Tag: safety

The fatality on the Coal Canyon fire in South Dakota and two police officers being killed in Rapid City, all within the last few weeks, gave Kevin Woster, a columnist for the Rapid City Journal pause. He wrote an excellent piece about the dangers that firefighters and police officers face, and how it affects him. The Governor of South Dakota, Dennis Daugaaard, who spoke at firefighter Trampus Haskvitz’s funeral, released a column on August 19 that addresses the issue of the recent fatalities.

I have to admit that the death of Trampus Haskvitz on the fire about 15 miles from my house while I was riding my motorcycle in northern California affected me as well. I made it back home a few hours before the funeral service began, which occurred within walking distance from my house. The procession of over 130 fire department vehicles, mostly brush engines, passed within two blocks.

Mr. Woster’s column mentioned the phrase that was repeated in many episodes of Hill Street Blues by Sgt. Phil Esterhaus, played by Michael Conrad, at the end of his shift briefings as his cops left the meeting to begin their shift. We first posted this 11-second video August 6, 2009, but it bears repeating.

If you don’t remember Hill Street Blues, it was a television series, an excellent police drama, that ran for 146 episodes in prime time between 1981 and 1987. The show received a total of 98 Emmy nominations during its run and won four Emmy awards for Outstanding Drama Series.

The high-ranking U.S. Forest Service official who used his Blackberry five times during Trampus’ funeral may not have felt the impact of the fatality that some of us did, but at least he gets points for showing up.

This video titled “Firefighter Safety in the Wildland/Urban Interface” covers three actual or near-entrapments on wildland fires, featuring interviews with the firefighters involved.

The incidents include:

• a tractor-plow operator in Florida,
• a CalFire engine crew in northern California that took refuge in a house as their engine burned, and
• a narrow escape in New Mexico that may have been on the Cerro Grande fire in 2000.

The video was produced by the National Wildland/Urban Interface Fire Program and the National Fire Protection Association.

Four firefighters with the Adjala-Tosorontio Fire Department near Toronto claim they were fired after they notified their chain of command and the Township Council about safety concerns. The firefighters were offered a total of $23,050 between them if they would waive their right to fight the termination and if they would agree to never to speak publicly about the issue. The four decided not to take the money, and are seeking legal counsel to fight the township’s decision to fire them.

Here is an excerpt from an article at Simcoe.com, listing some of the firefighters safety concerns:

At a structure fire on Dec. 31, 2009, the group alleges one of the chiefs ordered firefighters into a barn on fire without proper respiratory equipment. The chief is also accused of making “disparaging remarks” about ATFD equipment, staff and belittling firefighters over the radio.

At an undated Tosorontio motor vehicle collision, another chief is accused of wearing flip flops and shorts while doing extrication work. The group claims former Chief Paul Wales was told about this, but failed to “act” on the concerns.

At a wildland fire at Sommerville farms in 2009, the group accuses one of the chiefs of heading down into a ravine despite being told not to by the incident commander. The group said the chief required rescue, which took six firefighters to pull him back up the hill using a hose line. The group claims this put the chief’s and the lives of the crew “at risk.”

None of the allegations by the terminated firefighters has been proven in court or at a hearing.

Thanks Dick

You firefighters in the eastern and southern United States — be careful with those leaf blowers. A case in point and an opportunity for a Lesson Learned:

Here is another one that is tool-related.

Thanks Chuck

A myth is developing at Redding, California’s Record Searchlight that the new protocols developed by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group about managing medical emergencies on incidents recommend or even mandate that accident victims on a fire arrive at an appropriate medical facility within the “Golden Hour”. We pointed out on July 4 that even though the myth is fueled by Jim Milestone, superintendent of the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, who was on the investigation team for Andrew Palmer’s fatal accident, the new protocols fall short of establishing target time frames for transporting a seriously injured patient.

Here is an excerpt from an editorial in the July 11 edition of the Record Searchlight that repeats their myth:

…Federal firefighters have taken the lesson from Palmer’s death and are drafting more detailed evacuation plans so they know not just how to get crews to a fire, but how to get injured colleagues out promptly. The goal is to reach a hospital within “the Golden Hour,” when experience shows emergency physicians have the best chance to save trauma victims’ lives.

Recommendations from the National Wildfire Coordinating Group also focus on creating a clear chain of command and communications so conflicting orders and information don’t make a bad situation even worse.

Bringing those lessons into the various fire agencies’ standard procedures would go a long way toward saving firefighters’ lives, but the diverse ecosystem of local, state and federal fire teams, along with private contractors, means even lifesaving changes can take time to filter through the ranks.

Delay carries a heavy cost. Over the past decade, an average of 22 firefighters have died each year battling wildland blazes in the United States. And with long-term trends seeming to bring worse fire seasons with ever-larger acreages burning, the hazards for the men and women who keep our homes safe are only likely to grow.

For the fire commanders and agency bosses who can push for progress toward greater safety, it’s hard to see a better motivation than those nearly two dozen deaths that happen in a typical year. The lives that tighter evacuation procedures might save could easily be those of the firefighters on your crew. Those heroes deserve every chance we can provide to make it home.

I wish it were true that the NWCG protocols established patient transport time frames, but until they do, the Record Searchlight needs to get their facts straight.

Thanks Dick