E85 Requires New Tactics
I was talking with another guy about the upcoming car races here in Miller at the Miller Speedway. Our discussion turned toward fuels that are used in race cars, including E85.
A couple minutes later, I visited the FireChief.com website and what do I see? An article about E85! I figured this must be some type of sign that I should write a post on E85. This from FireChief.com:
Fire chiefs should be aware that E85 fuel, an alternative fuel composed of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline, is gaining wider distribution in the Midwest, primarily in the states of Illinois and Minnesota.According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, fires involving E85 should be treated differently than conventional gasoline fires because E85 is a polar/water-miscible flammable liquid. E85 is highly flammable and can be easily ignited by heat, sparks or flames. The DOT recommends following Guide 127 in the 2004 Emergency Response Guidebook.
Here is a link to Guide 127(pdf) from the ERG.
Disentanglement Drill
Disentanglement Drill
Fire Engineering has a good article on disentanglement. Captains Jim Nagle and Jeff Edmonds, of the Everett (WA) Fire Department Training Division put the article together. Here is my favorite piece:
We found several commonalities among crews most successful at getting through before running totally out of air: They stayed closely bunched. This enabled team members to untangle each other, and aided communication. Those that became spread out were less effective because they had to duplicate effort, and work on their own. In addition, crews who created a low profile by putting their air bottles in the corner, and basically inching through on their backs, found greater success. Those that stuck to the typical crawl on hands and knees became entangled time and again.
Emphasis mine.
Photo courtesy of PennWell Corporation.
What a great way to get your SCBA out of the way in an entanglement situation.
They also list 10 things to remember in entanglement situations. Read the whole article - good stuff.
Serious Training Mishap on Video
You've got to watch this short video (courtesy of 43 Firefighter) that shows a serious live fire training mishap.
Click HERE for the video.
Why would someone even think about entering that environment? Something was seriously wrong here. I hope the firefighters weren't injured too seriously.
I don't have any details on this incident, but I'm doing some checking. If you have any info, I would appreciate it if you would send me an e-mail or leave a comment.
UPDATE: This video has apparently been around for some time. The incident happened at a public open house for a fire department in Maryland. Here is a thread from Firehouse.com where the video is discussed.
Frank Brannigan Passes Away
I just received an email update from Firehouse.com. Fire educator Frank Brannigan has passed away.
Francis L. "Frank" Brannigan, author and expert in building construction as it relates to firefighting science, passed away Tuesday morning at his home in Calverton, Maryland. He was 87.Best known for his book, Building Construction for the Fire Service, Third Edition, Brannigan was a sought after expert who regularly wrote and spoke on the dangers of building collapse when exposed to fire. His general theme was always, "THE BUILDING IS YOUR ENEMY KNOW YOUR ENEMY. KNOW YOUR ENEMY!"
Firehouse.com has lots of info about Frank's huge contribution to firefighting. They will be featuring his accomplishments and the fire service's memories of him throughout the rest of the week.
We would like to express our condolences to the Brannigan family.
Air Tanker Pilots Train on Simulator
There is now a simulator for air tanker pilots to train on (from FlightInternational.com).
The US Forest Service (USFS) is to expand what it claims is the first simulation system catering to the operational challenges of aerial firefighting.The Aerial Firefighting Simulator has been operational since April 2005 at the USFS’s Wildland Firefighting Training and Conference Center at the McClellan Park airport/industrial complex near Sacramento, California.
Its purpose is to hone the tactics and skills required of pilots and air tactical group supervisors to attack huge wildfires, but not to fly a specific aircraft, says the USFS Pacific Southwest Region’s Fire and Aviation Management Group regional aviation safety manager Dennis Brown. “We assume that the people who will train here already know how to fly,” he says.
It won't be too long and there will be simulators for many more wildland firefighting positions such as strike team leaders, crew bosses, incident commanders, etc.
Firefighters Train to Overcome Fear
Here is an interesting article from EMSResponder.com about how firefighters and EMS personnel overcome their fear.
Firefighters, law enforcement officers and those engaging in other risky professions and recreational activities have to override their fears and instincts, or unconscious responses to a stimulus, to do their jobs. They do this through training and repetitive drilling that makes their responses automatic and by learning how to work as a team, metro-area physicians and public-safety providers say....
"The ultimate goal is to have confidence in the equipment and in themselves through a lot of repetition, through mentoring and understanding these things are present," Capt. Parker says, adding that firefighters rely on and back each other to do the job, which boosts their confidence.
"It's OK to have a fear, but the firefighters have a job to do, a mission to do, and are part of a team," he says.
Good stuff. My favorite quote from the article and the way I deal with my fear is this:
"Once you have a task you're working on, if you're concentrating on your task, you're not concentrating on your fear."
The key thing that I picked up from the article is that repetitive training is very important. Train, Train, Train!
Indiana Firefighters Help Train Iraqi Firefighters
Some firefighters from the Fort Wayne Fire Department are helping train Iraqi firefighters in Baghdad (from the News-Sentinel).
The Fort Wayne Fire Department is accustomed to racing from one side of the city to the other, dousing fires and rescuing people.For the last several months, though, the local department has been helping battle blazes a little farther away – nearly 6,400 miles, to be exact, in Baghdad, Iraq, by sharing training materials.
Read the rest of the story to find out how the connections were made between these two fire departments. Once again, this proves that firefighting is a brotherhood, regardless of where you live, what your political affiliation is, or what religion you follow.
Safe Operation of Emergency Vehicles
The USFA and the NFVC have a new online program regarding the safe operation of emergency vehicles (from the USFA).
WASHINGTON, DC. - The Department of Homeland Security's United States Fire Administration (USFA) and the National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) announced today the Emergency Vehicle Safe Operations for Volunteer and Small Combination Emergency Service Organizations is now available on-line. This innovative, web-based educational program includes an emergency vehicle safety best practices self-assessment, standard operating guideline examples, and behavioral motivation techniques to enhance emergency vehicle safety. As crashes from privately-owned vehicles are the leading cause of volunteer firefighter on-duty fatalities responding and returning to emergencies, this program also discusses critical safety issues of volunteer firefighter safety in them.
I haven't read through the training material, but I will. We have some drivers on our department that should go through this training.
College Degree in Emergency Management
Check out this story from AP (via Firehouse.com). It details the growth of college degree programs in emergency management.
The Higher Education Project sought to change that by persuading colleges to offer degree and certificate programs in emergency management, aimed at producing a new breed of professionals who could assume posts often held by ill-equipped appointees.Students scattered across the country go through research-based courses in subjects like quarantine and epidemiology; disaster-specific instruction for floods and earthquakes; lectures on politics, planning and leadership; and onsite experience in everything from community emergencies to the Asian tsunami.
"What, ultimately, all of us hoped was that by making this a degree program, we would start churning out and educating emergency managers who had a broader perspective," said George Haddow, a deputy chief of staff for FEMA during the Clinton administration who is now a private emergency management consultant. "Just, generally, professionalize the discipline."
Blanchard says there were four college programs in emergency management in 1994, but today there are 121 and 110 more are under consideration. They're becoming so popular there is a shortage of qualified professors.
I didn't realize there were so many of these programs out there already. I think this is a good thing. However, I think the emergency managers will need field experience in addition to a college degree to be effective.
OSHA Forces Commitment
Here is an interesting article about the fire brigade at the James Lick Observatory in California. The University of California-Santa Cruz was using employees of the observatory to staff the fire brigade when fires broke out. However, OSHA regulations require that the personnel receive the proper training. It looks like UC – Santa Cruz opted to reduce their fire protection instead of committing to training their personnel.
"The briefing by the OSHA investigator was very explicit," said Stone: "If we fight fires, we're liable for major fines."So the brigade has been renamed the Mount Hamilton Safety Brigade. It can assist firefighters and respond to medical emergencies -- always a key function for its members. It can keep an eye out for fires -- especially important in a high-brush summer after a wet winter, like this one, said the mountain's resident police officer, Mark McDonald. But it can't fight them.
I wonder if they considered forming a volunteer fire department at the observatory instead relying on distant units to provide fire protection.
