2 young Firefighters die in Chile, Southamerica

This is a very sad information that I received yesterday:

http://www.emol.com/noticias/ingles/detalle/detallenoticias.asp?idn...

2 young Volunteer Firefighters died on September 11th while battling a house fire in the north area of Concepcion, Chile.
There is no official version yet of what caused this tragedy, but I was told the 2 firefighters were performing a primary search under extremely dangerous conditions on the first floor of a two story house. They were looking for a confirmed victim (elderly woman) trapped inside her bedroom.

Aparentely the IC didn't know anything about the 2 firefighters performing the primary search (did not perform Personal Accountability Report) and it was just during the overhaul operation, more than one hour later after the first company made it in, that the 2 bodies and the civilan were found below a collapsed structure. Just at that time they realized that the 2 FFs were killed.

Both Firefighters started the volunteer activity at 15 years old, with the Junior-cadet firefighter program of the Concepcion Fire Department.

Bomberos de Chile (Firefighters of Chile) is a volunteer organization established in 1851 , dealing with a lot of issues like funds, tactics, management ,and equipment, but the most important TRAINING.

I started this year as the coordinator for the Latin America region in an organization called Open Fire Academy. Actually we are working on translating and developing programs that meet the American Firefighting standards trying to bring this firefighting culture to the same level than us here in the U.S.

So far, we have discovered that Rapid Intervention Teams, preplanning, ICS, May Day call and other basic level firefighter training have not been implemented correctely in some Latin American countries. Strong lack of leadership and safety on the fire ground also are on the table.

On january of this year another Firefighter, Gabrel Lara (25) died in the line of duty during an urban interface fire in the City of Valparaiso, Chile.
http://www.emol.com/noticias/todas/detalle/detallenoticias.asp?idno...
In this case, to this date no report has been released to the public and other Fire Departments, even did not the National Fire Authority, as a way to prevent this of happening again.
My self interviewed some witnesses of that incident, and again, leadership and safety on the fire ground played a critical role. There was no communication between the FF and the IC, no safety officer assigned, and the Firefighter was by himself, trying to rescue a woman. Also appropiate rescue of the FF and basic life support was not perfomed on time. Both died days later at the hospital due to injuries in their respiratory system and bodies.

I wanted to share this with you guys, as you may know there are a lot of differences between the fire service around the world, even inside United States.

There is such a great resource like FireEngineering.com with essential content to become a better leader in the Fire Service and make this the best place to work.

Unfortunately the language barrier may stop the "spreading of the word". I would like to help these people out, they need our help, they need to know that there is more beyond the basic training, they need to know about NFPA and other standards.
I apreciate your help in any way to reduce the Firefighter fatalities in Latin America and make the Fire Service a great place to safely help the community around the world.

Thank you guys and to FE community

Nelson Ojeda