Who is your Safety Officer

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Schwering on March 19, 2009 at 8:40pm

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My Assistant Chief fills the Safety Officer's spot, in our department. Both Chiefs live in the city, so we are fortunate to have both bosses on most working alarms. We also get Chiefs with our auto-aid companies, that can fill the safety officer slot if needed. Even though the A/C fills the regular slot, we have help coming that we can put into place quickly, if he is unavailable or has to assume the IC role. This has worked well for us, since I came on the job.

Jeff

Permalink Reply by Shareef Abdu Nur on April 4, 2009 at 5:11am

In our area, the 2nd due Chief is the Safety Officer. With every FD in our area running at and below minumum, the Chiefs have agreed to respond to neighboring cities automatically to assist in Command.

Permalink Reply by Jeff Buechel on April 11, 2009 at 12:03pm

We assign a safety officer at some, but not all incidents. We always have a safety officer at training. This is only due to some minor injuries that occured. We do not have one person assigned to the position. Being a combination department, we never know who will respond, so the position is assigned on-scene. We don't always assign the position to an officer. If we have an experienced firefighter, who is willing to fill the spot, he is assigned. Just like RIT, many guys don't want to go to a fire and not "play". It is a work in progress.

Permalink Reply by Joe Weinert on May 17, 2009 at 10:15pm

Two of my Three departments dont have a Safety Officer and one gets assigned on scene if one is needed per the IC. On my third department we have a Safety Officer and that is job at every scene he is at. Because we are a vol fire dept he isnt always able to respond to our fires so when he isnt there the IC assigns one. Our SO is a past chief and has experience in safety so it works out great when he is around.

Permalink Reply by Mike France on March 27, 2011 at 7:57pm

Our Safety officers are past Chiefs / Former officers , with training in ICS 100,200,700,300, FF1 , hazmat , NYS Safety Officer Training, Basic EMS, ladder Ops.

they handle all safety reports , report directly to the IC/ Chief officer on calls, Investagate all accidents and injuries HAve the Authority to stop  and training if the training is being done unsafely

Permalink Reply by Shareef Abdu Nur on June 4, 2011 at 4:38am

In our area, the 2nd due Chief Officer assumes the role of Safety Officer and yes, it works for us fine.  It is at the discretion of the Incident Commander to assign a Safety Officer or not.  Usually for every house fire, rescue, or extrication a Safety Officer is assigned.