Firefighter Down! What's Your Department's Policies?

"Battalion 512, Engine 18, we have a firefighter down on the roof of the structure..." What are you going to do? Do you have policies in place that address this efficiently?

Have you trained and do you have the right equipment needed to handle this type of scenario?

Do you have communication plans and checklists in place?

John Scherrei, Fire Chief from my department ( who just retired last week) has a great saying that addresses this.

"Train as if your life depends on it... because it does!"

TCSS, SB Mike

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Permalink Reply by Jason Brooks on December 11, 2008 at 4:23pm

If this is done in our area, this would mean a full drop and run evacuation. This would not mean that someone is down or lost. We do not use the airhorns for any other reason on scene.

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Permalink Reply by Moose on May 30, 2013 at 2:41pm

We have a county FAST that responds to all working fires and are trained to remove downed firefighters.

I am writing a "Mayday" SOG for my department, and we just recently purchased self-escape systems for our interior firefighters, once the new policy is accepted we will train our members in Mayday and self rescue techniques. We will invite the FAST as well so they can then tell us what they will do once the Mayday is called and they can train with us.

In my area the air horn blasts also signify the need to evacuate the building because the situation is becoming unstable.