that seems to be "new" is nothing more than repackeged training. I'll site "The art of reading smoke" as one. While it is an extremely valuable tool, and some forward-thinking professionals have built actual courses out of this topic, it's really nothing new to those who have been around, and remained students of the game, so to speak. You see back during those "war years" in which one reply here mentioned the minimal protective clothing of that era, you have to remember that those firefighters were going to work everyday and seeing work, real work, every day. And in many cases, they had two, three, or even more seats filled on the apparatus. Many of the jobs were indeed arson, so that meant you were arriving to a well developed fire already in progress. The Officers were experienced. They understood FIRE BEHAVIOR because they saw it day in and day out. They learned how to read smoke, how to read buildings long before anyone would declare it an "art"
Now, of course we have different problems. We all know how combustible and toxic modern materials are. We know how quickly buildings can collapse. But we should NOT ever use the term "suddenly without warning" when there is far more information out there now as ever before to educate ourselves, and we have computerized information available instantly about what is built out of what, provided we took the time, and went out and actually visited, and learned about our response "locals". We now have so many buildings protected by automatic alarms systems, that we are getting notified quicker. No more hoping someone would pull the hook on the gamewell box on the corner, now everyone has cell phones. We are getting there right at the vulnerable time. Fires will flashover quicker, for all those reasons... construction, occupancy, fuel loading and composition. And now most all of us have fewer firefighters riding to the job. Fewer volunteers available, fewer career positions, and those who got caught up in that big EMS push who are now split, with half the engine, or truck company committed to a previous EMS incident when the fire comes in. So usually what get's delayed? Truck work! The engines gonna have more staff, almost always. We GOTTA have water, right? Well we GOTTA have ventilation too! There's nothing hard to understand here. It shouldn't be up for debate. Yes our gear enables us to penetrate deeper, but that's no excuse for lack of education. No excuse for improper tactics. Understand that there is now smoke byproducts that can, and WILL flash-ignite at temperatures you won't even feel in enough time to react. So train, learn. If ya have a new, lightweight construction dwelling of truss floor and roof construction, and you see visible smoke at the ceiling when you walk through that front door, start to poke a few holes! Make damn sure that fire isn't running over your heads already!
As for firefighters wanting, or having to get up too close to the fire, well I have taken some of those course too. Remember everything you learn is in some way, shape, or form, written or developed off of someones opinion, just like this post is...mine. Yes, we have to get as close to the origin of the fire as possible to confine and control it, then extinguish it quickly to the least amount of damage. But we also have to SEARCH the building! It isn't all about getting close to put the fire out. It's about the search! BUT it MUST be done in an intelligent way using the proper tactics. And you CANNOT use the proper tactics if you don't a) understand or know them, b)train on them), c)have the work to gt the experience) and d) HAVE ENOUGH FIREFIGHTERS! One of the biggest problems occurs when smaller, inexperienced, and short-staffed fire departments try to emulate the tactics of large, urban departments who have more pesonnel riding the engine and truck than some departments have in their entirety. You just can't do it! You have to adjust your tactics to fit your departments profile. It's that simple. And if that does in fact mean you stand outside and flow water through the windows, then by all means that is what you do! If your not enjoying fully staffed engines and TRUCKS that arrive with trained, experienced, competant OFFICERS and firefighters able to open up, ladder,search, and stretch the line all at the same time, like it was meant to be, your probabaly putting most emphasis on gettng that line moving (as you should), but NOW you better know how to read that damn smoke because you are short on the truck work!
But bottom line is that now days many officers have little actual experience themselves. You don't learn this business in a year, or after a "few" fires, and by that I mean FIRES, where your humping the line inside, making the push, and learning to understand how to trust your gut. No, you need a good four to five years at least before you can really formulate those experiences into a reference guide of information to base gut reaction on.
Your gear is just your work clothing. Nothing more. You should fully understand it's limits, construction, and what it can and can't do for you. And you should know EVERY tool you use backwards to frontwards. How many of you can identify all your radio channels by just the blind click? Or the function of everything on your SCBA ? It SHOULD be all of you, yet I know firefighters who know their cell phone features better than their life saving equipment. All these things are our tools and we should be fully profecient in their use. The real challenge , which will directly impact life safety, is knowing buildings, and how fire moves through them,how it affects them, and how to recognize all of it. Too many firefighters, especially newer ones are too impressed by the apparatus, the equipment, the raw emotion, and in some cases, the exaggerated self-importence they get out of belonging. It aint about that. This stuff aint cool, this stuff is real.
Good topic though, good discussion. Are we going in more because of our gear? I hope not.
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Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on
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"A lot of the older ones never wore one and still dont, because thats what their used to."
Facial burn injuries... if you are lucky... will result in many skin grafts, lots of surgeries, and lots of pain... anyone who does not wear an aramid fiber or nomex hood into a structure fire needs to either learn how to do things better or retire.
If you are performing a rescue in a house fire, what good are you at searching, locating and retreiving victims if you become a victim yourself?
The cartilage in your ear melts at some ridiculously low temperature. Do you really want to loose your ears?
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Permalink Reply by Firefighter Spot on
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Check out my recent article:
When joining the fire service, the first thing a probie can't wait to do is put on a set of gear and get it dirty. We are taught early on how important it is to wear our full PPE when on the job — but the latest technology is working both with and against us.
Modern PPE allows us to go deeper into buildings for longer periods of times, but can give a false sense of invincibility. With this Superman-like feeling, we can find ourselves in situations like never before. Synthetic oil-based materials being used nowadays are increasing the overall temperature and speed of growth rates of fires, but our new advanced PPE is not allowing us to sense the extreme heat until it is too late...READ ALL with VIDEOS!
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Permalink Reply by Steve Blodgett on
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Is it lack of training? Most firefighters today, volunteers included, are trained, and trained, and trained. Firefighter I, Firefighter II, Firefighter III, and specialized courses. In their formalized training, Firefighters are taught the limitations of their gear, and how the fire load has changed over the years. We have the knowledge, but sometimes we don't seem to use it. Our PPE, including our turnout gear and proper air management, should be providing additional protection to us if we get caught in a totally unexpected situation, not enabling us to deeper and stay longer in places we shouldn't be. Unfortunately I believe it is 'attitude and culture', not the gear, and not the training. When we change the culture, following the words "Risk a Lot to Save a Lot, Risk Little to Save Little", we'll see significant reductions in FF injuries and deaths.
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