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Lights and Sirens Optional? They are in Baltimore....
Pulled this off of firehouse.com.....Your thoughts?
This August, Baltimore City residents might notice fewer sirens from firetrucks speeding to emergencies.
Baltimore Fire Chief James S. Clack said the city Fire Department will launch a multitiered response system to save the city money spent sending unnecessary equipment on nonemergency calls and to increase the safety of emergency responders and other drivers on the road.
"We just want to make sure we are matching our response with our risk," Clack said.
Under the new policy, calls to the department will be deemed "hot," "warm" or "cold."
In "hot" responses, emergency responders will react with sirens and lights to move quickly through traffic. On "warm" calls, the first units due to the scene will respond as if the call were an emergency, and additional units will follow without using their lights and sirens. On "cold" calls, responders will move with traffic.
The plans come after a fatal accident in December when city Truck 27 sped through a red light and crashed into an SUV at Park Heights Avenue and Clarks Lane in Northwest Baltimore.
The SUV driver, Iryna Petrov; her husband, Mikhail; and a friend, Igor Saub, were killed. The firefighters, who suffered minor injuries, were responding to a call, which turned out to be a pot burning on a stove.
City Council President Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake, who introduced a resolution calling on the department to study a tiered emergency response system, said the new procedure could reduce the number of times responders must put themselves and other drivers in danger.
She said the accident in December was a big factor in her decision to take up the issue.
The city's action also comes amid increasing fatalities for firefighters responding to and returning from emergencies. The National Fire Protection Association found that in 2003 and 2004, more firefighters were killed traveling to and from emergencies than in any other part of their jobs.
Anne Arundel and Howard counties have already adopted policies to separate emergency and nonemergency calls.
Dan Merson, department chief of field operations for Howard County, said a tiered plan has worked "quite well" in Howard County, "limiting the risk to the public and us."
In Howard County, firefighters use their lights and sirens on all calls when emergency medical services are required but not in all other cases.
Merson said that nonemergency calls include fire alarms and sprinkler systems going off when there is no smoke or evidence of fire. Other common calls include downed wires or people locked out of their cars. There are 15 types of nonemergency call in Howard County, he said.
Anne Arundel County has a similar system.
"If there is a Dumpster on fire, we don't send crews with lights and sirens," said Matthew Tobia, battalion chief in the Anne Arundel County Fire Department. He said that a tiered system enables crews to balance the risk to themselves and the public with the need to get to emergencies quickly.
He said that every 911 operator asks questions to determine the severity of the situation. If there is no life or property hazard, it is treated as a nonemergency, he said.
The tiered system will also help reduce costs, with fewer vehicles responding to calls, said Clack, who worked with a similar system in Minneapolis before coming to Baltimore this year.
"It's going to save on the amount of equipment that we have running red lights and sirens," he said. "Each time we are running down the street, we are putting the public at risk to save other people, and that's why we do that, otherwise we would just be going with traffic."
Rawlings-Blake said that the city will help educate the public about the new system in the coming months.
"We'll make sure we do our part," she said. "We don't want people to think at all, if there is an actual fire, that the Fire Department will not come. It's a matter of how they respond."
jessica.anderson@baltsun.com
This August, Baltimore City residents might notice fewer sirens from firetrucks speeding to emergencies.
Baltimore Fire Chief James S. Clack said the city Fire Department will launch a multitiered response system to save the city money spent sending unnecessary equipment on nonemergency calls and to increase the safety of emergency responders and other drivers on the road.
"We just want to make sure we are matching our response with our risk," Clack said.
Under the new policy, calls to the department will be deemed "hot," "warm" or "cold."
In "hot" responses, emergency responders will react with sirens and lights to move quickly through traffic. On "warm" calls, the first units due to the scene will respond as if the call were an emergency, and additional units will follow without using their lights and sirens. On "cold" calls, responders will move with traffic.
The plans come after a fatal accident in December when city Truck 27 sped through a red light and crashed into an SUV at Park Heights Avenue and Clarks Lane in Northwest Baltimore.
The SUV driver, Iryna Petrov; her husband, Mikhail; and a friend, Igor Saub, were killed. The firefighters, who suffered minor injuries, were responding to a call, which turned out to be a pot burning on a stove.
City Council President Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake, who introduced a resolution calling on the department to study a tiered emergency response system, said the new procedure could reduce the number of times responders must put themselves and other drivers in danger.
She said the accident in December was a big factor in her decision to take up the issue.
The city's action also comes amid increasing fatalities for firefighters responding to and returning from emergencies. The National Fire Protection Association found that in 2003 and 2004, more firefighters were killed traveling to and from emergencies than in any other part of their jobs.
Anne Arundel and Howard counties have already adopted policies to separate emergency and nonemergency calls.
Dan Merson, department chief of field operations for Howard County, said a tiered plan has worked "quite well" in Howard County, "limiting the risk to the public and us."
In Howard County, firefighters use their lights and sirens on all calls when emergency medical services are required but not in all other cases.
Merson said that nonemergency calls include fire alarms and sprinkler systems going off when there is no smoke or evidence of fire. Other common calls include downed wires or people locked out of their cars. There are 15 types of nonemergency call in Howard County, he said.
Anne Arundel County has a similar system.
"If there is a Dumpster on fire, we don't send crews with lights and sirens," said Matthew Tobia, battalion chief in the Anne Arundel County Fire Department. He said that a tiered system enables crews to balance the risk to themselves and the public with the need to get to emergencies quickly.
He said that every 911 operator asks questions to determine the severity of the situation. If there is no life or property hazard, it is treated as a nonemergency, he said.
The tiered system will also help reduce costs, with fewer vehicles responding to calls, said Clack, who worked with a similar system in Minneapolis before coming to Baltimore this year.
"It's going to save on the amount of equipment that we have running red lights and sirens," he said. "Each time we are running down the street, we are putting the public at risk to save other people, and that's why we do that, otherwise we would just be going with traffic."
Rawlings-Blake said that the city will help educate the public about the new system in the coming months.
"We'll make sure we do our part," she said. "We don't want people to think at all, if there is an actual fire, that the Fire Department will not come. It's a matter of how they respond."
jessica.anderson@baltsun.com
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by ECB on
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I think this is an issue that should be addressed in every department. This appears to be similar to the EMS rating system being used in most places. The call is given a classification by dispatch based on the information provided by the caller. The responding units then base their response on the priority of the call. This should work in the fire response as well. Everyone will have their opinion on how this will or wont work, and the occasional event that goes outside the established pattern. When we arrive on scene of a working fire, we make the decision as to how to approach the attack based on the potential risk. It only makes sense to make the response decision based on the same thought process.
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Permalink Reply by Andy Entwistle on
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I think it is a good policy, although traveling "with traffic" in a city like Baltimore must be quite a bit different than in my district, which has not one single traffic light and where even cross-traffic at stop signs is uncommon. I support the idea. My experience is based on a volunteer department running 3-4 calls a week, meaning that many of us might make only one or two - and there's that urge when you only make the truck once in a while to want to go fast, use the lights and siren and make everything an emergency. And yet, by the same token, that very situation means you might have less than great familiarity with driving big trucks 'code three' - for me, it's been almost two months since I last drove , since I'm usually in back donning SCBA. So it takes a real effort at times to think back to EVOC and ask yourself (or remind the driver) - how would this play in court if I was asked about the "emergency" I was rushing to - a broken ankle with EMT on scene - and we ran some lady into a ditch getting there. I'm always gratified listening to the scanner when I hear the first "car" on some scene tell his responding trucks to continue on as non-emergency. It means someone is thinking of the bigger picture. I have promised myself to work toward this if I ever get to be a chief officer. That's my two cents.
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Permalink Reply by Joe Stoltz on
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I think the "warm" response description really means that other than the first-due units, all other apparatus responds with the flow of traffic. They are on the road, heading toward the incident location, but out "just driving along" until either cancelled or upgraded to a hot response. The way the article is written kind of implies that the following units are running hot but without lights or sirens.
I know Boston FD and Canandaigua FD have used this SOP for years. In Boston's case I would be interested to know how much improvement was had in the response accidents.
It should be a universal law that all FDs career or volunteer adopt this SOP, and make it an absolute MUST rather than "recommended best practice" or "we should maybe think about doing this." Getting folks to follow it however is going to be a huge impediment. As long as we hold to tradition and get enjoyment of speeding down the road with lights flashing and noisemakers on in our big red carnival rides, change isn't going to happen anytime soon. -
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Permalink Reply by V-TINE on
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im from Tompkins county, and they a few years ago decided to try something like this. they did codes(A,B,C,D), i noticed that when this happened that on calls coded D (non-emergency mode) they had to tone out our volunteer departments 2 or 3 times before a truck was on the road and en route to the call. i think that yes running your second or third rig no light/sirens is a good thing on most calls that way if your first in crew is ok without backup, your not causing even more confusion on the road by one second having a 20 ton truck flying down the road with light and sirens on the just shutting them off. i know it upsets me when i see a cop turn his lights on to go through a red light then shuts them off on the other side just to pull into a gas station to get a cup of coffee. first in should ALWAYS run light/sirens cause you don't know what you have got going on till you get there,second not unless you have a confirmed need for lights/sirens
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