Tuesday, November 25, 2008

You Want Me To Do What?

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear."

– Mark Twain

Human beings have a natural apprehension when it comes to fire. This natural impulse to flee from an unrestrained fire is perfectly normal. It is an essential skill for survival. Fire is one of the most essential tools that we as human beings possess, and it also has the potential to be one of the most destructive. The need to respect this "creature" is a cornerstone for being able to safely use fire in the myriad of ways that we do.

As parents we recognize the need to teach our children to avoid situations which may cause them harm. This training begins with essential survival skills ranging from "don't put anything in your mouth that isn't food," to "stay away from the stove, it's hot." When we are dealing with children who are younger than seven years old, when the child's level of cognitive ability is still developing, most of this training takes the form of a conditioned response. If the child starts to approach the stove or campfire they receive a sharp, loud yell from the parent, and in many cases a slap on the hand. The idea is straight forward: scare them and stop them in their tracks, or show them that going near the dangerous thing has painful consequences. There is no other way to teach our young children to avoid these dangerous situations. However this early, and often stern, method of imprinting a behavioral pattern also leads to individuals developing an apprehension of fire. As we mature we are taught how to safely use fire: to cook; to heat our homes; to create structures which were unimaginable to our ancient ancestors. Our early fear of fire is transformed into an understandable respect for fire and its power, but underneath that respect is the unchangeable imprint left upon our three-year old psyche of mom or dad slapping out hand when we reached for the stove.

Firefighters must behave in an abnormal way when they choose to enter a building that is on fire. Choosing to disregard the normal psychological response to fire by entering a burning structure causes an understandable stress reaction even in an experienced fireman. In order to operate safely and effectively on the fire ground we must understand the psychological and physiological reactions which affect our performance, and how to manage our stress responses. This is the part where I need to lay a foundation. It may seem a bit complicated, but understanding how your body reacts and why you respond in certain ways will help you to develop the skills to control your response.

The Physiology

    Firefighting requires that an individual willingly enter an environment which poses a threat to his health and welfare, and while in that environment engage in strenuous physical activity while being hampered by the very protective clothing that is necessary to keep him from being burned, and disregard the undercurrent of fear which tells him he needs to flee. He must physically perform at the level of a Navy SEAL while maintaining situational awareness, anticipating the next steps to complete his assigned task and providing progress reports to his supervisor. Firefighting takes a toll on the firefighter both physically and psychologically.

Through out the late 1990s and the early part of the 21st century a significant body of research has been conducted on the physiological effects of firefighting. Some of the most comprehensive work has been conducted by Dr. Denise Smith and Dr. Steve Petruzzello, collogues of mine at the Illinois Fire Service Institute. Their research continues, and is adding to the understanding that we must have of just how the human body reacts to the effects of firefighting.

Studying the physiological effects of firefighting is challenging because of the multiple variables which have to be considered: firefighters range in age from 18 to 70 years old; not every firefighter starts with a common level of physical fitness; differences in heredity and the way you were raised all play a factor in how your body will respond to the stresses that are place on it.

There are some conclusions that are consistently repeated across several studies. During firefighting operations firefighters reach their maximal, or near maximal heart, rate. Maximum heart rate is measured by subtracting an individual's age from 220 (i.e. the maximum heart rate for a 31 year old is 220-31=189 beats per minute [bpm]). Studies evaluating the heart rate of firefighters performing fire ground operations during interior structural firefighting operations show that heart rates between 164.1bpm to 183.5bpm are common.
In other words a 31 year old firefighter will be functioning at between 86.8% and 97% of his maximum heart rate while operating inside a structure fire. This level of physical exertion has multiple effects on the individual firefighter.

First the firefighter is increasing the level of thermal stress on the body because of the metabolic action required to perform the required actions. This metabolic stress can best be measured by the metabolic equivalent level (MET). One MET is the amount of energy/oxygen that your body uses while sitting quietly. Based upon studies by Barbara Ainsworth of the University of South Carolina firefighters can expend 12 METS of energy while conducting firefighting operations. This is the same level of energy expenditure seen in Navy SEALs, and professional boxers. As a comparison your body is working at roughly 13 METs if you are running 7.5 miles per hour (an 8:00 minute mile) at a 1% incline.

Second the firefighter must contend with an increase in thermal stress on the body from the elevated temperatures found inside a structure. Ambient air temperatures can rise above 449°F inside a burning building. At this level of ambient temperature the firefighter would not survive with out his protective ensemble of turnout gear and SCBA.

Third the firefighter must contend with the limitations placed upon his body by the very personal protective equipment that he needs to survive in the building. The National Fire Protection Association standard on firefighter safety, NFPA 1500, specifies that all firefighters shall use Coat, Pants, Boots, Gloves, Helmet and Protective Hood in conjunction with their SCBA. These elements of protective gear reduce the risk of the firefighter being burned through the use of fire resistant materials and layered structures. The unwanted effect of these garments is that the firefighter is less able to relieve heat stress through perspiration, as the insulating properties which prevent heat from burning him also trap his radiated body heat.

All of these aspects have been quantified through study into the physiology of firefighting. We can use the accepted standard of 98.6°F as the "normal" human body temperature. One study has shown that on average the tympanic temperature of firefighters completing 16 minutes of firefighting activity were elevated to 104.1°F, after operating in an atmosphere varying between 170.1°F and 199.9°F This physiological effect has been shown to reduce the heart's stroke volume, the amount blood the heart can pump in one contraction, and increase the dilation of blood vessels closest to the skin. These two factors can lead to a dangerous drop in blood pressure. This has potentially significant consequences, and it can be assumed that a number of the firefighter LODD which fall under the "Stress/Exertion" category are a result of this cardiac compromise.

If we assume that a firefighter equipped with the common "30 minute" SCBA cylinder is able to perform 16 minutes of work prior to exiting the fire building we can expect that he will exit the building with a body core temperature of 104°F and a pulse rate of 175bpm. Interestingly, research has shown that despite this level of physical exertion firefighters do not show a corresponding psychophysical effect.

The studies of Denise Smith and Steven Petruzzello have incorporated an evaluation of Rate of Perceived Exertion based upon the Borg scale. These studies examine the RPE based on physiological and psychophysical factors, but they do not take into consideration the purely psychological aspects. Based upon their research we can see that firefighters will rate their exertion as being "hard", a rate of perceived exertion that we would expect to see for a person with a heart rate of 150bpm, yet the recorded heart rates recorded should have elicited a response of "very hard" to "extremely hard". There is no clear clinical explanation for this variation. A component that must be considered is the subjective nature of measuring effort based upon the Borg Scale; it is all in the mind of the individual what "hard" means to him or her. Additionally we need to consider that the thermal stress, dehydration and the previously discussed cardiac compromise may affect the ability of the individual responder to accurately assess the level of exertion.

These physiological and psychophysical effects can be seen as having an effect on cognitive function as well. In the Smith's and Petruzzello's 1998 study subjects were assessed for their cognitive function after each of their three trials. Subjects were evaluated based upon their response time and degree of accuracy using a Continuous Performance Test. Response time decreased across all three trials. The authors' conclusion was that this could be attributed to the ability for neural signals to be transmitted more quickly across the warmed nervous system. The Continuous Performance Test used required the subjects to determine if a displayed number was a 0 or 9, or a number between 1 and 8. While this does provide some understanding of the basic response time of the nervous system, it is not an accurate predictor of how the individual's ability to analyze and respond to multiple sensory inputs while functioning in the fire environment. Even the United States Fire Administration acknowledges this, "The physical and mental demands associated with firefighting and other emergency operations exceed those of virtually any other occupation."

The Psychology

People assume that firemen aren't afraid of running into burning buildings. My experience has been to the contrary. When new candidates start in the fire service they have an understandable apprehension of what they are going to be called upon to do. We know that we are raised to have a fear of fire. That fear needs to be controlled however if we expect our firefighters to perform. In order to be able to control your psychological responses you need to understand the effect that fear and anxiety have on you.

The psychological responses of firefighters to the environment and activities they face are an aspect of firefighting has not received a great deal of focus from researchers. We can use the work of researchers like Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, Bruce Siddle and Loren Christensen in to the psychology of men in combat to develop an understanding of some of the effects psychological stress that firefighters can be expected to cope with.

An understanding of the psychological reactions we confront must start with a brief understanding of our nervous system. Every person's nervous system is comprised of two main components: the somatic nervous system, which is responsible for the actions of our voluntary muscular movements; and the autonomic nervous system, which is responsible for all of the functions that our body needs to perform automatically. It is primarily the role of the autonomic nervous system that we are concerned with.

The autonomic nervous system functions through the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). These two systems send signals to your organs, muscles, and brain directing actions, and they work in opposite directions. The SNS is responsible for increasing your heart rate and respiratory rate, diverts blood flow away from your skin through constricting blood vessels, and other actions that would be considered a part of our body's "Fight" response. The PNS has the opposite effect, it slows your heart rate when the need to move large quantities of oxygen have been reduced, and moderates your digestion, and you bowl and bladder control. The PNS is your body at "Rest".

During high stress situations like combat, your body switches its resources from the PNS to the SNS: your pupils dilate to enhance your vision, your heart rate increases to move a greater quantity of oxygen to the large muscles needed to fight or flee and you peripheral circulatory system contracts so that if you are cut you will bleed less. The downside to this sudden switch is that things such as bowel and bladder control can be quickly lost. You can urinate or defecate right on the spot. This is something that isn't often understood, and it isn't something talked about often, but it does happen. In The American Soldier, a study of the actions of soldiers in World War II, one quarter of all soldiers reported the loss of bowel or bladder control in combat. Responders who survived the September 11th, 2001attacks on the World Trade Center reported numerous cases of uncontrolled loss of bowel and bladder control.

For firefighters the single most important side effect of the SNS taking primacy is the increase in heart rate. Emergencies are not scheduled events. When the alarm bell rings your heart rate begins to increase. Controlling that initial adrenaline dump is critical. The effects of an increasing heart rate because of anxiety have been documented by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman and Bruce Siddle. The chart below is based on their published work.



Heart Rate
Physiological Reaction
60 BPM
80 BPMNormal resting Heart Rate
90 BPM
115 BPMFine motor skill detriorates
120 BPM
145 BPMComplex motor skills deteriorate
150 BPM
175 BPMCognitive processing deteriorates Loss of peripheral vision (Tunnel vision) Loss of depth perception Loss of near vision Auditory exclusion
Above 175 BPMIrrational fight or flee
Freezing
Submissive Behavior
Voiding of bladder and bowel


It is important to remember that these effects are only for stress induced heart rate increases, they do not apply to heart rate increases due to physical activity. Also, the heart rates should not be taken as concrete numbers. As always when we are dealing with people there is individual variation.

The "WHITE" zone is the level of anxiety and ability that we experience during our typical resting mode. We progress from "WHITE" to "YELLOW" as our heart rate begins to climb towards 115BPM. As your heart rate nears 120BPM you enter the "RED" Zone, where a loss of fine motor control begins to occur. Entering the "GREY" zone we are moving into a "panic" mode: cognitive ability, vision and auditory senses are all degrading quickly. If the heart rate exceeds 175BPM the psyche and the body essentially, "give up", and either flee or are unable to react.

The firefighter works in an environment where he may face an increase in his heart rate from both exertion and from anxiety. There is no conclusive study that has analyzed the effects of combining the effects of heart rate increase from exertion and a sudden increase in heart rate due to SNS stimulation. It is reasonable to expect that a experienced firefighter who is conducting interior operations, working on his first or second air-bottle will have his heart rate somewhere around the 160 to 180 beat-per-minute range. He will not likely be experiencing any significant psychological challenges, or a loss of cognitive function that impairs his ability to maintain his situation awareness. However if conditions suddenly and unexpectedly deteriorate, he may rapidly go from being calm and collected in the "Yellow Zone" to the "Black Zone" with out any warning.

There is some research we can examine though that can give us an insight into what happens when firefighters become disoriented. The Firefighter Disorientation Study examines the role that disorientation plays in firefighter fatalities. In 100 percent of the cases studied conditions changed suddenly from manageable for aggressive interior operations to prolonged periods of zero visibility conditions. We can expect that those rapid changes would bring about an understandable anxiety reaction. A flood of adrenaline, a quick shift from feeling in control of the situation to being overwhelmed by the conditions would all lead to the sudden surge of the SNS reaction. Couple that SNS surge with a near maximal heart rate and our firefighter is going to move into the "Black" Zone, and have a nearly overwhelming flight response. The dilemma is that when that flight response kicks in the cognitive function shuts down. Rather than calmly thinking, "I need to get my Company together, and turn us around here to follow this hose line out," the survival brain centers kick in and we will only do what we have practiced before. It we've never trained on what to do to maintain Company Integrity and maintain Situational Awareness under rapidly deteriorating conditions, panic will take over, we will become disoriented and those combined forces will result in us likely becoming a fatality.

Our goal must be to develop a training program and a philosophy that will help us stay in the "Yellow Zone", even under those circumstances where the "normal" fireman would be expected to suddenly jump into the "Grey" or "Black" zones. It requires a personal commitment to understanding yourself, your mind and body, and training yourself and your brothers and sisters to have the will to survive. It means becoming a Fire Service Warrior.

Conquering the Fight or Flight Response

    Developing survival skills has received quite a bit of attention from our brother and sister warriors in the Military and Law Enforcement Communities. Like us they can find themselves in a life threatening situation with little or no "warm up time". We have already drawn a comparison between the physical work load of firefighting and that of a Navy SEAL; let's see if we can learn some lessons from their survival skills as well. The SEAL, who is patrolling along the streets of Iraq, or the mountains of Afghanistan, is aware of the possibility of coming under attack; he is operating in condition "Yellow", alert and ready to respond. If he begins to take small arms fire from one or two enemy fighters, he has time to recognize and respond to the threat. He should be able to maintain himself in the "Yellow" zone. However if his patrol is suddenly hit by an Improvised Explosive Device (IEDs), or ambushed by a numerically superior force, the chances are that he could rapidly shift into condition "Grey" or "Black". The way the SEAL prepare for those sudden unexpected life threatening encounters is through Immediate Action Drills (IADs). In the IAD the entire platoon responds immediately by using one of several tactics which have been practiced hundreds of times, until the response becomes automatic. There is no need for the cognitive function to operate at 100 percent, because the response has become conditioned. It gives the SEAL Operator the tools to respond instantly and then get his cognitive reasoning back into the mix.

    Firefighters can also develop the ability to control the fight or flight response. The majority of training to be a Fire Service Warrior will be discussed in Chapter Four, but the critical skills needed by every individual firefighter will be talked about here.

    We have talked about how the sympathetic nervous system controls the "Fight or Flight" response. What we must do is develop the skills to control that response. We must train ourselves to recognize and identify that our body has started to go into panic mode, and have developed a conditioned response that will kick in to regain control of our heart rate before we enter the "Black" zone. Conquering the Fight or Flight response requires conscious effort. You must take the time to train yourself before you go out on a call.

    In my opinion the single most important element of conditioning yourself to be able to control your fight or flight response was summed up in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; DON'T PANIC! It may seem like a simple thing, but being conscious of how you are responding to the conditions around you sets the stage for being in control of you SNS responses. If you are not conscious of how you are beginning to respond then it is inevitable that your heart rate is going to begin increasing before you are even aware of it. You will begin to move from condition "Yellow" to "Red" to "Grey" with out even realizing it. Making the effort to stay aware of how your body is responding sets the stage for controlling your SNS responses.

    The hard part is how do you develop this kind of skill set? We each come to the kitchen table in the morning with different levels of self awareness. We see it in ourselves and our brothers and sisters. Some folks are aware of everything they say before they say it; others are constantly putting their foot in their mouth. We all know that brother firefighter who when the Company Officer asks him, "What were you thinking?" the response is "Nothing." That person isn't lying. He acted with out making a conscious decision about what he was about to do or say.

To develop the ability to be aware of your responses you need to start off by looking at yourself and asking, "What kind of person am I?" Do you regularly speak with out thinking? Do you hear the question, "What were you thinking," and not have an answer? Or, are you the kind of person who is able to articulate your thought process, whether you were right or wrong? Developing that understanding takes self reflection and honesty. You need to start there. Once you can honestly understand yourself then you can being working on how to control those primal survival responses that spring from the mammalian brain that trigger your SNS responses.

I find the best place to begin is with mental rehearsal. Think about the situations you may find yourself in. Think about what aspects of the job you are strong in, and where you are weak. Every one of us has weaknesses. I hate heights. I am not the kind of fireman who finds rappelling from the top of a water tower fun. So I work on it. I climb ladders every chance I get. I hop up and run around on roofs. I will practice self-survival techniques like window bail-outs just so I can conquer that fear. You need to do the same thing with the situations you may find yourself in. Rehearse what you would do if something goes wrong.

Picture yourself crawling down a hallway with your partner to conduct a primary search of a room immediately adjacent to the fire room. The Engine crew has a line stretched to the top of the stairway and is holding the fire in check, leaving you with enough room to get ahead and conduct your search. You are in the lead. Are you doing a left or right hand search? What tools do you and your partner have with you? Which ones do you have? You get to the bedroom door and just before you turn to enter the room the second bedroom flashes over. What are you going to do? If you haven't gotten blown across the hall what hand do you need to put on the wall to retreat? Where is your partner at now? Who is leading the way out? If smoke conditions have suddenly gotten worse, or you did get blown away from the wall, how can you orient yourself to the way out?

These mental rehearsals are important. First it gets you to think about the fact that things can go wrong. None of us want to think that we can get hurt or killed. We try to protect ourselves psychologically by thinking about how things seem to always work out. Unless you have experienced a firefighter fatality, or been injured on the fire ground, it is perfectly normal to not think about the fact that you could be in a situation that could cost you your life. We need to confront the reality that even if we do everything right, the possibly of everything going to Hell exists in every fire building we enter. The second benefit of the mental rehearsal is it gives you the opportunity to "War Game" your options. Think about the various situations you may find yourself in. Go through every action on the fire ground that you could find yourself having to perform: operating the nozzle, being the back-up guy, forcing the front door, being the pump panel operator, being the turntable operator of the aerial, being assigned to vent the roof. Think about the problems that can come up. What if the engine pressure isn't climbing as you throttle up; how do you fix it? What if four people are hanging out the front of a building calling for help; who do you rescue first?

I think the great many of the guys and gals who their peers look to as being "Kick Ass Firemen" already do this. They may not call it mental rehearsal, or even be aware they are doing it, but they are likely doing it.

The second skill set to develop is the ability to control your breathing. Remember how when you were a kid and excited about something that you could hardly speak? What did you mom or dad say, "Take a deep breath and then tell me what happened?" How rapidly you breath has a direct effect on how rapidly your heart beats. Biofeedback is the art, or science according to some, of consciously altering the responses of your autonomic nervous system by being consciously aware of how your body is responding. Breath control is one aspect of biofeedback that I have found to work for me. By consciously slowing your breathing, by concentrating on breathing in a slow, rhythmic manner you can slow your heart rate.

I use a tactical breathing exercise to control my breathing when I recognize that my heart rate is beginning to elevate because of anxiety. I got this exercise from Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's fine book On Combat, which has been referenced before. When you recognize that you are entering a stressful situation, and anxiety is beginning to kick in take that deep breath that mom talked about to a new level.



  1. Inhale through your nose for a count of four. (One, two, three, four)
  2. Hold your breath for a count of four. (One, two, three, four)
  3. Exhale through your mouth for a count of four. (One, two, three, four)
  4. Pause for a count of four. (One, two, three, four)


Repeat that series three times. You will feel your heart rate slow. You will feel the anxiety begin to ebb. You will be able to regain control of your SNS functions and give your cognitive ability the time to kick in. I've used this exercise dozens of times in the last several years when things get stressful. Whether it has been getting anxious before an interview, or trying to navigate through a complicated SCBA maze in zero visibility and high heat conditions.

The key is to use the tactical breathing exercise on a regular basis. You need to practice it. You need to put it together with the self awareness and the mental rehearsals so that when you are crawling down that hallway an conditions suddenly change you don't freak out, curl up in a ball and get ready to die. You will have the skills in place and the mental attitude to fight, and survive.

Friday, November 21, 2008

The Specter of Death

In the United States we kill roughly 100 firemen a year in the line of duty. Roughly 50% of those deaths are due to Heart Attacks, and another 25% are due to apparatus accidents, but that still leaves roughly 25 firemen a year who are dying because of something like being trapped, being disorientated, being struck by a wall or collapsing roof. We buried 106 Brothers and Sisters in 2005, and the United States Fire Administration has recorded 24 Firefighter fatalities so far in 2006. It's not the events like 9/11 which give me pause, but when you read about men like Robert Gallardy, a 47 year old Fire Capitan from PA who died from burns he suffered while conducting a training burn, or Lt. Curtis Meyran and FF John Bellew, who along with four other Brothers jumped from a sixth floor window of a New York City Tenement because they were steamed out. They died, and their bodies broke the falls of the four men who lived.

February 11th, 1998 my friend Tony Lockhart died when he became disoriented and ran out of air inside a tire shop at 106th and Western Ave. I was there. I got there after the fire had gone to shit and didn't find out Tony was missing until probably 20 minutes after I got there. I want to say that was about 11:00 p.m. I stayed that night until 2 a.m. or so when they recovered and removed Tony's body and the body of Pat King, another firemen who died in the same fire. Could Tony or Pat have been saved? Probably, if the level of training in Firefighter Survival and Rescue that is now widely available had been taught back then, but I know for me Tony's death served as a focal point of why one must take this job seriously. I can't say I've ever felt "Oh shit, I'm dead," in the moment of fighting a fire… for me I am so focused on doing what has to be done that there is little "fear", more a calculating though process. The fear comes afterwards. When you realize that putting your foot through a hole in the floor could have been really bad, or when you think about "What if…", "What if I hadn't gotten the hose unkinked?", "What if those guys hadn't gotten the windows taken out?"… those are the things that stick with you. Death is something that each of us needs to come to grips with in his own way. For me I have what some would say is a fatalistic attitude… if it's meant to be, then it's meant to be. I just assume that if it's my day then it won't matter if I'm crawling down a shitty hallway or that I choke on a piece of broccoli that is how things go. We all die. It isn't something to be feared, unless you live your life in fear. If you spend everyday afraid to live life to the fullest, afraid to embrace opportunities, to take chances and to live like you have nothing to loose then you will die scared and full of regret. To borrow a few lines from Jonathan Larson:

"… forget regret, or life is yours to miss… no day but today."

I love my job. I love what I do and if it is in the grand plan of the Universe that I should fall doing something that I believe is noble and honorable and love then I think that I will have achieved something few people ever do.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Where “Everyone Goes Home”, Goes Wrong

"Firemen are going to be killed right along. They know it, every man of them... firefighting is a hazardous occupation; it is dangerous on the face of it, tackling a burning building. The risks are plain.... Consequently, when a man becomes a fireman, his act of bravery has already been accomplished."

- FDNY Chief Edward F. Crocker 1908

Since September 11th 2001 the Fire Service has been reeling. As a community, firefighters have been struggling to deal with the grief and sense of loss that accompanied the deaths of 343 of our brother in one fell swoop. I vividly recall being on duty that September morning. Just a shift day before, we had been talking about the incident during World War II when the B-24 Liberator bomber had flown into the Empire State Building. When we heard that a plane had flown into the World trade Center my first reaction was, "Wow, that's a weird coincidence." It was only when the second plane hit, as we watched live on CNN, that I realized the enormity of the situation. I remember later when the first tower fell saying to a co-worker, "We just lost a hundred guys," and his reaction was one of shock. He could not accept the idea that such a thing happened. In the days and weeks that followed we found out the true number. The Fire Department of the City of New York lost half again the number of firefighters who had been killed in the line of duty since the department was founded. That loss is one that as a community the fire service is still attempting to cope with. The number is so large and the cost nearly unimaginable that we are not yet able to fully comprehend the long term effects on our culture. We are just now coming to understand the heath effects on those responders who worked at "Ground Zero". Sadly we must accept that we will likely lose more of our own due to these long term effects.

One effect of these deaths that I have perceived is a growing trend toward risk aversion. I believe as a culture the Fire Service is less willing to risk lives to achieve our primary mission: to protect lives and property. This is my opinion.

    During the 1990's progressive Fire Service instructors and administrators saw the need to address firefighter fatalities. The out growth of that need was the development of programs such as "Get Out Alive", "Saving Our Own", and the implementation of Policies and guidelines requiring Rapid Intervention Teams. These were positive and proactive steps that recognized the inherent danger of firefighting and attempted to put in place training and response capabilities to aid in the reduction of firefighter fatalities. Since 9/11 however, the culture has embraced a new set of buzzwords: "Everyone Goes Home." The idea behind "Everyone Goes Home," is that every firefighter should return to his or her loved ones at the end of the shift. That is noble goal, but unfortunately it is a goal that is destined for failure.

I believe that the recognition of a need to reduce firefighter line of duty deaths is an important realization for the fire service. There are approximately 100 firefighters who die in the line of duty each year; the fire service must strive to embrace a model which limits to the extent possible these losses. We must not lose sight of the fact, however, that no matter what we do as a culture we will never achieve the goal of "Everyone Goes Home." Firefighting is a dangerous profession, and one that no matter our best intentions, or the quality and efficacy of our training, apparatus, personnel and equipment, will continue to claim the lives of those men and women who choose to enter a building which is being ravaged by the effects of unrestrained fire. The fire service must come up with a better goal than, "Everyone Goes Home," or we will find ourselves tied to an objective which is unrealistic and unattainable, and will ultimately mean that any loss of life is a failure.

Poorly defined missions have plagued our culture. A classic example of this is U.S. involvement in Somalia during 1992 and 1993. The United States initially went into Somalia in December of 1992, the waning days of the first Bush administration, with the intention of providing humanitarian aid to a nation racked by starvation and forced into that condition by vying factions of warlords seeking to use food as a weapon to gain the allegiance of the general population. We did help to restore the supply of food to the underprivileged and malnourished. We used our military force to ensure that food would reach the starving, and were able to keep the warring factions in check by an overwhelming show of force.

Once we turned that mission over to the United Nations Peace Keeping Force, those successes began to be undone. The UN forces in Somalia were unable maintain the level of intimidation, for lack of a better term, that the US Marines had mustered up. The warlords began to strike at the UN peace keepers, including the mutilation of a group of Pakistani soldiers who had been ambushed.

The response by the Clinton Administration was to launch a campaign against Mohammed Farid Adid by Special Operations Forces. Adid was seen as being the most powerful of the warlords. It was believed that if his clan was unable to challenge the UN forces, and the Non-Governmental Organizations. That mission centered on capturing Adid. The attempt to achieve that goal lead up to the battle on October the 3rd, 1993, which most people have become familiar with because of the movie, Black Hawk Down, based upon the book by the same name. Despite disrupting the ability of Adid's clan to starve it's own people, and despite the successful execution of multiple, complicated, high risk special operations missions that overall mission undertaken by the men of Task Force Ranger was a failure because it did not succeed in capturing Adid. A poorly defined mission statement resulted in what was otherwise a military achievement being labeled as a "failure".

That "failure" defined the manner in which the US military was used for the remainder of the Clinton administration, and arguably until the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Our political leaders became risk adverse; afraid of the public reaction that would come from the loss of American lives. We became involved in the conflict in Bosnia, but prosecuted the bulk of our operations using airpower. We avoided becoming involved in the genocide in Rwanda out of a fear of the cost it would have had in lives. We allowed Saddam Hussein to interfere with the efforts of UN Arms Inspectors and target our aircraft enforcing the no fly zones, and Osama bin Laden to attack our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and bomb the USS Cole, all with token cruise missile strikes in response. Our leaders' fears of the public reaction to losing the lives of American Soldiers caused our nation to become risk adverse, and may have set the stage for the very terrorist attacks which engendered our new found risk adverse culture in the fire service. Reeling from a shocking, public loss of life caused our national leaders to recoil from using out troops in battle; that is the risk we face in focusing our sights on the goal "Everyone Goes Home".

The underlying goal behind "Everyone Goes Home," is a good one: to raise awareness of those conditions which are killing our firefighters and seek to reduce or eliminate the preventable causes of line of duty deaths. If we look at the line of duty death statistics from the United States Fire Administration (USFA) we can look at the situations and conditions where firefighters are loosing their lives. We must first address where our statistics come from. In 2003 President Bush signed into law the "Hometown Heroes Survivors Benefits Act". This piece of legislation redefined the criteria for the circumstances which are considered a "Line Of Duty Death". The USFA report Fire Fighter Fatalities in the United States in 2005, distinguishes between the two criteria. For our purposes we will look at the statistics with out the inclusion of those 16 firefighters who were included because of the "Hometown Heroes" law and restrict or study to the 99 LODDs which meet the older standard.

    Interpreting the USFA data shows us that 27.2% of those Fire Fighters killed in 2005, died while performing their job on the fire ground. Additionally, 23.2% died as a result of fatal injuries sustained responding to or returning from an incident, 24.2% dies as a result of other duty, non-emergency responses, 14.1% died during a training evolution, 6% died as a result of a non-fire emergency response, and 5% died after an incident after report feeling unwell.


Figure 1


 

    We can also examine the causes of fatal injuries and the relative percentage of fatalities caused by a particular injury.


 

Figure 2


 

So, if we choose to say that in a perfect word no firefighter would suffer a Heart Attack, Stroke or Heat Exhaustion, and that not a single firefighter would die in an apparatus accident we would still loose approximately 28 firefighters in the Line of Duty each year. Such an achievement would be incredible, to reduce Firefighter LODD by more than 70% would be something to celebrate, but if we take the goal, the words of "Everyone Goes Home" to heart it is still a failure.

I do not believe that the Fire Service should promote the idea or culture of "acceptable losses". We should strive to see that all of our members are trained to be the best they are capable of being, and given the best apparatus, personnel, and equipment to operate safely.

We must be ready and willing to accept that even with the best of intentions we will lose people. It is time to do is begin teaching our brothers and sisters to not die in vain. I've often heard it said, and have parroted myself words to the effect of, "We didn't start the fire. We will do everything we can, but this is not "my fault", I'm just here to help," and "No one signed a suicide pact when they filled out the application, did they?" Two considerations are vital to keep in mind as you approach a situation: 1. Remember that this is not your fault and 2. You do not have to "waste" you life on a losing proposition with little or nothing to gain. However, we must consider that in our role as public servants, or more appropriately servants of the public, we must take risks that others will not.

The standard Fire Service risk assessment criteria heard over and over again is a variation on: "Risk a lot to save a lot; risk a little to save little; risk nothing to save nothing." Who decides what is "a lot" though? Obviously if you have a good working fire and as you pull up Mom is on the front lawn saying that her five year-old is trapped in his bedroom, most of us would say that is "a lot". A life is on the line, and as long as the building seems even moderately tenable we are going to try and make the grab and get the kid out. In the same vain we can all find some agreement that known vacant building, no squatters or homeless people to worry about, removed from any exposure is a "risk nothing" kind of situation. There is no reason for us to be committing our people to fighting this fire from the inside. Sure, it is "fun", and because we don't get many fires, but that is a dangerous level of bravado that cannot be tolerated. There is no reason to put anyone's life on the line for a building that should get bulldozed anyway.

Our two examples are pretty clear-cut; black-and-white examples of making those risk assessment decisions. Life doesn't often present us with a ton of clear-cut choices though. Let's consider a more likely scenario.

It is three o'clock in the afternoon, and you arrive on scene of a two story, wood frame building with heavy fire volume on the first floor, and turbulent, brown/black smoke venting from the second floor windows. You can see from the front lawn that the fire has involved the rear half of the building and is beginning to compromise the interior stairs. Neighbors are screaming from across the street that "the kids are home from school!" What do you do? Offensive Interior Attack; Vent Enter Search; Exposure Protection? There is no right answer. It depends on your department's capabilities, first in manpower, and standard operating guidelines.

If we use our "normal" risk management criteria, the real question is "what is the value?" Is this a "risk a lot" moment to you? Is this a "risk a little" moment? We all have to make this decision. It doesn't matter if you are the probie with six months on the job, or the 20 year Battalion Chief, you need to decided: what is this worth? Is it worth your life? Is it worth the lives of your firefighters? How you make that decision is going to be based on your values, your experience, and most importantly your view of what is an acceptable risk.

I can tell you this though: those people standing across the street expect us to go in there, and kick ass. They expect us to be willing to hang it out there, and try, even though it seems kind of "iffy". That is why they pay our salaries. That is why the public looks up to us. That is why we have a reputation that: politicians, corporations and our local cops all would die for. We are the guys who make those selfless choices and do everything we can to save those things that are near and dear to our community. People love firemen. It seems corny, like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting, but it really is true. They love us because we are the guys who do things no one else will. They love us because we rush into the very building they are rushing out of. We owe it to our citizens to either live up to their expectations, or tell them exactly what we will and will-not do.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say this: We ARE supposed to risk our lives. Taking risks is part of the gig. You wouldn't join the Marine Corps and then say, "Hey, what do you mean you're sending me to Iraq? I didn't sign up for that!" Yes, in fact you did.

No one put a gun to your head and said, "You will be a fireman." You picked this job. You stood up, raised your hand, and said "Pick Me!" If you are a career firemen you probably studied your but off to get certified as a firefighter, paramedic, or earn a degree, took a half dozen hiring tests, and did everything you could to get hired. You did not just wakeup one morning and find out that you were in a job where someone expected you to risk your life.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Qua Alius Vereor Calco…

A Combat Position

"If Prometheus was worthy of the wrath of heaven for kindling the first fire upon earth, how ought all the Gods to honour the men who make it their professional business to put it out?" - John Godfrey Saxe (c. 1890)

Qua Alius Vereor Calco…

What does it mean? "Where Others Fear to Tread." It sums up the reality of being a fireman, it is a motto that suits my message: The Fire Service Warrior.

This blog is about combat, and it is meant to be read by: those men and women who choose to go into battle, who chose to risk their lives for a cause they believe in; it is meant to benefit those whose lives are lived with purpose and value; it is meant to be a guide for those who seek to follow the Warrior's path.

Our country has become quite familiar with the words "Homeland Security" in the years since September 11th 2001. We must not forget though that our nation's firefighters have been on the bleeding edge of the sword that has served to provide safety and security to our communities since Benjamin Franklin founded the Union Fire Company in Philadelphia, December 7th, 1736. Of course it is not just our firefighters who have placed their lives on the line to protect the community, and we must acknowledge our cousins in the Law Enforcement Community for their efforts as well. Their sacrifices are often overlooked, and their job misunderstood by many; they are the complimentary edge to the sword that protects us.

Firefighting is combat. It is not a battle against another person, but it is combat none the less. A Fireman places himself in a position where he must risk his life to protect his community. That calling, that selfless willingness to place one's neighbors ahead of oneself is rooted in the same noble drive as our warrior's who defend our nation on foreign shores. The risk is the same; it is the risking of all that you, and your family, hold dear, your life, to protect others who cannot protect themselves. At times in our history the relative degree of risk has varied; during times of war our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines have born a much greater share of the risk, but in times of tranquility it is our public servants who have shouldered the burden of securing our homeland.

There are those who may not have looked at the idea of Fire Departments being engaged in combat before; there are bound to be individuals who would philosophically disagree with the very implication that firefighting is combat. Yes, the fire service has assumed many roles beyond "just" fighting fires. Many of the Fire Departments around the country provide Emergency Medical Services, Hazardous Materials response, Technical Rescue and other services to aid their "customers", their neighbors who they have sworn to protect. It is a reality that those same neighbors see us first, and foremost, as being there to crawl down a dark, hot, dangerous hallway that is being ravaged by the effects of unrestrained fire to save their loved ones, protect their property, and salvage their possessions.

So, if we look at both the statistics and the environment that a firefighter may find him or herself in I believe that the analogy is not only appropriate, but essential if the Fire Service, and the public we serve are to understand the role we play in our communities. In 2005 there were 115 Line of Duty Deaths (LODD) reported to the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA). Additionally the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has estimated that 80,100 firefighters were injured in the line of duty in 2005, and nearly 50% of those injuries occurred on the Fire Ground.

This should not come as a shock but Firefighting is a dangerous profession. We take a young man and send him into a building were most of the time he wont be able to see, he cannot breath the air, which is filled with toxic gases, the temperatures he will have to work in can reach 1200° Fahrenheit at the ceiling, and he is wrapped in a coat, pants, boots, gloves, hood, helmet and self contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) that hinder his dexterity, his mobility, his verbal communication and his ability to maintain an awareness of the environment around him. Oh, and as an added element that most pervasive of physical forces, Gravity, is constantly exerting its pull on the structure that our Warrior is doing battle in so that if the building has been sufficiently weakened by the effects of the fire it is likely to collapse on him.

In the classic text, The Art of War, Sun Tzu, a warrior philosopher who lived more than 2,000 years ago in China, tells us "Therefore those who do not know the plans of competitors cannot prepare alliances. Those who do not know the lay of the land cannot maneuver their forces." In the fire service we recognize the importance of mastering our knowledge of: Fire Behavior, how our enemy will behave; Building Construction, how the terrain on which we do battle conspires with our enemy to defeat us; our Personal Protective Equipment, if we do not know the limits of our "armor" then we do not know our limits; our Tools, we must know what weapons to bring and how to use them if we hope to be victorious; our brothers and sisters, we each have our strengths, and our weaknesses, we must balance those strengths and weaknesses to achieve success.

Is it possible to guarantee that all of our people will go home? No. Firefighting is an inherently dangerous job; we risk our lives to protect the lives and property of the community we serve. There will be times when we will need to take a risk, perhaps even one with little possible benefit because there may be a life on the line.

Every firefighter must take seriously the need to understand and apply these five principles. The 20-year veteran and the new candidate must both strive to know all there is to know about their profession, this requires study and practice. With the exception of some areas that would be described in the media as "of a lower socioeconomic stature" (and that Fireman call the ghetto) our personnel are not in battle with Fire on a daily basis. It is vital if we are to send our firefighters into combat that they have the capacity to study and learn from the experiences of others, that they are able to think critically and analyze information they are presented with to apply it to their own responses, and to understand how their body and mind helps and hinders them in their quest to return safely to their loved ones at the end of their tour of duty.

Today's firefighter must be a warrior who will unflinchingly put his very life in harms way to accomplish a mission, but who is also steeped in knowledge so that he willfully chooses the path he is on. Firefighting is combat. Anyone who embarks on this path must understand this fact, just as anyone who enters the military must know he or she may be called upon to risk his life to protect his nation. It is a calling that not everyone is suited for, and that is okay, there are plenty of ways to serve your community: volunteer to help your church, be a Scout Master, or what ever you are suited for, just do your part to be a responsible and thoughtful member of the community.

Every fireman must be prepared to die. He must strive to live; train to do everything possible to survive the circumstance he must face, but at the end of the day he must look himself in the eye and know that he will place his life on the line to do what he has been called upon to do. A fireman who is unwilling to risk his life is of no more use to society than a police officer who is unwilling to use his weapon to protect the citizens of the community he is sworn to protect.

This blog is not meant to fluff the egos of those people who look at the fire service as: a social club, a place to just collect a pay-check, a way of getting the respect of their friends, family and neighbors, for "being a hero", or anyone else who has neither the courage, nor the ability to engage in combat, and risk his life for his fellow man. You know who you are.