Freelancing on the Fireground

We recently had a day time residential structure fire where another Department had guys freelancing all over the place. We had a Officer from the other Department there who is a township road worker on the roof with his other township worker who is not a Certified FF trying to vent the roof when the IC demanded them off the roof they just ignored it and continued working. What do you do in this case? The OIC demanded them and they still refuse. We need some help with how to handle this problem and what actions to take to see that this never happens again.

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Permalink Reply by Bill Mulligan on March 4, 2010 at 7:48pm

It would be the last fire this company would be on with my guys.

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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on March 4, 2010 at 9:43pm

There has been some good advice here, and those work for starters, especially the critique and the meeting with the offending chief. Those are the relatively private ways to handle it.

The less-private way to handle it is to go to an umbrella organization like a county fire/rescue association or fire chief's association group, if you have one. If that doesn't fix the problem, then there are several higher-profile ways to handle it. Be warned - the higher profile methods are riskier, they will generate lots of controversy, and there is a chance that there will be some backlash, depending upon how well you present your case.

Those other methods are:

1) Call a press conference and take your case to the public. Sometimes you can embarass the MA company into stopping the dangerous behavior.
2) Call the sheriff, particularly if your state or county has a law that gives overall power at fire scenes to the representative of "the authority having jurisdiction". If it is a violation of law to disobey the orders of the IC, then you can actually swear out a warrant on the offenders...although a meeting with the offending fire chief and the sheriff behind closed doors is a better way to start this one. That gives the offender a chance to see the light, and puts him/them on warning that if they do it again, they'll be talking to the sheriff, not to the 1st due chief.
3) If the offender's activity caused more damage, you can have a frank discussion with the homeowner. If you choose this option, be aware that a) the "Offender FD" may be sued and b) your FD may be dragged into the suit. This option is a VERY high risk, unless you know and really, really trust the homeowner. On the other hand, if the homeowner understands the difference between 1st due doing right and 2nd due disobeying orders and screwing up the tactics and the structure, then the homeowner has remedy options that the 1st due department probably doesn't have.

Once again - none of these are a "Go-To' option, but if the more gentle approach doesn't work, then the less-gentle options may be necessary, especially if the offenders are risking your firefighters' safety by working at cross purposes with the IC's strategy and the 1st due department/station's tactics.

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Permalink Reply by Wade Seely on March 4, 2010 at 9:45pm

We used to sowrd fight with these at the sale barn i worked at when I was younger, the trick was to get there first and grab the one with the more powerful battery

tcss

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Permalink Reply by Dean Shrider on March 6, 2010 at 7:54am

Sound to me that if they cannt follow instructions from your officers that dept dont need to be there and should be removed from your mutual aid list. It has been done here in our county already. Needless to say after awhile the other dept got the point and has changed there ways in a hurry.