m. Special Thanks to the National Fire Academy.
Thank You for Your Participation in the 2009 Everyone Goes Home® Safety Summit
On behalf of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation and the Everyone Goes Home® Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives Program team, please accept our appreciation for your participation in the 2009 Everyone Goes Home® Safety Summit, which will take place on March 6 - 8, 2009, in Emmitsburg, Maryland. The National Fire Academy has very generously donated the use of their facility for this event and we are most appreciative for all of their efforts on behalf of the Everyone Goes Home® Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives Program. Please take a moment to register for the 2009 Everyone Goes Home® Safety Summit using this form. You will be asked to provide information on your travel arrangements and arrival airport.
Event Contact:
Laurie Hazime, Event Coordinator
2009 Everyone Goes Home® Safety Summit
Phone: 313-657-0901
E-mail: lhazime@wowway.com
http://www.everyonegoeshome.com/events/summit09/
• Everyone Goes Home® Safety Summit Registration must be made online. E-mail confirmation will be sent within 24-48 hours.
• Complimentary housing is no longer available. Please see the list below for a list of area hotels.
• Registrants will be resposible to pay the NFA for meals on campus.
» Breakfast - $4.56 per person each day
» Lunch - $6.52 per person each day
» Dinner - $9.44 per person each day
» Coffee Breaks - $6 per person each day
Agenda:
Friday, March 6th, 2009 - Travel Day
• Regional Advocates Arrive on Campus before 3 p.m.
• All other attendees arrive on Campus before 6 p.m.
• 3:30 - 5:30 p.m. - Regional Advocate Meeting
• 6:00 - 9:30 p.m. - Reception Dinner / Welcome - Chief Ron Siarnicki, Executive Director, NFFF
• Combined Dinner/Presentation - J. Gordon Routley
• Special Guests and Presentations - Steve Kimple
Saturday, March 7th, 2009
• 7:30 - 8:00 a.m. - Registration
• 8:00 - 8:15 a.m. - Welcome, Updates
» Rich Marinucci
» Billy Hayes
• 8:30 - 10:00 a.m. - General Session Presentation
"The Spirit of the American Firefighter" - Kelvin Cochran, Atlanta Fire-Rescue
• BREAK
• 10:15 - 11:15 a.m. - General Session Presentation
"The Wildland Firefighting Domain and the 16 Initiatives" - Brian Bulger, California Div. of Forestry
• 11:15 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. - General Session Presentation
"The Charleston Incident and Relationship to Everyone Goes Home® /Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives" - J. Gordon Routley
• 12:00 - 1:00 p.m. - Lunch
• 1:00 - 3:00 p.m. - Regional Advocate/ State Advocate Conferences
• BREAK
• 3:30 - 5:00 p.m. - Break-Out Sessions
» Break-Out 1: Advocate/Instructor Refresher - Resources Tips and Tools - Robert Colameta
» Break-Out 2: Advocate Focus Groups - George Haddow
• 6:00 - 9:30 p.m. - Dinner/Networking
Sunday, March 8th, 2009
• 8:00 - 8:30 a.m. - Program Status Reports
» Updates on firefighternearmiss.com, Report of the Week, Case Studies, etc. - John Tippett, IAFC
» Year 5 Grant Status - George Haddow
• BREAK
• 8:30 - 10:00 a.m. - "The Art of Influence" - Howard Cross, Howard Cross and Associates
• 10:15 - 11:45 a.m. "Rubes Rules for Implementing the 16 Initiatives" - Dennis Rubin, DCFEMS
• 11:45 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. - Wrap-up/Good of the Order
• 12:00 - 1:00 p.m. - Lunch and Depart…
personnel to focus on what they personally can do to manage risk and enhance their health and safety.
This year’s theme reflects the need for personal responsibility and accountability within a strong safety culture.
Recommended activities and materials will incorporate four key areas where standard operating procedures, policies and initiatives—along with the training and enforcement that support them—can limit fire/EMS personnel’s risk of injury or death:
Safety:
Emergency Driving (enough is enough—end senseless death)
Lower speeds—stop racing to the scene. Drive safely and arrive alive to help others.
Utilize seat belts—never drive or ride without them.
Stop at every intersection—look in all directions and then proceed in a safe manner.
Health: Fire Fighter Heart Disease and Cancer Education and Prevention
Don't smoke or use tobacco products.
Get active.
Eat a heart-healthy diet.
Maintain a healthy weight.
Get regular health screenings.
Survival:
Structural Size-Up and Situational Awareness
Keep apprised of different types of building materials and construction used in your community.
Develop a comprehensive size-up checklist.
Always complete a 360° walk of the structure to collect valuable, operational decision-making information.
Learn the practice of reading smoke.
Be familiar with the accepted rules of engagement.
Learn your accountability system and use it.
Master your tools and equipment.
Remain calm and concentrate.
Chiefs: Be the Leader in Safety
Become personally engaged in safety and make it part of your strategic vision for the department.
Be willing to make the tough decisions regarding safety policies and practices and their implementation.
Hold members of the organization accountable for their safety and the safety of those with whom they work.
Ensure that resources are available to accomplish activities safely and effectively.
The IAFC Safety, Health and Survival Section encourage all fire/EMS departments to devote this week to reviewing safety policies, evaluating the progress of existing initiatives and discussing health and fitness. Fire/EMS departments should make a concerted effort during the week to correct safety deficiencies and to provide training as needed. An entire week is provided to ensure that each shift and volunteer duty crew can spend one day focusing on fire fighter safety, health and survival.
EMS General Operations
Fire General Operations
Firefighter Survival 2009 key area
Health and Wellness 2009 key area
ICS/Accountability
Near-Miss Includes 2009 key area: Resources for chiefs
Vehicle Safety 2009 key area
Wildland
Planning resources
IAFC Safety, Health and Survival section Web Page
Near Miss Reporting Systems, HERE
Everyone Goes Home, HERE
Look for postings the entire week here on FFN supporting Safety Week....It's a great time to start really thinking about safety and what role YOU play in it...…
scue's editor in chief examines how FireCARES helps departments make the safe grade in the community it serves.
Company InteroperabilityRobert Policht looks at how communications, equipment, and training assist in effective company interoperability.
Navigating Toward Career AdvancementCandice McDonald provides some life standard operating guidelines to assist in advancement - both on and off the job.
If I Am the Leader, Where are My Followers?Ronny J Coleman looks at changes that need to be made in the fire service so that leadership continues to be about more than a title or a helmet.
Growth in the Fire ServiceNicola Davies looks at career progression expectations and aspirations.
Departments
From the Editor
Lats and LongsFireRescue's editor-in-chief looks at strategies for figuring out where you are going - on the fireground and in your career.
ToolsNewsTechniques
Hey Firefighter... Cancer is Real... Believe Me!Brian F. McQueen shares why it is of the utmost importance to build firefighter cancer education into your daily drills at your station.
Nozzlehead
The Other Side of the (Fire Service) TracksNozzlehead looks at incorporating change in a resistant fire department.
Apparatus Ideas
A "Do-All" VehicleBob Vaccaro looks at the E-ONE rescue pumper delivered to the Silver Spring Community Fire Company in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.
Wildland Urban Interface
Wildfire Growth, Part 2Dena Ali looks at the threats posed by wildfires and examines the hypothesis that policies aimed at controlling climate change and limiting the opportunity for a wildfire to escape initial attack will mitigate negative societal impacts of wildfires.
Image Gallery
Hump Day S.O.S.
Growing Up and a Fire Service CareerDavid Rhodes examines how human development is mimicked in fire service development.
Distant Fires
August 1917 FiresPaul Hashagen looks at fires that occurred 100 years ago, in August 1917.
Company Officer Development
Instincts Over FeelingsStephen Marsar looks at the ways experience can improve following your instincts.
The Backstep
Tiger by the TailMatt Tobia examines the search for the "right" rank in the fire service.
…
this thread were talking about wearing structural gear to MVCs, because that's the only kind of PPE they have. In fact, some states used to have laws that explicitly stated that firefighters who were injured or killed in the line of duty were ineligble for LODD or worker's compensation benefits if they weren't wearing their structural PPE. So...they hopped on the engine and went to water rescue calls wearing turnouts.
The there has been a similar discussion about wearing structural PPE to wildfires elsewhere in the Nation...once again because lots of firefighters don't have any PPE except for structural turnouts.
You may not be aware of this, but there have been firefighters who drowned while wearing structural PPE to water rescue incidents, some pretty recently. "Maybe they shouldn't be in the fire service" isn't much comfort to the grieving widow and orphans. The recent Midwest flooding drew news videographers like flies. Lots of that video showed firefighters wearing turnout gear wading in waist-deep to chest-deep floodwater, riding in boats, etc.
My point here is that your background and all-hazard knowledge is likely very different from many of the other posters here. When you post "wear your PPE to every call" that reads "wear your turnout gear to every call" to some people. That differing perspective may prove harmful to someone with a different interpretation of "PPE" than yours.
As for the "what if" of a fire at a wreck, I've been a firefighter for 33 years and an EMT/Paramedic for 30. In that time, I've seen exactly 8 MVCs involving fire with patients still in the vehicle. In 6 cases, the 1st-due engine extinguished the fire prior to rescue/EMS arrival. In all but one of those cases, everyone that survived the fire was't still trapped in the car when my rescue company got there. In the other two cases, the fire was an incipient engine compartment fire extinguished by EMS personnel, not the engine company. Total rescuer injuries in these incidents - zero.
So...the "what if" factor leads to one wreck with fire every 3 or 4 years, and the injured are not in close proximity to the fire for most of those. The "what if" factor leads to lots of firefighters experiencing unnecessary heat stress every time they run a MVC when it is hot.
There are other ways than PPE to prevent car fire injuries at wrecks. Engineering controls like battery disconnect procedures, plugging and absorbing fuel leaks, foaming fuel spills - all are effective, and none add heat stress to the fire-rescue folks.
The fire service has played the "what if" game for far too long while ignoring primary hazards that actually kill firefighters - heat stress being a huge factor. It doesn't make sense to me to say "We MUST engage in a behavior that we know kills firefighters because we might see something that MIGHT hurt some of us every four or five years, and then only if we really don't pay attention ."
And...if a car does ignite during an extrication, have a standby crew with a charged hoseline that puts out at least 150 gpm, plus a couple of large ABC fire extinguishers, and the fire generally will go out prior to anyone getting hurt. People with no training extinguish incipient fires without getting hurt every day in this country. Firefighters should be able to do the same.
And...if you don't have a 2nd engine or a 2nd department quickly available, and if you don't have the manpower to rotate after 5 minutes, or if your department doesn't have enough extrication specialists available or on duty to rotate without reducing rescue effectiveness...those are the "what if's" that are a much bigger problem for most fire-rescue departments than any actual car fire at a wreck. Also remember, heat stress is cumulative, and the bad effects add up over a hot summer - or a career.
And...I wear full turnout gear - to structural fires. I also wear lightweight extrication geat to wrecks, water rescue gear to water rescues, USAR gear to trench and structural collapse rescues, etc. I advocate "dress for the sport you're playing", remember?…
it?
Why? Well chlorine and ammonia are the two most common gases that are releases after seismic activity or through human error. Both of these hazards are unique because they cause mass evacuations should they get out of the box. Now these incidents are admittedly rare, but working on the philosophy, "failure to prepare is preparing for failure", is a mantra I can live with. We may not deal with a log of MCI's statistically but when one happens, I'm sure glad that we trained for it.
* We need to get in place proper mutual aid agreements- NOW!
Been there done that... since the 1970's... without it we'd be hurting for sure. I can't imagine the issues that Ben has to deal with as far as isolation and minimal resources. Just access and drive time alone sound like a nightmare when you are dealing with limited resources. But like most of us, we don't do this for profit, this is not a business and whether we like it or not, we are an All Risk Department and so is everyone else, so when you call for mutual aid, you get like resources that know how to deal with what is called All Risk, but what we call bread and butter calls.
My department simply prioritizes wildland training just before the season starts, highrise training during Christmas when the kids are on school break, etc. You can get your hazmat refresher, emt refresher done, you just have to be smart about it. Both hazmat and emt refresher training is done online for example to save both time and fuel costs.
* We may need to swallow some pride. We don't have to do EVERYTHING. it is OK to acknowledge your limitations and use other departments that are already equipped and trained to do a particular task.
We are the only other department. Our response area is our response area. Typically, it is our resources that are called upon to help out our neighbors. The saying, "The buck stops here", applies to my department. There simply is no where else to turn or handle the problem. It's my job to make it "go away"...
* We need to pre-plan to determine our drivers. Pre-planning sets the tone for so many benefits to the department and the public.
Another word for this is hazard analysis or risk management, I know that you know this but probably forgot to mention this. WE have spent some significant bucks on a new dispatch system where we can track all emergency units using an active GPS locater on a map. Now, the closest unit responds to the incident verses the old turfwar's orientated response system or responding a specific engine company just because it's their district.
* We need to educate our managers and decision makers. Educate them about core business. Educate them about the real dollars required to properly equip a department to do a job. Educate them about the real time it takes to maintain minimum skill levels.
Folks running the fire department commonly have master degree's in business or finance. The days of good old boy finances are over for most departments. Professional managers make decisions now way over my pay grade.
* We must acknowledge that it is often public money we're pissing up against the wall.
We are not a business. We have annual budgets that you either justify and spend or live without. Getting money is a competitive process considering that you are going up against law enforcement, public works, etc.
* We need to think like a business. As explained, the public has expectations as to what they expect of us. What they look at seriously is response times. We move engines up to cover stations that are down because of a long response. Battalion Chiefs look at statistical probabilities to predict if additional engine companies are needed during certain times of the year.
Bottom line... I don't think we are plate spinning at all, we are just doing what the public expects and pays us to do.
TCSS, Mike
Santa Barbara, CA…