Universal Firefighter ID Card

One of my professors at school, a very experienced and knowledgable Haz-Mat guy, made mention during one of our classes of some one considering to introduce the idea of a universal firefighter's ID card. The idea is that the card would be issued to firefighters and specifically list all of that individual's accredited training and certifications like Haz-Mat cert, FFI or FFII cert, Rescue cert, etc. I'm not exactly sure what the prupose would be aside from maybe pulling up on scene of say, an accident and rendering aid... just to protect one's self.

What's your opinion? Any thoughts?

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Permalink Reply by Micheal A Whelan on October 5, 2010 at 10:01am

This idea has been around for more than a few years now. The Federal term coined FRAC, (First Responder Authentication Card) intended to speed up the check in of responders to Type 2 and Type 1 incidents. As per normal with a top down push the bottom pushed back as the initial "plan" lacked knowledge of the needs of the field incident management. In Colorado they tried the CoFRAC and it is still fighting the politics. The Feds are pushing the Federal model (PIV-I) the locals want a standardized accountability model. This scenario repeats itself in many of the areas I work. There is good logic for a national emergency responder ID. It is called mutual aid. The MABAS group in northern Illinois is using a standardized ID that spans 12,000 responders in three states. When a large disaster strikes (tornado hits Chicago) people will be arriving from all areas and must be tracked and accounted for. (Basic management and safety) Their solution does it quickly. Do we need a national standard ID? The answer is Think National, Plan Regional, Act locally. After all we represent 250 years of tradition not affected by progress.

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Permalink Reply by Micheal A Whelan on October 5, 2010 at 10:09am

Jeremy,

Your system in New Jersey is probably from Salamander. If it is your ID is becoming the standard in your state and many others. If you went to the Fire Rescue International conference in Chicago this year, had your agency ID with you you could have checked into the exercise they had using MABAS system. They checked in, organized and preped for deployment over 900 responders into 300 companies in 90 minutes. Your ID would have scanned right in. That ID is common at over 5000 agencies in the US. After spending over 30 years operating at many Type 1 and 2 incidents, never trust the IC to know who and where you are. They do not unless you are properly checked in and assigned.

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Permalink Reply by Louise Thornton on October 5, 2010 at 11:45am

I don't know what good it would be expecially when there are FF's on volunteer department who are not cert. except buy their own dept.

The Good Samaritan Law protects anyone who in good faith renders aid in an emergency as long they don't get paid. This law use to not cover MD's RN's, but now it does.

All FF's should carry department ID even the volunteers.

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Permalink Reply by Capt./Chaplain Mike Petrosky on October 5, 2010 at 12:11pm

We have a county wide system that is accountability driven. Each dept. has a individual color and your credential are on one side with a barcode on the oposite side that contains your medical and emergency contact info. When you arrive on scene you are scanned in at staging and scanned in and out as you go in and out of the hot zone. But yes it is county wide and contains our training info. and medical info. and can be used as a identification tool also.

Universal Firefighter ID Card

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