top 5 NFPA standards?

by Courtney Sanders

Dec 17, 2010

 I was recently told "we are not NFPA compliant" when I referred to something we were doing at the fire dept., that was not to the NFPA standard. My response was " well shouldn't we strive to be as compliant as we can?" Throughout the discussion we agreed that we should in fact strive to be the best we can and try to get our dept. to as close to the standards as we can. I know this isn't going to happen overnight and want to take baby steps. Now my question for all of you is; what is the 5 most important NFPA standards I should work on, and why? Again, I will start slow by trying to get "us" to these standards and then move on to incorporate more of the standards.

 A little info. on my dept: we are a small rural vol. dept.in north east Ohio, running approx 400 fire/ems calls a year covering 25sq. miles. and approximately 4000 residents (mostly Amish) we have 29 members on the roster (of which only about 12 are actively responding)

Qualifications of members:
3- FFII / Emt-b
1- FFII / Medic
1- FF1 / Medic
1- FFII
1- FFI
1- Medic
1- 36hr FF/ emt-I
2- Emt-I
5- 36hr FF/Emt-b
8- 36hr FF
5- Emt-b
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  • up

    FETC

    Interesting suggestions.

    The number one firefighter killer is medical related and nobody has tapped NFPA 1582; Part-A for new hires and Part-B for annual recurrent medical evaluations.

    Oh wait.... the reason most people, turn their nose or shy away from probably the biggest reduction in LODD's, is that the majority of hero smoke eaters in the US would be tapped to be potential non-players.

    Until city or town manager's and fire chief's accept the fact that our profession, (paid or Volunteer) truly takes an INDUSTRIAL ATHLETE to do the job, then we will continue to see heart attacks, and strokes take fairly young and unhealthy or elderly responders every year.

    I know some will say, hey man lighten up, but in reality, how many guys died because command didn't have 17 responders on the scene within 8-10 minutes, or how many brothers died because we didn't have a Rapid Intervention Team? Both forthewith examples had a human chain reaction that operationally the scene could have done things differently.

    Not everyone can play in the NFL, NHL, NBA, or MLB and neither should the fire service.

    Dec 17, 2010

  • up

    Courtney Sanders

    Because we are an all vol. dept. we have automatic mutual aid agreements with two other depts. that border our twp. for all structure/chimney fires. We also have one of the best mutual aid agreements for our area, with every dept. in the county (15) and several bordering fire depts.(18) listed for different MABAS (mutual aid box alarm system) alarms. We also have a tri-county water shuttle that a full shuttle will bring 30+ tankers (or tenders if you wish).

    Our first alarm brings us minimum : engine co., ladder co., 2 - 3000gal. tankers and a rescue squad on top of our response, with manpower would be two engines a tanker and a squad.

    Dec 18, 2010

  • up

    Courtney Sanders

    I would like to see us do at least a physical every two years to start. I've keep putting a bug in the chief's ear.... I know it isn't a good excuse at all but our annual income is only about $125k, of which we are trying to get a budget together to put on a new levy. I will be adding to the budget, line items to try to "squash" these excuses.

    Dec 18, 2010