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Are You Ready as an Incident Commander when your Firefighters "Press Their MAYDAY Button"?

BY: Joe Pronesti

While relaxing one Sunday in my easy chair watching my favorite team the Green Bay Packers, a commercial came on for a popular electronic tablet; this tablet touted its new feature called a MAYDAY button. Supposedly when pressed by the user, a live chat agent comes on your screen to assist you with any problems you are having with the respective tablet.

I thought to myself how crazy it was that a tablet could have this technology getting you an actual live calm face to walk you through your computer "emergency" but we as the fire service can be paralyzed when we hear the word MAYDAY, MAYDAY,MAYDAY! In my opinion, we have done a better job in recent years getting our firefighters trained or at least prodded to think about what to do in the event of an emergency or how to avoid one altogether. But what about incident commanders, have we done enough for them?

A recently released NIOSH report on a tragic line of duty death in Philadelphia did an outstanding job reviewing this event; if you have not studied it please take the time to access it and review with your fellow firefighters. One thing that caught my eye that appeared new compared to previous reports was how it bulleted 13 points called "The Incident Commander’s rules of engagement for fire-fighter safety".

1.Rapidly conduct or obtain a 360-degree situational size-up of the incident. (As part of the risk assessment plan and action development plan, determine the safest approach to tactical operations before fire fighters are placed at substantial risk.)

2.Determine the occupant survival profile. (Consider fire conditions in relation to the occupant survival of a rescue event before committing to a high-risk search and rescue.)

3.Conduct an initial risk assessment and implement a safe action plan. (Before fire fighters are placed in high-risk positions on the fire ground, develop a safe action plan by conducting a size-up, assessing the survival profile, and completing a risk assessment.)

4.Consider a defensive strategy when you do not have the resources to safely support and protect fire fighters. (Do not commit fire fighters to high-risk tactical objectives that cannot be accomplished safely due to inadequate resources on the scene.)

5.Do not risk fire-fighter lives for lives or property that cannot be saved. Seriously consider a defensive strategy. (Do not commit fire fighters to high-risk fire-fighting operations that may harm them when fire conditions prevent occupant survival or when significant or total destruction of the building is inevitable.)

6..Extend limited risk to protect savable property. (Limit the risk exposure to a reasonable, cautious, and conservative level when trying to save a building that is believed, following a thorough size-up, to be savable.)

7.Extend vigilant and measured risk to protect and rescue savable lives. (During high-risk search-and-rescue operations where lives can be saved, manage search-and-rescue and supporting fire-fighting operations in a highly calculated, controlled, and cautious manner while remaining alert to changing conditions.)

8..Maintain frequent two-way communications and keep interior crews informed of changing conditions. (Request frequent progresses reports and continually inform all interior crews of changing fire conditions observed from the exterior that may affect crew safety.)

9.Obtain frequent progress reports and revise the action plan. (Obtain frequent progress reports to continually assess fire conditions and any risk to fire fighters and to regularly adjust and revise the action plan to maintain safe operations.)

10.Ensure accountability of every fire fighter, their location, and status. (Maintain a constant and accurate accountability of the locations and status of all fire fighters within a small geographic area of accuracy within the hazard zone and be aware of who is presently in or out of the building.)

11.Seriously consider a defensive strategy, if after completion of the primary search, little or no progress toward fire control has been achieved.

12.Always have a rapid intervention team in place at all working fires.

13.Always have fire-fighter rehab services in place at all working fires. (Ensure all fire fighters who endured strenuous physical activities at a working fire are rehabilitated and medically evaluated for continued duty and before being released from the scene.)

These points are an excellent start to help you in preparation when “the button” is pushed on your fire ground but as we close out 2013 and move into a new year it is my hope that the fire service makes 2014 the year of “the MAYDAY button”, the thing about this “button” is that it does not discriminate by fire, building type, and MOST importantly by department size. I worry that an incident commander in smaller cities such as the one I work in put more effort into hoping in doesn’t happen than they do in actually preparing themselves for the event.

 

Training yourself for these events does not have to be real elaborate, there are numerous fire simulation software programs available where you can input a picture of your town’s buildings adding fire and smoke conditions; a twist that you can add to these simulation is the addition of a MAYDAY, throw in an emergency with your crew when watching a You Tube video, listen to MAYDAY audio, search the internet, etc. When looking at buildings in your district ask yourself “what would I do in the event of an emergency here or a collapse trapping my firefighters?” Work on your situational awareness, train with your firefighters on handling these events even if its ten minutes at the kitchen table, the big thing is to just do it, sharpen your and your crew’s “button”.

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These are great instructional tips for preparedness. And you're right: training yourself for these events does not have to be really elaborate, just make sure you get all the aforementioned bases covered and drill, drill, drill. There are plenty of cheap fire service books out there to help speed the process up and make sure you've covered everything you need to. Not hard, just do it.

While I agree with Training RIT/RIC/FAST teams, some departments take this to an extreme and this is one of the only things that they train on. While neglecting basic firefighting practices. This in my opinion is training your firefighters to fail, It needs to be balanced both on the operations level as well as the command level.  A department that I recently did some training with was one such as this. I attended two seperate trainings and each one was some form of Firefighter Down scenario, during my time with this department doing training I asked some of the members what their normal trainings were. Each one told me that each month 2 trainings are geared to either a RIT drill such as the pittsburg drill or the denver drill or going over a niosh report of a RIT scenario. Meanwhile the other two drills a month are one officer drill and one ems drill. I could see if you have 4 trainings a month two of which are geared towards firefighter skills that one per quarter be geared to RIT but having 6 firefigher drills a quarter soley geared towards RIT or FF Down scenarios is just the opposite of what we should be doing.

 

To me if we train our firefighters basic firefighter procedures or even train them to the firefighter 2 level once they are off their probationary period they will be better preparded to understand what to do in a potential MAYDAY scenario and possibly end up preventing a MAYDAY call.

 

Just my opinion on the topic, and I appreciate any views off of this statement

 

 

Training yourself is good, but it is not enough for these events. We should get training from professional person. They will give demo by drilling etc. 

I looked a website of chemical engineering and here is brief of the company and want to know your thoughts regarding this.

 

RX Marine was established in 1996 in Mumbai, India; as a chemical manufacturing company catering exclusively to the needs of the marine industry. In a short span of 12 years the company has established itself as one of the leading wholesale suppliers of a wide range of chemicals for - Marine industry internationally - and other local industires and plants. Our client list bears testimony to this. The RXSOL policy has its foundations on two pillars of strength - a continuous investment in research and development to deliver premium quality products and a commitment to service.

 

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