"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.
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