Recently my part of the state of Virginia was hit with multiple large brush fires affecting multiple dept. in the Metro RIchmond area. During this a Ladder company from the county I live in (and used to volly in) responded to a major brush fire threatining an abndon house. Once they arrived on scene the crew observed MAJOR fire and they decided to try and cut a fire line around it with rakes and no water. No when I say major fire I mean into the trees (check out the you tube video "Fire Behind Green TOP"). What happend next was to me a predictable event the fire began to over run these 3 and they had to run out of the woods. While doing this one of the crew tripped and feel and began to take in an extreme amount of smoke the other crew members called a mayday and then went back picked him up off the ground and all 3 ran out. The guy who fell was then transported to the ER where he was intubated for airway issues (he has since been extubated and is recovering).

My beef with this is that the Local news is touting these guys as "Heroes". Putting there picture all over the news about there bravery. The reason I have beef with this is that they should not have been where they were in the first place!!!!! They made a poor tactical choice almost got a person killed and they get a pat on the back, while the other FD's throught the area saved lives and property and no one got hurt.

I think the probelm is that we in the fire service have created a culture that promotes this type of action lets call it the "hero factor". If you read any kind of comendation or heroic reward summary it always says the person "went in a fully involved house" or "with out protection of SCBA" stuff like that. While some might view these acts as "brave" or "heroic" I view them as idiotic. Now for the ones that occur off duty I can't comment on those becuase non of us know what we would do if we rolled up on a fire with people trapped in our own vehicle with no protection. You can say all you want what you think you would do but until faced with that situation you really don't know. But the on duty ones were you have gear and hose lines and SCBA why are we risking it, and then why are people rewarding you for these things? I just don't get it. I mean would you stand in front of a charging bull with no gun??

I realize this may be an unpoular view and thats fine I just think we need to reward the guys who are doing the job the right way. Wearing Gear, SCBA, pulling lines, Laying lines, Establishing RIT, and performing proper risk analysis. Those are the guys who you reward not some reckless cowboy. I always joke that my award summary would be boring "FIrefighter was fully geared with SCBA and with the protection of a hoseline when he found victim".

Now befor anyone gets upset I am not attacking these or any guys out there. I am glad you have been lucky enough to survive your incidents, I also realize that there is a certain amount of risk with this job. I just think we should take all precautions neccessary to manage this risk. I think that if we don't change we will continue to breed this culture and continue our over 100 LODD a year. It can start with just you.