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Other departments safety.
Does anyone else have an issue with a fellow departments safety? My problem happened last night when me and my asst. chief went to assist our neighbor department with a structur fire. We arrived on scene they had sevreal problems but the major one was with thier "safety officer". We packed up and was assigned with venting the roof, while in the process of doing this thier safety officer came on the roof to make sure we were doing it right. Thats okay it's thier scene but the problem was that he didnt have any gear on. No pack, jacket, pants or even a helmet. After venting the roof we assisted with the interior attack. He stood at the door dressed the same way, no gear. Later while we were doing salvage he came in the strucutre dressed the same way. When we talked to thier chief about it he got upset at us and said it's the way he has been doing it for 25 years. I guess we shouldnt have said anything but we felt it needed to be said. How would you deal with this? Also sorry in advance for the errors Art.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by morris washburn on
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Hi Justin , well I would have done the same thing . I m a 30 yr vet. here and I would have not tolerated it if I was Chief ! I dont care how many yrs anyone has YOU follow SOPs and if OSHA came in and saw that I am sure the dept. would have been shut down ! Who is at fault if the safty officer gets hurt ? The Chief !! he is responcible for all personal on the scene . I guess , I would have to say over all do as i say or go home ! As a saftey officer he ( I hope ) has done all the correct training , to be 1 .
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Permalink Reply by Joe Stoltz on
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You know, some people just don't get it. You would think that with 25 years on the job, a firefighter would realize what all that fancy gear is for - besides looking cool and macho and all that crap. Did he at least have his baseball cap on?
There are a few ways this could have been handled. One, a mutual aid chief could have offered to fulfill the role of safety officer since our "hero" seemed to have misplaced his turnout gear. Second, another firefighter might have offered his/her gear to the person for the duration of the incident.
There's no way you can ignore this behavior. The way you guys handled it was probably as good a way as any. Too bad if their chief got upset; he was probably supremely pissed about the SO not having gear, and embarrassed that someone called it to his attention.
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Permalink Reply by Jenny Holderby on
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First of all, I have come to realize that a lot of FDs don't grasp the concept of what a Safety Officer IS. It is absolutely amazing to me that there are a number of firefighters with the title Safety Officer who have had NO safety training. They operate under the assumption that a SO is there to see that you are doing things right, but not necessairly safetly. I don't think they have a clue what NFPA 1500 or 1521 are, much less what they say.
I didn't know Safety Officers got involved in the middle of tactical operations. I would "monitor", maybe pay close attention because you were ON the roof. He made too many people on the roof for one thing and the fact that he had no PPE meant that he should have been well away from the fire.
Personally, I have been guilty of not wearing PPE onscene occassionally when it is hot and I am NOT near the fire itself. I often stand on the pump pannel so I can see what is going on but I never interfere with operations unless there is a problem. In that case, I use the radio or talk to the IC. On more than one occassion I have given my gear (gloves, hood, coat) to another firefighter to wear if/when his is compormised in some way.
If I do go in the structure when the fire is out it is to check the structural integrity of the ceiling or the floor and I AM wearing PPE. Anytime I am near the fire, I am in PPE. If there is a hole in the floor or the ceiling is sagging my ffs are not doing any salvage recovery in that room. Often, they aren't going inside a structure at all if there is a lot of fire damage unless it is a recovery. On one mobile home fire I had told them that no one was to go in after the fire was out. The entire structure was on fire with flames shooting out both ends when we arrived which definitely did compromise both the floor & the roof. For some reason, the AC decided they needed to go into the room of origin to find the cause & origin of the fire. (I could almost agree with that) But one of our ffs fell through the floor. Had anyone looked under the trailer, as I did, they would have seen the loose planks hanging, burned and dripping water and the floor beams sagging. That is one thing a safety officer should be doing, finding out if there is anything besides the fire that is a hazard to your crew.
In the past I have actually loaded my guys up & gone home instead of putting them in undue jeopardy on a mutual aid fire scene. I have (in the absence of my Chief) informed the Chief of the dept we were responding for that my guys don't operate in unsafe conditions. They don't need to be on a roof that has already burned through in several spots. There is no reason to raise a ladder under a dangling power line. There is no reason to enter a structure that already has a partial collapse when there is no one in there to rescue. "Why do you want my guys to do a job yours are too tired to do in the first place? Secondly, no one should be doing going in there any way. We will help you make sure the fire is out and pick up your equipment & get it back on your trucks. We will go to your station with you & put your apparatus back in service, replace your hoses, fill your air bottles & clean your SCBA. But we won't do overhaul in a collapsing structure."
There also have been times when my chief has called the other chief after the incident was over to talk about what happened on scene. Maybe that would have been a better way to handle it. That way the other chief knows that you did notice the problems but might not feel that he was being attacked for something he may have intended to take care of later or told how to do his job, or embarrassed that it had happened and he didn't know how to handle it.
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Permalink Reply by PFC Harmon on
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Me and my asst. chief talked about that to. At our scenes if we are short of manpower our SO will turn the safety duties over the OIC and help. Also everyone on scene including the OIC will be wearing a minimum of bunker pants with jacket and helmet readily availible. Thier chief is a good chief and wouldnt ask us or his men to do anything unsafe but thier department has a big problem with the "good ole boy" system.
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Well Joe, he did have his NFPA approved safety baseball cap on. He even made sure he was wearing it the proper way, backwards with sunglasses propped up on top. The sad thing is his gear was next to the truck.
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Permalink Reply by Engineco913 on
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Unfortunately there is little you can do aside from voicing your displeasure at the unsafe practices of their safety officer. I have NEVER in my 15 years of being a firefighter have EVER seen a safety officer (gear or not) come on the roof to watch the ventilation process. Was this "safety officer" a young firefighter? I would assume that the firefighters who were making an attack on the fire would be a primary concern for the safety officer rather than a small sector of the fireground such as the roof ventilation team.
Being that it isn't your department, there is little you can change. I would again point out that you were not happy with the lack of safety exercised by the one person dedicated to ensuring safety. If the CO gets pissed off, than thats the ropes. Be thankful that you were paired up with your Assistant Chief and not one of their crew with a daunting task that could have been compromised by a safety officer with a "god complex."
Lead by example. (as you did) always ensure your scenes are 100% safe, and everyone has 100% of their PPE on, including SCBA. Maybe they will get the hint from you that it is the correct way and they will bring that to their own fire scenes.
Stay safe.
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Permalink Reply by Kimberly A Bownas on
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Even though it isn't your department you have every right to say something. If he had gotten hurt or god for bid killed then there would be a very major issue with the fact that he was where he shouldn't have been without the proper protection. Their Chief needs to be reminded also that this would be put back on him in the fact of why he didn't tell the Safety Officer to get geared up. It doesn't matter if that is how they have been doing it for 25 years. The class I took in September was called Courage to Be Safe and it was all about speaking up when you see something wrong and that it is all of our responsibility to make sure that we all come home. I can not believe a Safety Officer of all people would be doing all of that with out the proper PPE and the fact that now you have to worry about him along with what your job is. That is irresponsible on that Safety Officers part as well as the Officer running that scene. Just my opinion and I'm sure some aren't going to like what I have said but, when are we going to stop killing ourselves and our own. This is really disturbing to me. Stay Safe Justin....
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Being the safety officer means your NOT involved directly with ANY firefighting. You are an observer and you correct issues that arise when and if they do. There should be LITTLE to ZERO concern of a safety officer getting injured on a fire scene. For this safety officer to be in the doorway, and on the roof (in plain terms) is unacceptable and a liability.
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Permalink Reply by lutan1 on
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Everyone has the right to challenge safety- regardless of who "owns" the scene.
Unsafe is unsafe. Not sure about US laws, but over here, if that Safety Officer was injured or killed, then you and your department would be liable under our workpalce health and safety laws (regardless of whether you're career or vol) and could be found guilty of breaching our OHS Act.
It's even scarier that this is the person who is meant to be looking out for everyone else's safety...!
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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The pertinent NFPA standards specify that the Safety Officer "shall have no other duties". If the OIC is dual-hatting as the Safety Officer, essentially you don't have a Safety Officer. Half a Safety Officer tends to generate a false sense of security.
If there isn't enough manpower to staff the S.O. position, maybe the department(s) involved need to re-think going interior.
My department is all-career, but we're chronically shorthanded, just like most other departments outside the big cities. We dispatch extra chief officers on all "Working Incidents". Typically, if we have three extra chiefs, one will get Safety, one will get Accountability, and one will get the rear division. That way, we have eyes all the way around the fire, and all firefighters are accounted for at all times without distracting the S.O. from his/her duties.
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