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Non Emergency responses
Recent policy changes with the Austin FD concerning speed limits while running emergency with lights and sirens has me asking; why run lights and sirens at all?
But it did get me to looking at my departments responses and how many of them are true "emergencies".
Even though we do not have a written policy, fire alarms are generally treated as a non emergency response especially if it is a "general fire alarm" and no exact location in the building, or the "I've fallen and I can't get up" calls, will get a non response. But yet we run a vehicle fire on a remote county road at 3 am as an emergency.
Another local department runs "trash fires",or a check for fire, etc as a non emergency call.
Does your department differentiate between emergency or non, or do all calls get an emergency response?
But it did get me to looking at my departments responses and how many of them are true "emergencies".
Even though we do not have a written policy, fire alarms are generally treated as a non emergency response especially if it is a "general fire alarm" and no exact location in the building, or the "I've fallen and I can't get up" calls, will get a non response. But yet we run a vehicle fire on a remote county road at 3 am as an emergency.
Another local department runs "trash fires",or a check for fire, etc as a non emergency call.
Does your department differentiate between emergency or non, or do all calls get an emergency response?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Rusty Mancini on
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We treat every fire alarm with a full emergency response, until the first IC that's on scene downgrades the response.
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Permalink Reply by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on
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You know; if you recall, the Charleston Super Sofa fire was a "dumpster" fire.
Controlled sense of urgency for all calls, in my book, until someone from the department has eyes on it and has the authority to ramp down the response.
Otherwise...
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Permalink Reply by FETC on
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This has been debated before using the same Austin example. We run a few non-emergency responses...
CO Detector - Nobody reported sick or ill - non emergency response - flow of traffic - 1 unit
Elevator Rescue - no report of medical emergency - non emergency - flow of traffic - 1 unit
Fallen Lift Assist - no report of medical emergency - non emergency - flow of traffic - 1 unit
Check Illegal Burn - neighbor complaining about non-permit burning - flow of traffic - 1 unit
Some department's around here will run the FIRST DUE unit, hot, code 3, lights and sirens, whatever you want to call it. While the rest of the box runs with the flow of traffic, this reduces the liability of two units thinking they have captured the opticom, and reduces the risk of units meeting in an intersection (time wise), etc.
If the first unit arrives to find something, he can then request all other units step it up lights and sirens, this tier'd response gets your apparatus moving to the scene, with less lights and sirens and definately reduces the departments liability for apparatus accidents.
I always find it hard to believe that a smoke detector activation in some small towns... will afford the entire fleet getting a code 3 lights and sirens response, engines, ladder, tankers, brush trucks, medical unit, etc.
All that on the road and you got one hell of a liability... but hey everybody gets to play!
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Permalink Reply by John C. Querin Sr on
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We are dispatched from a county wide command center and calls are based on info from the caller with that said we will respond code even to alpha calls unless someone on scene has updated information telling us otherwise.
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Permalink Reply by Greenman on
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What people in larger departments forget is that they have the "luxury" of having multiple units en-route without putting every vehicle on the road at once!
In our small city, and county, a fire alarm warrants a full response every time because only two career Firefighters are one duty in the city and two in the county at any given time, the remainder of our force are Volunteers. If that particular call ends up being a working fire, and everyone was waiting to be told to "step up" the response it would significantly delay the arrival of both manpower and the reserve engines needed for pumping. So we do roll "hot" for every fire call and then either cancel or slow the response as appropriate once the first on-scene establishes command and advises the rest of the fleet appropriately. We have automatic mutual aid with the county, but if the call requires more than about 20 Firefighters, we have to request Mutual Aid from the neighboring counties, and that can take a while for those units to get there. If we're not quick in tackling a fire, it can easily grow beyond our immediate ability to fight it and we'll end up having to protect exposures until reinforcements arrive.
Greenman
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Greenman I understand your thoughts on reduced manning, but it has been proven that code 3 responses are at best seconds quicker as compared to flow of traffic responses.
In your particular instance with 2 paid, I would assume that they arrive most often to find the situation under control and reduce the response or cancel the volunteers all together. This is basically the same thing isn't it? by arriving first due lights and sirens with 2 or 4 FF's doesn't matter, and establishing the correct response level, this would be safer than arriving with nothing showing, starting your investigation, and have the 2nd or 3rd engine crash while forcing traffic to a call that you haven't deemed necessary for lights and sirens.
That said, IMO running lights and sirens to fill out a company doesn't warrant 3 or 4 two man companies responding lights and sirens to a fire alarm but absolutely yes to a reported fire or arriving to find smoke or fire conditions.
For your information, I made an example of some volunteer organizations that I have witnessed operating without "response guidelines" and every call they run will warrant "every truck" to respond to the scene code 3, so it will keep their membership motivated.
In my state, ambulance with patients inside the box, need to justify their level of response too, non life threatening transports all supposed to be done with the flow of traffic
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Permalink Reply by Jack/dt on
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Second truth is.....95% of the people doing the job would find some other job, hobby or past time if the apparatus didn't have it's lights and sirens going for a majority of the runs- look at the # of posts about lights and sirens..pov's etc....
strtcopr -
I might question the 95% level as I'm sure that many people don't do it just because of the lights and sirens. On the other hand, enforce (new hire and annual) physicals, thorough background checks, no tobacco use policy, zero tolerance for alcohol/drugs (yes that includes pot), enforce NFPA 1001 as well as standards for Officers, Apparatus Operator, Safety Officer, et al (in other words, Standards for being a Professional Fire Department) and you will certainly meet (and likely exceed) that 95% mark.
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While I do see your point, I am not sure the citizens in our city would agree with it.
When someone calls 911, it is because in their judgment they are in the midst of an emergency, fire alarms are, almost by definition, installed to indicate that there is an emergency, even when the people at that location cannot see the emergency (see the numerous posts in the Craziest Responses thread about fire alarms going off and Nobody evacuating the building).
If the Fire Department and Emergency Medical System personnel decide that 911 calls are not emergencies until they are verified by a Firefighter, or until the Ambulance cruises on over there to check it, why bother having a 911 system at all? Obviously "average Joe" cannot tell what an emergency is, "we'll just go see if there's anything to this nuisance call."
Complacency is assuming that a fire alarm (again, designed to detect that hot combustible gas stuff and its by-products) isn't going off due to a fire. Complacency is rolling up into a neighborhood where a fire call was placed to 911, and assuming because you don't see any smoke or flames, that it was a false alarm and heading back to the firehouse to get your shut-eye. What happens when the same house goes up in flames a few hours later with the caller dead inside?
Complacency is assuming that the "old bird" who called to say she fell and can't get up is just looking for a ride to the clinic, and it's having a serious medical emergency. Sure, some people like to "cry wolf" but it's not our job to decide that their isn't a wolf this time either. Maybe, "I've fallen and can't get up" means "I fell three hours ago and am in terrible pain and I think I broke my hip, and had to struggle to get to the phone."
As a citizen myself, when I call 911, it is because in my best judgment I, or someone near me, is having an emergency and I need professional rescuers there AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Not when they manage to get the butts out of the lazy-boys, not when the stroll out to the rig and take their time, and certainly not with the "it's probably nothing" attitude I read in your post.
If a tiered response is appropriate for your district, then I think that is a wise plan. Get at least one of the right type of unit there ASAP, and get the others rolling so they can increase the response if appropriate. Sort of a lessor evil than everyone taking their sweet-bipity time cruising on over to check it out.
As for Lights and Sirens, they are merely a tool; no different then any tool on the rig. If used properly by someone trained to use them correctly they make everyone safer and protect emergency responders. If used incorrectly and without due regard they put everyone in jeopardy. Don't blame the visual and audio signals to other motorists (Lights and Sirens) when those tools are improperly used, blame the user, blame the user's supervisor, blame their lack of training to use the tool properly. You can't don an SCBA without proper training, but are you going to blame the equipment when an untrained person fails to use it properly and gets burned?
Next time someone you love has a heart-attack and you're doing chest compressions on their living room floor, don't you want EMS to treat it like an emergency? Or would you rather they cruise on over after Andy Griffith is over?
When it's a real emergency you don't have time to take the bullet out of your shirt pocket and put it in the gun.
Greenman
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The career On-duty firefighters do run every call as an emergency, and every fire call is responded to by the Volunteers as an Emergency. We're not just talking about moving apparatus from the firehouse to the scene, but we're also talking about moving personnel form their homes to either the station to pickup additional resources, or the to scene to receive assignments. If everyone waited until a call was confirmed as a "working fire" to start moving, and in some cases driving several miles to respond, it wouldn't be a difference of seconds, but of ten or more minutes.
When toned-out for a fire call, it may take the first Enigne 8-10 minutes to arrive and make an initial size-up, if they report that it is a working fire, and everyone else waited until they heard that to respond, drove the 8-10 minutes to the station to get additional resources (reserve engines) and then drove the several more minutes to the scene, they'd get there in time to save the cellar.
Also, and I have said this numerous times: emergency driving does not equal fast driving, and most departments do not train there personnel how to safely drive their POVs while responding to an emergency. It's tantamount to shoving some turnout gear into the hands of an onlooker and telling them to "get in there and help," then wondering why they are so reckless and dangerous.
Also, your ambulance analogy doesn't hold up in this conversation. A patient in the box is a known quantity, and the Medics can make a professional judgment about the required speed needed. Prior to the initial size-up at a fire alarm call, we have no way of knowing if it's a leaky water valve, dust in a duct, or fire burning in the store room.
It is not uncommon to see Ambulances running lights and sirens en-route to the hospital and going the posted speed limit. Lights and sirens do not dictate speed, but do give the emergency vehicle the legal right-of-way and alert drivers that they need to pass. I have witnessed State Patrol Officers pull-over drivers for failure to yield to an emergency vehicle around here.
Greenman
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Never said the way some do it around here is the right or best way.
If everyone waited until a call was confirmed as a "working fire" to start moving, and in some cases driving several miles to respond, it wouldn't be a difference of seconds, but of ten or more minutes.
You obviously didn't read my original response to how the tiered system works, to clarify everyone is moving from the time of the tone. On a Fire Alarm Activation the first due is responding lights and sirens and the rest are responding flow of traffic.
I have to ask in your lengthy career, how many fire alarms have you responded to that was a working fire on arrival? Me none, most had a second call reporting they had a fire above and beyond the AFA. And my department responds to 4000 emergencies a year. So the analogy of every fire alarm call is a true emergency is debate-able. Especially seeing the second largest line of duty death category is MVA's. Even professional studies have suggested to reduce accidents we should reduce our response, speed, or number of vehicles as most AFA's with no additional information is 99% of the time categorized as false alarms under the national incident reporting system.
Next time someone you love has a heart-attack and you're doing chest compressions on their living room floor, don't you want EMS to treat it like an emergency? Or would you rather they cruise on over after Andy Griffith is over?
I never mentioned on an EMS call, that we use a tiered response system with a fire truck lights and sirens while waiting for an ambulance to respond flow of traffic.
And I never mentioned that responders wait at home for the first unit's arrival report before you respond back. You are arguing stuff that was never said.
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Permalink Reply by Brandon Chaney on
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I find this thread very interesting, because my company just had this very topic come up in our monthly meeting. In our township we have three companies in our fire district for a 3.86 square mile radius, and have plenty of mutual aid around us. We have four guys in each station from 6a to 6p. Then we are staffed with volunteers the rest of the time. The issue was we had a minimum of six pieces of equipment on the road in five min. Each of the departments had their own sop on how their members responded pov and then in the rig. So here is what we decided to do,
1) Call is paged out; it’s either a one company or three company responses depending on time of day and call severity.
2) Any call for AFA general, MVA no injuries, Co detector activation no symptoms, and any other call that has no immediate life threat will be one company, one engine, and emergency response. A second engine from that station can roll but non emergency. All volunteers going to this call may run pov hot until the first unit is on the road then it’s a non emergency response.
3) Any call for AFA with smoke/heat/flame activations, Co detector activation with symptoms, MVA with injuries/entrapment, Reported structure fire, smell of gas inside, elevator emergency, and any other call that poses some type of immediate life threat will be three company and emergency response for all units, until a unit is on scene and confirms that this call can be downgraded. All volunteers and additional apparatus may run hot until an update is given.
4) Any call that is for public service, containment, afa reported false etc are non emergency response and one company, this is considered a chiefs call and that station will standby until a chief is on scene.
5) Any of the above calls that the police get on scene and update that fire can cancel all units will stand by except for the first unit on the road and they will respond non emergency.
Each of these is subject to the discretion of the officer on the call, at any time he may request that all units upgrade or continue non emergency that is for apparatus and povs.
This system has been working very well for our fire district, this is not the best system for everyone but it works for us!
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We were toned-out to a ADT-reported fire alarm last night around 2230, and under our system the two on-duty career FFs rolled with the Engine and the Tower, Volunteers responded form home to the scene as a emergency response (lights and sirens on). The call was 2.2 miles from my house and I never once had to exceed the posted speed limit.
Where the lights and siren made a difference was when I had to enter the highway. Under normal conditions at this particular intersection it can take several minutes for a break in traffic to develop so you can enter the traffic flow. With lights and sirens actuated, however, oncoming traffic slowed to let me in ahead of them.
When used properly, they are a valuable tool to get the FF safely to the scene in order to do his job. They do not replace safe driving practices, courtesy, and common sense.
The answer to safer emergency responses is to discuss response SOPs at every training meeting, "war game" response procedures with your volunteers often as part of pre-planning, and train them how to safely drive when they are responding. Having a regular Class C license does not qualify you as a emergency driver. Most departments require many hours of driver training to operate the apparatus, but never talk about safe POV driving as part of an emergency response.
All-Career departments like Austin obviously don't have to deal with the POV issue, but the principle remains that just because you are responding "Code 3" doesn't mean you have to drive balls to the wall, when a lower speed would be more appropriate.
Greeman
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