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IAFF president slams Calif. 'stay-and-defend' plan
From Firerescue1
http://www.firerescue1.com/fire-news/449011-iaff-president-slams-ca...
LOS ANGELES — If stay-and-defend is the best idea California's fire chiefs can come up with to do a better job containing the state's wildfires, my frustration is exceeded only by my concern for the state's residents. Stay-and-defend — outlined in several Times news articles, most recently in the Jan. 13 story, "Southern California fire chiefs debate stay-and-defend program" — should make people run and hide.
Exploring new ideas to protect Californians from the state's increasing number of wildfires is commendable, but stay-and-defend would be a failure. The program includes asking homeowners to pretend that a government education course on fire risk would provide them sufficient training to protect themselves and their property during a wildfire, thereby requiring fewer professional firefighters to be deployed.
Hearing anyone suggest that homeowners should not get out of harm's way is appalling. Hearing a public safety professional make the suggestion is shameless. Stay-and-defend is clearly a half-baked idea from people who believe that saving money is more important than saving lives.
Further reading is available at the LA Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-schaitberger23-2009jan23...
Hearing anyone suggest that homeowners should not get out of harm's way is appalling. Hearing a public safety professional make the suggestion is shameless. Stay-and-defend is clearly a half-baked idea from people who believe that saving money is more important than saving lives.
Stay-and-defend has had limited success in the Australian bush, where the tactic has been used for some time. But it has also led to disaster, and the homesteader program would not translate to a state as populous as California.
I'm not sure where they're getting their information from, but the stay and defend programs in Australia are far from being a disaster.
Most fatalities are not from the stay and defend- they're from people blindly trying to escape after it's too late and have been caught in firestorms or blindign smoke and crashing their vehicles.
The Australian public is being very clearly taught basic principles that they can adopt to make their home safer (Block downpipes and fill gutters with water, blocking doors, radiant heat safety, etc, etc).
They're also being taught (very clearly and loudly!) that just because you call 000 (Same as the USA 911 system), will not guarantee a big red truck arriving.
They're being taught to evalauate their safety and make an early decision to evacuate or to stay and defend.
Here's a link to some of the information being made available to the public:
http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/residents/index.htm
Feel free to check it out and make your own, informed decision....
http://www.firerescue1.com/fire-news/449011-iaff-president-slams-ca...
LOS ANGELES — If stay-and-defend is the best idea California's fire chiefs can come up with to do a better job containing the state's wildfires, my frustration is exceeded only by my concern for the state's residents. Stay-and-defend — outlined in several Times news articles, most recently in the Jan. 13 story, "Southern California fire chiefs debate stay-and-defend program" — should make people run and hide.
Exploring new ideas to protect Californians from the state's increasing number of wildfires is commendable, but stay-and-defend would be a failure. The program includes asking homeowners to pretend that a government education course on fire risk would provide them sufficient training to protect themselves and their property during a wildfire, thereby requiring fewer professional firefighters to be deployed.
Hearing anyone suggest that homeowners should not get out of harm's way is appalling. Hearing a public safety professional make the suggestion is shameless. Stay-and-defend is clearly a half-baked idea from people who believe that saving money is more important than saving lives.
Further reading is available at the LA Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-schaitberger23-2009jan23...
Hearing anyone suggest that homeowners should not get out of harm's way is appalling. Hearing a public safety professional make the suggestion is shameless. Stay-and-defend is clearly a half-baked idea from people who believe that saving money is more important than saving lives.
Stay-and-defend has had limited success in the Australian bush, where the tactic has been used for some time. But it has also led to disaster, and the homesteader program would not translate to a state as populous as California.
I'm not sure where they're getting their information from, but the stay and defend programs in Australia are far from being a disaster.
Most fatalities are not from the stay and defend- they're from people blindly trying to escape after it's too late and have been caught in firestorms or blindign smoke and crashing their vehicles.
The Australian public is being very clearly taught basic principles that they can adopt to make their home safer (Block downpipes and fill gutters with water, blocking doors, radiant heat safety, etc, etc).
They're also being taught (very clearly and loudly!) that just because you call 000 (Same as the USA 911 system), will not guarantee a big red truck arriving.
They're being taught to evalauate their safety and make an early decision to evacuate or to stay and defend.
Here's a link to some of the information being made available to the public:
http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/residents/index.htm
Feel free to check it out and make your own, informed decision....
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jay Nicholson on
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This is a union mouthpiece just trying to PR for more UNION FFs.
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Permalink Reply by lutan1 on
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I was actually thinking that, but wasn't too sure what the background was wit hthe IAFF.
They're called "International", but they're far from it!!!!
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I was going to pick you up on that Philly, but thought I'd check the defintion first, "most often describes interaction between nations, or encompassing two or more nations, constituting a group or association having members in two or more nations, or generally reaching beyond national boundaries. "
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I do, but I still don't agree with what they're saying on the topic. :)
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My issue is saying that it's had disasterous results in Australia.
I'd argue that it's the total opposite.
I've thrown this across to Tony P and Wildfire to weigh in on as well.
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The Stay and Defend idea is more of a Danger to Firefighters, which could result in more FF Fatalities
How?
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Permalink Reply by Medicine Man on
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I think Thomas kinda explained it. I am not sure if this is a anti- IAFF thread or a I don't agree with what was said or the tactics involved thread.
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Permalink Reply by Steve on
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I who am not a fan of the union, have to agree with them on this. I don't see any benefit to telling people don't leave until you assess the danger to your property. If anything i think you should push for them to leave sooner than the normally do.
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Permalink Reply by Tony P on
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This is a topic close to my heart.
My answer can be given in one sentence. On this subject, the General President of the IAFF has no idea what he is talking about.
This statement, quoted from the news article,
"Stay-and-defend has had limited success in the Australian bush, where the tactic has been used for some time. But it has also led to disaster"
is quite simply incorrect. Or it is a political lie - take your pick. The policy 'stay or go' has been in place now for over 30 years in Victoria. There have been no disasters. That's about as simply as I can put it. The program works. Are those statements simple enough? The last part of the quote above is " the homesteader program would not translate to a state as populous as California" - I freely acknowledge that California has more people than Victoria. But our capitol city, Melbourne, has about 4.5 million people and is surrounded by urban/wildfire interface. I live and volunteer in that interface. I can see one of the worst parts of that interface from my bedroom window. I don't live in 'the Australian bush', I live in suburbia. I wonder why the opinion that the program wouldn't translate - is he saying that Californians are stupid, that they couldn't understand, wouldn't be able to impliment simple procedures? If so I beg to differ - I don't think that's the case at all.
To put to rest some fears of civilians being tasked with fighting a wildfire. Wrong. The idea is for civilians to prepare their homes (to suggest that people build their homes with materials that don't ignite easily is good, it's another part of what we do. But it doesn't really do anything for the thousands of homes that currently exist, does it?). Our program educates people to prepare their properties, to prepare themselves, to make their own decision as to whether they stay or whether they go. And if their decision is to go, then to go early, before the wildfire is actually threatening their home. The tragedies here were years ago where people tried to stay and defend their homes with garden hoses and inadequate clothing, when they left it until there was thick smoke all around their home, when they could see and hear the flames. It is then too late! People died on their front lawns, they died on the road outside their home as they tried to escape, they died in their cars from becoming disoriented in the smoke and crashing into other vehicles or trees. They died from radiant heat. They died when they would have survived if they had taken shelter inside their homes. Solid walls block radiant heat. That is in our basic training. And it is fact.
We do not tell people to stand outside and fight the firefront. We tell them to stay outside, extiguishing the small fires started by the ember attack. We tell them to go inside and shelter behind the walls of the house when the firefront gets close. We tell them to come outside after the front has passed and to extinguish the small fires that have started. It is those small fires that grow larger and burn down houses.
When we firefighters in southern Australia see news video of thousands of cars clogging freeways in California as people try to escape from wildfires, after being told to evacuate, that's when we are horrified. That is a potential disaster on a horrendous scale. If the wildfire jumps to those roadways, and as all wildfire firefighters know, wildfires do jump, and can jump for long disatances, then those people could be trapped and if so they will die. In my view that is a disaster waiting to happen.
Please, please follow the link to my fire services' publications. Have a look at some of the things there, they are what we use to educate our public. They were written after exhaustive studies into wildfire behaviour. The techniques are simple and they are effective. They save lives, they save homes.
http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/residents/index.htm
Please be open minded about this. The concept is simple, it works. In reality, can any place in the world really have enough professional firefighters to totally protect it's residents from wildfire? Enough vehicles? I don't think that anybody who has experienced a large wildfire could believe that. We have around 60,000 volunteers in Victoria - we certainly don't have enough firefighters for that purpose.
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Thanks Tommy, I'm glad you got something out of it. This is a subject about which I am passionate. I think that shows.
Urban/wildfire interface is in many countries. It is a high risk situation wherever it occurs. We need to learn from each other; no one country knows it all, has the only ideas that are valid. We know that the concepts mentioned here can seem counter to all common sense, there are still some people in Oz that feel that way. But when the public are properly educated, properly supported, then the practice works. This is not a concept any longer in Australia, it is a practised and successful program.
I hope that you Tommy, and others, have found the small amount of time it needs to follow the link to the Country Fire Authority of Victoria's publications, to read through a couple of them - they don't take long to read. They show the simple techniques and safeguards. If anyone has any specific questions, they can be asked of the CFAvia its site, or dierected to me. Here or via PM. I'll do my best to answer anything asked of me.
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Permalink Reply by Jake Fireman on
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LOL Oh sure the IAFF represents firefighters from the U.S. and Canada. The IAFF represents what is best for the IAFF. They are nothing more then AFL-CIO "teamsters" type goons. They hold out for what is best for THEM> Sure they do things for firefighters, but they are there for themselves. Heres a tidbit for ya. Did ya know when John Kerry ran for President of the U.S. and all those pretty yellow t-shirts were behind him saying "Firefighters for Kerry"....Rumor has it that if Kerry had been elected IAFF Pesident Shlaaaaatsburger would have been the Secretary of Labor! There for you? Not hardly!
Now Stay and defend in California....ARE YOU KIDDING me ? Ive worked in California my whole career and been on wildland fires from one end of the state to the other. Up until now the "compny" motto was always GET THE RESIDENTS OUT!!!! And why could they cause more ff fatalities? Because they get in the way, they don't know what they are doing, They use water from sources we sometimes need, they have been known to start fights with firefighters on the job.....Shall I go on?
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EXCELLENT Posts Tony P!!!!
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