Duty last summer in a church fire. Tragically, there is a history of church and
related houses of worship fires resulting in the death
of Firefighters-see numerous links below. Of the factors identified
in the new NIOSH report (link below), the investigation shows that the initial SIZE-UP
did not fully consider the impact of limited water supply, available staffing,
the occupancy type, and lightweight roof truss system. On June 15, 2011,
Firefighter Scott Davis, 40, was at that fire conducting interior firefighting
efforts inside the Muncie church when the steeple collapsed onto the sanctuary
portion of the structure. Other firefighters escaped with minor injuries
and attempted to rescue Firefighter Davis, who died in that fire.
arrival, units had visible fire and heavy smoke coming from the roof
of the church and a second alarm was immediately requested due to the lack
of hydrants in this area.
with visible conditions, light smoke, and no visible fire INSIDE the
church. Conditions quickly changed after walls and areas of the ceiling were
opened up, exposing a fire engulfed attic space. A decision was then made to
evacuate the building due to the amount of fire burning above the Firefighters.
At this same moment (around 1610 hours), the roof began to collapse into the
church where the Firefighters were working, trapping the victim and injuring
others as they exited out of windows or ran from the collapse. Due to the
magnitude of the fire, the fire department was unable to return to the collapsed
area to rescue the victim. The victim’s body was later recovered after the fire
was extinguished.
At this fire, the incident commander’s size-up did not identify proper strategy
and tactics for the church, the location and size of the fire hidden in the
attic, a practical water supply for suppression (no water hydrants were near
the church, and a lake from which to pull water was only identified later) and
hazards associated with the lightweight roof truss systems used in the church.
The incident commander also placed his command post so that he could not see
conditions on the opposite side.
“When the acting BC arrived on scene, he began a walk around of the
structure where he discovered that the steeple had toppled over, indicating the
potential for further collapse of the roof structure,” the report says.
“The volume of fire discovered in the attic was too large for the initial
1 3/4-inch hoseline and not easily accessible by the firefighters,” the
report says. “Also, the fire department did not have sufficient water and
significant fire flow to extinguish a fire in a nonresidential structure and of
the volume of fire encountered.”
The report points out the importance of BEFORE THE FIRE pre-incident
planning inspections of buildings within their response areas so that
they can develop safe fireground tactics and not have to guess when arriving on
the scene.
In the fire that took Firefighter Davis’s life, the firefighters involved knew
that the area did not have an immediate water supply, but the church had no
pre-incident plan.
dispatchers are in what we do. From the first people dealing with the emergency
(well before your tones go off) to their role in supporting responding and
operating companies, their role is a critical part of any FD’s
response. In some places unfortunately they are are under paid, over
worked and poorly trained with predictable results. And in as much as
Firefighters may often get frustrated with their Dispatchers, it’s also clear
that the importance of Firefighters and Officers spending time in
the dispatcher center (either during probation, training or
regularly) to truly understand the job (vs what you think you understand) as
well as Dispatchers out riding with units for the same reasons, cannot be overstated.
911 calls also suffer a mental toll, especially when taking distressing calls
involving accidental death and suicide. The new study shows that 911
dispatchers’ indirect exposure to traumatic events can result in symptoms of
PTSD. “Usually research considers links between disorders and how much
emotional distress is experienced on the scene of a traumatic event,” said
study author Dr. Michelle Lilly of Northern Illinois University in a statement.
“However, this is the first study on emergency dispatchers, who experience the
trauma indirectly.”
researchers questioned 171 emergency dispatchers currently working in 24 U.S.
states. The dispatchers — predominately white women around age 38 with more
than 11 years of dispatching experience — were asked about the types of calls
they answer and their corresponding emotional distress. They participants then
rated the types of calls that caused great distress and were asked to recall
the worst call they ever received.
involved the unexpected injury or death of a child. About 13% were suicidal
callers, 10% were police-officer shootings and another 10% involved the
unexpected death of an adult. The researchers report that the dispatchers
experienced a high level of distress following 32% of potentially traumatic
calls and that 3.5% of the dispatchers reported symptoms severe enough to be
classified as PTSD.
significant stressor for dispatchers, ABC News reports. “We don’t know the end
result. We don’t know if they made it. There is no formal communication back to
us,” Monica Gavio, a coordinator for the Burlington County, New Jersey, 911
communications center.
9-1-1 call, the call processing, the dispatching and the radio operations-it’s
clear that dispatchers are an integral part of what we do.
AFTER CRASH
hospitalized last night when the sport-utility vehicle he was driving
rolled over during a multi-vehicle crash on the South Side. The Chief was
responding to a fire on South Greenwood Avenue when another vehicle struck the
fire department’s Ford Expedition about 8:55 p.m. near East 95th Street and
South Stony Island Avenue and the CFD vehicle rolled over and came to rest
upside down The Paramedic Field Chief was taken in critical but “stable”
condition to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.
A 42-year-old driver, Nicole Chaparro, was cited with failing to yield to an
emergency vehicle.
