BLM begins to add badly needed rollover protection to their fire engines

Montezuma fire, fatality engine
Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affair engine rollover fatality that occurred June 9, 2012 on the Montezuma Fire in Arizona. Killed in the accident was the BIA engine boss Anthony Polk, 31, of Yuma, Arizona. Two crewmembers were injured, one very seriously. Photo from the report.

In 2009 we started to notice that rollovers of fire apparatus was far too common, and too often resulted in death or serious injuries. By July 17, 2015 we had reported on 17 rollovers of fire vehicles responding to or working on wildland fires that resulted in 44 injuries or fatalities to firefighters working on or responding to a wildland fire. That does not include non-rollover vehicle accidents, rollovers of heavy equipment (of which there were quite a few), or accidents that occurred in Australia and Canada. By that date we had had enough, and wrote an article that strongly advocated rollover protection be added to wildland fire engines, Fire vehicle rollovers — how serious a problem is it?

Engine 492, left side
The rollover crash of USFS Engine 492 in Wyoming August 8, 2013. USFS photo.

To date we have written 69 articles tagged “rollovers.”

In the article below published Nov. 24, 2021, the Bureau of Land Management notes that after another fatal rollover that killed two more Department of the Interior firefighters in 2016, they decided that rollover protection was needed. Apparently the rollover that killed a BIA firefighter and seriously injured another in 2012 (see photo above) was not enough to prompt them to take action. The agency deserves praise for beginning this program to enhance the safety of their firefighters.

By Carrie Bilbao, BLM Fire Public Affairs Specialist

The BLM National Fire Equipment program (NFEP) located at the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho provides standardized wildland fire engines, crew carriers, helitack support vehicles, command vehicles, bulldozers, and other specialized wildland fire apparatus to four agencies in the U.S. Department of Interior.

Following a fatal traffic accident in July 2016 that tragically took the lives of two BLM firefighters when their wildland fire engine was involved in a single-vehicle rollover, the national fire equipment and fire and aviation contracting programs began extensive research on rollover protection systems (ROPS). When they started working with private industry, there were no manufacturers developing ROPS for heavy trucks. Initially, NFEP and BLM Fire contracting educated the manufacturers and private industry that there is a need to invest in a ROPS to protect our field firefighters. Then they started working with private industry and truck manufacturers to design and test ROPS.

BLM rollover protection
Roll bar protection was installed in new BLM Fire engines at NIFC in August 2021. Photo by Carrie Bilbao, BLM.

The safety features of ROPS include seats with side impact airbags, seatbelt pre-tension system, and internal roll cage. The new seat system senses a rollover event and releases air from the seat and retracts the seatbelt to pull the occupants to the lowest seating position and secures them to the seat, all in fractions of a second. This increases the crush area above their heads and protects them from projecting forward. The airbag also deploys, which gives the occupants protection in the roll. The internal roll cage provides stability to the chassis to prevent it from collapsing, potentially crushing firefighters inside in the event of a rollover accident. A “superstructure” is also integrated into the fire body. It is designed to increase the cab crush angle, providing more survivable space for the occupants. The superstructure, new seats, and roll cage will provide the wildland fire community with the safest cab ever. The NFEP’s development and integration of this technology will benefit the entire wildland fire community.

BLM rollover protection
Seats equipped with side impact airbag and seatbelt pre-tension system will better protect firefighters. Photo by Carrie Bilbao, BLM.
BLM rollover protection testing
Tilt testing on a new Fort Apache Hotshots crew carrier. Photo by Mike Hislop, BLM.

“While firefighter safety is at the forefront of everything we do, it is inherently a dangerous job,” said Elden Alexander, the BLM National Fire Equipment program manager. “On a single fire dispatch, fire resources can respond 100 miles on the highway, traverse steep mountain roads, and then transition to using equipment off-road while suppressing fire. This new design adds an extra feature to keep firefighters safe. We are extremely proud of what we have accomplished and are already looking forward to the next phases of safety systems in the rest of our fire fleet. Simply said, we aren’t done yet.”

In 2021, the NFEP retrofitted 14 heavy engines with the newly developed ROPS. In the future, ROPS will be added to each contract and will be built by the manufacturer prior to being issued to the field. The outstanding work on ROPS will greatly improve the crashworthiness and survivability of our off-road wildland fire engines for all wildland fire engine personnel and will set a new industry standard. Integrating additional cab protection in all BLM Fire apparatus including crew carriers, water tenders, and dozer transports remains a priority for NFEP. The advancement in ROPS safety technology will benefit not only the U.S. Department of Interior fire programs, but well beyond them.

For the outstanding work done on research and development of this innovative safety feature, the NFEP and BLM FAD contracting recently received the DOI Safety and Health Award of Excellence. This award recognizes individuals or groups who have performed an outstanding service or have contributed unusual value to the occupational safety and health of employees, visitors, and volunteers.

The 10 Orders & 18 Watch Outs, illustrated

10 orders 18 situations

The 10 Standard Firefighting Orders and the 18 Watch Out Situations, as referenced in the Incident Response Pocket Guide (IRPG), PMS 461, provide wildland firefighters with a set of consistent best practices and a series of scenarios to be mindful of when responding to a wildland fire.

The 10 Standard Firefighting Orders are organized in a deliberate and sequential way to be implemented systematically and applied to all fire situations.

The 18 Watch Out Situations are more specific and cautionary, describing situations that expand the 10 Standard Firefighting Orders with the intent that if firefighters follow the Standard Firefighting Orders and are alerted to the 18 Watch Out Situations, much of the risk of firefighting can be reduced.

These photos and posters made available by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group could be useful. It’s unfortunate, though, that the text on the poster that contains all 10 and 18 is so small.

Downloads from NWCG:

(Note: the image at the top of the screen is low resolution. Download the zip files above for high resolution versions suitable for printing)

Why social distancing during COVID-19 may not always work

covid-19 airborne virus
Figure. Sketch showing arrangement of restaurant tables and air conditioning airflow at site of outbreak of 2019 novel coronavirus disease, Guangzhou, China, 2020. Red circles indicate seating of future case-patients; yellow-filled red circle indicates index case-patient. CDC

Most wildland fire organizations have reduced or eliminated indoor meetings, training sessions, and air travel in order to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Research and real world experiences are coming to light illustrating why this is a good decision.

The COVID-19 virus becomes airborne by talking and can spread through the air staying aloft for 8-14 minutes according to one study, or perhaps for hours according to another. Air conditioning can cause droplets containing the virus to travel around a room. There is much less risk when personnel are outside, since the droplets can be dispersed.

The longer a person is exposed to a contaminated atmosphere, the greater is the risk of introducing more virus than their body can easily handle. A short exposure may have no obvious effect, but if it is longer the disease could gain a foothold that can be difficult or impossible to fight off.

Here is an excerpt from a study published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The above illustration is from the article.

Abstract
During January 26–February 10, 2020, an outbreak of 2019 novel coronavirus disease in an air-conditioned restaurant in Guangzhou, China, involved 3 family clusters. The airflow direction was consistent with droplet transmission. To prevent the spread of the virus in restaurants, we recommend increasing the distance between tables and improving ventilation.

From January 26 through February 10, 2020, an outbreak of 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVD-19) affected 10 persons from 3 families (families A–C) who had eaten at the same air-conditioned restaurant in Guangzhou, China. One of the families had just traveled from Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. We performed a detailed investigation that linked these 10 cases together. Our study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Guangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

On January 23, 2020, family A traveled from Wuhan and arrived in Guangzhou. On January 24, the index case-patient (patient A1) ate lunch with 3 other family members (A2–A4) at restaurant X. Two other families, B and C, sat at neighboring tables at the same restaurant. Later that day, patient A1 experienced onset of fever and cough and went to the hospital. By February 5, a total of 9 others (4 members of family A, 3 members of family B, and 2 members of family C) had become ill with COVID-19.

The only known source of exposure for the affected persons in families B and C was patient A1 at the restaurant. We determined that virus had been transmitted to >1 member of family B and >1 member of family C at the restaurant and that further infections in families B and C resulted from within-family transmission.

A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences determined that droplets from speech can stay aloft for 8-14 minutes.

Speech droplets generated by asymptomatic carriers of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are increasingly considered to be a likely mode of disease transmission. Highly sensitive laser light scattering observations have revealed that loud speech can emit thousands of oral fluid droplets per second. These observations confirm that there is a substantial probability that normal speaking causes airborne virus transmission in confined environments.

From an Associated Press article — a different COVID virus in very small aerosols “remained suspended in the air almost indefinitely”.

Since the aerosol particles produced by talking and breathing are so small, they linger in the air for relatively long periods of time before gravity pulls them to the ground. This allows them to be transported over greater distances. A 2006 study of SARS-CoV-1 found that particles with a diameter of 1-3 µm remained suspended in the air almost indefinitely, particles 10 µm in size took 17 minutes, and 20 µm took 4 minutes to fall to the floor. A recent laboratory study found that the virus can remain viable and infectious in aerosols for hours (it remained viable for the entire three-hour duration of the study) and on surfaces for up to days.

And finally, a study published by the CDC about a choir practice in Skagit County, Washington.

Among 61 persons who attended a March 10 choir practice at which one person was known to be symptomatic, 53 cases were identified, including 33 confirmed and 20 probable cases (secondary attack rates of 53.3% among confirmed cases and 86.7% among all cases). Three of the 53 persons who became ill were hospitalized (5.7%), and two died (3.7%). The 2.5-hour singing practice provided several opportunities for droplet and fomite transmission, including members sitting close to one another, sharing snacks, and stacking chairs at the end of the practice. The act of singing, itself, might have contributed to transmission through emission of aerosols, which is affected by loudness of vocalization.

Analysis of 53 firefighter injuries during tree falling operations

Tree felling injuries
This “word cloud” was generated using the injury descriptors from the 53 incidents included in the analysis. The size of a word indicates its relative frequency. (From the report)

The report on the tree falling incident in which Captain Brian Hughes of the Arrowhead Hotshots was killed in 2018 recommended that an analysis of tree falling accidents be conducted “to assist in setting priority actions to reduce similar incidents.”

Captain Hughes died when a 105-foot tall Ponderosa Pine fell in an unexpected direction on the Ferguson Fire on the Sierra National Forest near Yosemite National Park in California.

A Tree Falling Accident Analysis was completed by the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center at the request of the the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service. Their study compares 53 incidents from 2004 to 2019 in which firefighters were injured or killed in the process of falling trees.

Anyone involved in tree falling should read the entire 17-page report, but here are some of their findings:

  • 53% of the time the tree fell in the intended direction.
  • 28% of the time, the tree impacted another tree during its fall—including 2 of the 8 fatalities.
  • 19% of the time, the top broke out and came back—including 2 of the 8 fatalities.
  • Of all the reports that included recommendations, 21% recommended enhancing training related to tree conditions (like rot) and species-specific traits.
  • 19% of the time, the sawyer was working on a hung-up tree— including two of the eight fatalities.
  • 51% of the time, the incident involved a direct helmet strike.
  • Of the reports that include recommendations, 24% recommended research and development related to wildland fire helmets.
  • 42% of the time, the person struck was not cutting—including in 5 of the 8 fatalities.
  • 24% of the reports recommended somehow improving safe work distance and compliance.
  • 40% of the time, the person struck was in the traditional escape route—including in 5 of the 8 fatalities.
  • 79% of the reports recommended improving risk assessment.
  • 13% of the time, the tree strike happened during training— including in 2 of the 8 fatalities.
  • 26% of the reports recommended improving faller training.
  • 21% of the reports recommended enhancing training related to tree conditions (like rot) and species-specific traits.