Yes I am needing help in locating NFPA code or requirements on officers being present at all structure fires. I know I have heard it before and insurance companies want this but I need to find it in writting. The issue I see is we are sending out fiefighter with less than 2 yrs exp. and we do not have a officer present on structure fires in many cases and promotions are not to be seen in the near future. Any help is appreciated.
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Why should it matter if it is an in town or out of town fire? The question asked was if there is NFPA code or requirements on officers being present at all structure fires. The issue was answered by the responses that the role of an officer is to be filled, but it doesn't mean one has to hold the rank of an officer.
To expand a bit, just holding the rank of an officer does not make the person any more competant to become a mandatory requirement on a fire scene. You can have some very young, new "officers" that were elected into their position based off a popularity contest, that have no clue about the role they are filling nor the responsibilities of the office. Whereas you could have a pretty seasonsed, knowledgeable plain ass firefighter with no officer rank who could run circles around some officers.
In the end, there is nothing (nationally) really stating a ranked officer has to be on the scene of a fire, however, the roles should be filled.
Do you know how many fires would have been put out sooner without officers......but that being said, I used to tell the younger officers (we're volunteer), keep calling engines until someone gets there that knows what thier doing.
My thoughts are people make it much too complicated. For most SFD's its water supply, size up, put out fire. That took 2 seconds. But sadly most people forget the first, don't do the 2nd and don't worry about the last because its too cool to talk on the radio. Best thing I ever heard in the fire service, "put down the radio and put the fire out" Chief Merganthaler, Millcreek FC, 1987
Agreed. Working as an officer in one city could mean they go to two fire each year with nothing but single family houses. While a veteran firefighter may work in a larger city with many types of structures and go to fires every month. I would let that fireman lead me over the officer any day. There's no certain class you can take that makes you a great officer. It comes with experience.
Also NFPA is not some law. Many people don't get that.
We had encountered an incident where we had an out of town structure fire and at that time the department consisted of 2, 3 man shifts and 1, 4 man shift. Chain of command was Chief, Captain, FF II, and firefighter. This posed a problem at that time with the 2 FF on out of town fires due to either arguments of what need to be done along with the Captain holding the FF II at the station and run the scene from the station. This resulted in a single room and content fire consuming an entire structure along with an exposure storage garage. The main reason was a debate over laying a supply line 400 feet to maintain water supply. There was several questions asked to that Chief as to how this structure was lost. At this time the FF II were all moved to rank of Lt. without pay increase just title due to information he obtained that a Lt or higher must be on all structure fire. At this point they were required to respond 1 officer to all reported structure fires. During the time of the post question there had been incidents with the less than 2 yr exp firefighters arriving on scene and failing to notice a down powerline and luckily was not injured when he stepped on it doing a size-up, along with other scenes where experience could have made the scene more safe. Another incident of an out of town fire where the senior ff gave instructions and was ignored on several occassions, even when doing as the IC from the area department had commanded. My concern was the possible issue that had taken place in the past along with liablity of the senior ff and fire department for something going wrong on scene . Even though responding to out of town areas in many cases there is no response from that area department or upon arrival they choose not to take command when offered considering we are first in on many cases.
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