Where firefighters come to talk training
Firefighter Accountability
Firefighter accountability has, for some time now, become the utmost concern in many departments; paid and volunteer. As I speak to firefighters and officers from many departments I notice that each has an accountability system, but the most common remark is that it is often not practiced at each scene. I open this forum to discuss different accountability techniques, proceedures and feedback on the success of each. Each of us should adhere to our department's accountability system, recommend change if the policy has holes in it, and instruct those who are not following this practice that it is imperative that every brother and sister goes home after that call; everyone!
Tags: accountability, call, fast, firefighter, mayday, rit, roll
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Art Zern on -
We use the Passport system as described in other posts; however, I believe as another writer stated, that accountability is more than a system. In fact, I believe is is less about a system and more about maintaining three things: contact by touch, voice or sight. If any of these are lost, accountability is lost. The company officer is the vital link (as in almost every area) to good accountability. Company officers need to instill a respect for discipline (not punishment) on the fireground that eliminates freelancing and leads to close accountability. Of course we need to split crews and sometimes a member will work alone outside the IDLH atmosphere doing ladders, utilities, horizontal vent etc........if those members are disciplined as well, they can do their work safely.
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Permalink Reply by Ron Becknell on -
I agree.
It seems in my particular area that everyone is more concerned about which new thingy, tag, computer system or whatever to get for accountability. And these things may help a great deal especially on large scenes or secnes that require us for long periods of time. But it seems that some think that because the tag is scanned into the"system" accountability is going to work. It seems logical to me that if accountability is not working using " dog tags" that no amount of money or gadgets is going to make it better. It ultimately comes down to people, especially in a volunteer dept. when accountabilty has to be done on scene , you have to have the manpower to assign one person or group of people to handle accountability the IC does not have time. I believe that the Volunteer Departments have a more difficult situation on accountability than the Paid Dept.'s since they can essentially conduct the majority of thier accuntability when they show up for work, they know who is on what truck. And all of the members arrive on a truck so there is always a group arriving together. Volunteers report directly to the scene and some will be on scene before the truck or officer so he has to play to catch up, then more arrive in personally owned vehicles which of course adds to the difficulty.
I would really like to hear from some Volunteers about they have overcome this issues and what type of accountability system they use, and how it is working for them.
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Permalink Reply by Kevin Sandifer on -
At our department , we use the passport system. It is mandatory that first thing in the morning, we put our passports on the officers helmet, and on the drivers side door. Upon arrival of an incident with muliple units the passports are turned over to the first arriving unit or the chief officer in command. One the Batallion Chief arrives on scene the passports are turned over to him. From there we have PAR (Personal Accountability Report) every few minutes. How often depends on the severity of the situation. We practice accountability everyday and on every scene.
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Permalink Reply by Ricky Teter on -
I'm with you Ron, accountability is easy with my career department, when I get on the rig in the morning I clip my tag on the accountability ring and it is done for the shift. But with my vollie department it is is different story, accountability is almost non-existant. The only time it is used when an incident becomes a major incident and by then it is too late. There were some good ideas posted earlier from some others, I like the idea of you have to turn in your tag to get credit for responding to the run and the other one I saw was the ring at the pump panel. If anyone else can elaborate on these it would be helpfull, Thanks!
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Permalink Reply by Art Zern on
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Rick,
There is truely a difference between an Accountability System and Accountability. In many cases, the fire service believes that an Accountability System resolves our accountablitiy problems such as freelancing and crew sepeartion. These issues lead to firefighters becomming lost and disoriented leading to tragic results in many cases. The type, use and practicality of an Accountability System may depend on if a department is paid or volunteer; however, real Accountability does not. As I said in an earlier post.....Accountability is more than a system.
In fact, I believe Accountability is less about a system and more about maintaining three things: contact by touch, voice or sight. If any of these are lost, Accountability is lost. The company officer is the vital link (as in almost every area) to good accountability. Company officers need to instill a respect for discipline (not punishment) on the fireground that eliminates freelancing and leads to close accountability.
Unless and until the fire service in America understands that Accountability is not about Passports, tags, pins or clips and it is all about firefighters and officers remaining in close contact by voice, touch or sight we will continue to lose firefighters due to poor Accountability. The best System in the world will not stop freelancing or eliminate crew seperation. We have had Accountability Systems in place for over 20 years, and yet, accountability is still one of the four areas that account for nearly 90% of the line of duty deaths and injuries.
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Permalink Reply by Ricky Teter on
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I understand what you are saying Art, and we still have the same issue between my career & volunteer department. At an incident with my career department it is relatively easy, we all arrive together as a crew on an apparatus and we know who our officer is and what our assignment is.
With my volunteer department, many firefighters arrive by POV with possibly only an engineer on the apparatus and possibly not even an officer on scene or the only officer on scene is in Command. Crew integrity is sometimes difficult with our manpower on scene, we may initially have only 2 members interior and send an additional 2 members up the line as they arrive on scene.
I agree that crew integrity is of the utmost priority and a difficult thing to keep control of...
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Permalink Reply by Art Zern on
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Rick,
Agreed, the accountability issues will vary some from career to volunteer departments;however, I maintain the "system" is not the issue. Rather, a recognition that the "system" will not save us from ourselves is what needs to occur. Any system can become flawed and unreliable if strict adhearance to the system is not maintained. Any change in manning, details, members leaving sick etc... will effect the system if changes are not made. On the other hand, real accountability, as I described above, places the responsibility on us... not the system. Therein lies the problem. The fire service believes, in many cases that the system will solve our accountability problems. My point remains...only we can solve our problems.
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Permalink Reply by Stan Mettinger Jr. on -
I have to agree with Dave LeBlanc.. You can have 10000 systems but if you don't follow it or enforce it they will not work.
Where I am from originally we used the "passport system" using plastic with velcro on it and small name tags made up the crew and were stuck to the "pass port", handed to command and the command boards had velcro allowing you to "move" people after the were reassigned.
When I moved here the Chief initially did not want to use that program so we went with a system I saw in a trade magazine that used a ring with the apparatus name and different colored tags for the members depending on the rank. The ring was given to command and it was hooked to a board that had rings hanging from the side. Each person had two tags, one kept in their inside PPE pocket and one hooked to the helmet when off duty. The tags were taken from helmet and clipped to the unit tags. Seemed to work well.....but you always have those that "forgot" or "lost" their tag. So we carried blanks as spares.
Then the County went to the Passport system and now we are switiching to that so we will have the same "system". This system seems to work well, but as always, people "forget" or "lose" tags. As recently as this morning we had a small mobile home fully involved around 5AM. Chief is out of town so I responded as acting chief. My DC was on scene and in command and doing wonderful so I left him and took accountability. Almost every unit showed up with no accountability tags. Our squad parked over 500 feet away and left tags in truck. The Tower (quint) brought me tags but the other engine and rescue and rehab unit did not have theirs. One showed up at command post and said "we left them in the truck do you need them". I politely told them to march back to the unit and get them and they looked at me like I was a one eyed monster. It was a simple singlewide mobile home that was fully involved and was a complete defensive operation. A perfect opportunity to exercise the "system" and it failed miserably. I will say that in order to manage that passport system effecitvely you need one person who is strictly assigned accountability and nothing else.
Accountability is so critical, but so many people take it as a burden.
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Permalink Reply by Chad Ray on -
I understand that accountability is only as good as the persons doing it. I feel accountability is more then just hooking your tag to the Rig. I feel it comes down to practicing it, implement it, enforcing it, but the most crucial is self discipline. Accountability is everyone job. Regardless of who is running or is in charge of your accountability can not be effective if we are not discipline to be where and doing what we were directed to do. I know I have caught myself starting to free lancing its easy to do. I know we all would doing anything to save one of my follow brother, so if you see them out of place, ask them, tell them to get back to there job. Some time that job sitting out side waiting. That being said my question is:
Accountability is said to be used on all calls, How are other Vollie Dept’s doing or how practical is it on smaller non fire calls? The reason I ask is most time you don’t have time to do accountability other than clip your tag on the rig, (That is if the rig is there yet.) and get to work. I guess what I’m saying is being paid FF your accountability is done more or less at the start of the day, And when a call drops you know what going to be your job more or less. On the flip side on the Vollie Dept you don’t know who going or what your job is going to be. So is clipping your tag to the truck practical and or beneficial on a small non fire call. Other then you get the FF use to using the system. Any other thoughts?
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Permalink Reply by Stan Mettinger Jr. on
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If you use it or use the principals of accountability on every call, you will use it on the big one. Accountability is important on all calls. Crews need to come together, stay together and go home together. I am in no way slamming volunteer departments or how they do business. But I am opposed to the idea of people coming in their cars to the scene. It breeds for failure, because until someone gets there and takes charge, everyone does what they want, when they want and there is no direction or oversight. It is dangerous and there is no accountability. I was a very proud volunteer in my native state for many years and for some time we were allowed to go directly to the scene. Now.,.....it is NOT acceptable and they keep crews at the station and if you want to make the call...go to the station and hope there is a unit left for you to bring. It is too late to attempt accountability after someone is missing! We are killing firefighters at a rate of about 1 every 3.1 (or something like that) days and some of them are killed because they were lost in the shuffle and no one knows or knew where they are or were when the thing went south.
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Permalink Reply by Dennis E Sampson on -
Hey Ron,
We have a simple system that came out so long ago I do not remember but has worked for us since we implemented it years ago. The tag is paper with your picture that identifies YOU and can not be transfered, carries your name,state ID # company assigned to and inside personal contact #s and medical information. It is laminated to seal it from elements.and has a clip to attach to turnout gear. Four Tags are are issued based on your qualifications, 2-yellow,1-red, 1-green. The system not only accounts for you it accounts for your qualifications on the scene. The 2-yellow, one for the inside pocket of your turnout coat that stays at all times to identify you immediately if found, Second to tag off on the apparatus. One Red tag that identifies you are qualified as an interior firefighter that is left at point of entry. This controls freelancing. One Green tag that identifies you are fully trained as a RIT Team Member. This controls who can respond with the RIT responses. We also train each other that if we forget to tag off remind that person to tag off because it is all about team work and being there for each other. No system is 100% or perfect as we are human and not perfect ourselves but to achive the highest possible benifits of our efferts. This system works for us but may not for others but with it sofar everyone has gone home. Sometimes the simple things in life are far better than Computer glitches on scene, didn't read the bar code and so on and the large price tag that goes with them.
STAY SAFE !!!!!!!!!!!!! Dennis
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Permalink Reply by Micheal Whelan on -
I have followed the information in the blog with great interest. I wish I could convince the firefighters of the US to take these discussions to heart. Accountability is about a safe attitude, best practices, Discipline, (yes with a capital D), and simple best practices. Accountability begins with the written procedure. You can not train to it or enforce it or expect accountability to work without a standard method. Accountability is about the people. Touch, See, and Talk are the order of the day. Company safety and accountability begins with the Company officer and ends with personal responsibility. It is every emergency responders job to watch out for themselves (do their part), watch out for the other responders (buddy system, help the rest stay safe), and then concentrate on the job of saving the baby. Accountability must become a habit. The only way for this to occur is to do it every time, all the time. The tag, the chicklet, the board, the computer, the RFID or Barcode, and the recording of activity, are simply tools of accountability. It does not matter volunteer, full time, fire, EMS, or police. Accountability is an attitude we must instill in our recruits from day one. We must have a script (SOP/SOG) to train our people with, require they follow the procedure, and expect safety and accountability as the norm. Accountability is standard, required, enforced, and expected. Accountability is a combination of attitude, training, and tools. The NFPA will not step up to a standard, they just hint at it. NIMS requires it, but does not say how, OSHA and many state laws require accountability but fail to define it. As usual it is up to us of the emergency services to set the standard for the good of the service. How many standard accountability courses are out there for us to use? Haw many books are available for us to study? I know of only a couple that are general in nature, offer an acceptable standard, and they are hard to find. The emergency services market should be flooded with resource material on this subject. Sadly it is not. I will get off my soap box for now, but this forum is right on. If we lead sooner or later our leaders will follow.
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