Men’s Warehouse (MW on the NYSE) was up $1.26 today from the morning’s opening.
“Chief Halton said he failed to inform speakers at the conference that if they chose to present in uniform, they had to ensure their speech was consistent with the policies, procedures and positions of their organizations.”
“It was for that reason and that reason alone that I chose to take the video down.” FDIC presenters at future conferences choosing to wear their uniform must ensure that their words convey directly the policies, procedures and directives of their organization, he added.”
Read more from FireRescue1.com at “Chief Halton explains decision to pull Lt. McCormack video“
I wonder if this will eventually apply to PPE used during hands-on training evolutions as well. I also wonder if the group from Engine 23 working when filming the FDNY Close Up series have had to review the safety message that Chief of Department Cassano and others have been communicating.
Take a look at the video and see if you can tell why.
I bet Dr. Burton Clark spotted it.
I am not proposing that two wrongs make a right, or that one should void the other. What I am saying is that there has now been a public precedent made for the various notable fire service figures across the nation. If teaching, instructing and consulting is a side job of yours, your words and actions can be governed if you work that side job with any departmental identification. That’s all I have to say about FDIC; I personally try to avoid commentary off the cuff, but I couldn’t help but notice the culture change in this situation.
Invest wisely.
Video courtesy of Firevideo.net
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The second part of the NIST Wind Driven Fire Conditions reports has been released. This part details the experiments and results from the Governor’s Island tests. The lengthy report is a must read for those who desire to better understand not just high rise firefighting, but positive pressure ventilation as well. We should also be aware that as recently as Sunday in Loudoun County (VA)[1] and last month in Houston[2], the impact that wind conditions have on private dwellings as well. To encourage you to read this report, excerpts from the second part are below.
“Each of the 14 experiments started with a fire in a furnished room. The air flow for 12 of the 14 experiments was intensified by a natural or mechanical wind. Each of the tools was evaluated individually as well and in conjunction with each other to assess the benefit to fire fighters, as well as occupants in the structure. The data collected used to examine the impact of the PPV fans, WCDs, and the exterior water application tactics were temperature, differential pressure,and gas velocity inside the structure. Each of the experiments was documented with video and thermal imaging cameras. These experiments also captured video of specific fire phenomena that are not typically observable on the fire ground.”
“All of the fires were ignited in furnished rooms of an apartment. Due to excess fuel pyrolysis/generation (lack of ventilation) the room of fire origin could not transition to flashover until windows self-vented and introduced additional fresh air with oxygen to burn. Without a wind imposed on the vented window, the fire did not spread from the room of origin and never left the apartment of origin. Even with no externally applied wind, creating a flow path from the outside, through the fire apartment into the corridor and up the stairs to the open bulkhead on the roof increased the temperatures and velocities in the corridors and in the stairwell resulting in hazardous conditions for fire fighters and untenable conditions for occupants on the fire floor and above in the stairwell.”
“With an imposed wind of 9 m/s to 11 m/s (20 mph to 25 mph) and a flow path through the fire floor and exiting out of the bulkhead door on the roof, temperatures in excess of 400 ºC (752 ºF) and velocities on the order of 10 m/s (22 mph) were measured in the corridor and stairwell above the fire floor. These extreme thermal conditions are not tenable, even for a firefighter in full protective gear.”
“If the fire has vented a window, important information can be gained by observing the behavior of the flame at the window. If the fire apartment has a high pressure relative to the outside due to an imposed wind, the flame will “pulse” out of the window to balance the overpressure. If the flames are being forced out of the window a flow path has been established through the building and the flow direction maybe favorable to interior fire fighting. If the flames are pulsing or being forced into the window, condition may not be favorable to interior firefighting and caution should be used on the approach to the fire floor. Even if flames are being forced out of adjacent windows in the fire apartment with a high amount of energy, there could still be sufficient energy flows on the fire floor to create a hazard for firefighters.”
“Door control is the most basic means to interrupt or control the flow path in the building. The fire floor stair door should be checked for heat or hot gases flowing around the edges. The door should only be opened a few inches at first to look for rapid changes in smoke volume or velocity and/or thermal conditions. If the thermal environment changes quickly, close the door to interrupt the flowpath. In a smoke filled environment, visual changes to conditions may not be apparent with out a thermal imager. A similar approach would be used on the door to the fire apartment.”
“In these experiments, the externally applied water streams were implemented in different ways; a fog stream inserted into the fire room window, a fog stream flowed from the floor below into the fire room window opening, and a solid water stream flowed from the floor below into the fire room window opening. In all cases, the water flows suppressed the fires, thereby causing reductions in temperature in the corridor and the stairwell of at least 50 %. The water flow rates used in these experiments were between 125 gpm and 200 gpm, demonstrating that a relatively small amount of water applied directly to the burning fuels can have a significant impact.”
“Another factor Norman [16] identifies is that the fire does not have to be 20 stories or more above ground for wind to be a factor. Table 1.1-1 demonstrates that these FDNY wind driven fire incidents have occurred as low as the 3rd story above ground. NFPA data shows that the majority of fires in high rise buildings occur below the 7th floor [2].”
“Every experiment began with all of the doors and windows closed with the exception of the door to the furnished bedrooms and the main entrance door from the public corridor to the fire apartment. After ignition, the fire was allowed to grow until it failed the windows in the room or became ventilation limited. The purpose of the experiments was to get a wind driven fire condition. Therefore when an apartment became ventilation limited because of lack of window failure additional doors were opened remotely such as the stairwell door to provide additional air for the fire to grow. In some cases, windows were manually vented to provide additional air flow.”
“Once wind driven conditions were achieved many different openings were made to simulate the operations of a fire department. These operations included opening the front lobby doors for access, entering the stairwell, opening the door from the stairwell to the fire floor, and opening the bulkhead door at the top of the stairwell. In addition to these operations each of the tools to be tested, PPV fans, Wind Control Devices and Floor Below Nozzles were deployed and evaluated.”
“Wind is a factor. As shown in these experiments, wind can significantly increase the thermal hazards of a fire in a structure. Wind conditions will vary at different elevations above the ground floor, on different sides of a building, due to the effects of surrounding structures or topography, or just changes in the wind itself. Therefore wind needs to be considered as part of the intial “size-up” of the fire conditions and continue to be monitored and reported on throughout the fire incident.”
“Smoke is Fuel. A ventilation limited (fuel rich) condition developed prior to the failure of the windows. Oxyge
n depleted combustion products, containing carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and unburned hydrocarbons, filled the rooms of the structure. Once the window failed, the fresh air provided the oxygen needed to sustain the transition through flashover, which caused a significant increase in temperature.”
“Venting does not always equal cooling. In these experiments, the cool air forced into the broken upwind window resulted in an initial period of cooling in the room of origin, typically followed by a transition to flashover, if a flow path was available.”
“Fire induced flows. Velocities within the structure exceeded 5 m/s (11 mph), just due to the fire growth and the flow path that was set-up between the window opening and the open bulkhead door on the roof.”
References
1. “Photos from Loudoun County: Two-alarm house fire on Sunday morning in Broadlands.” STATter911, May 2009
2. “Wind Driven Fires, Houston” Carey, April 2009
Additional Reading
“Examining Firefighting Tactics under Wind Driven Conditions” USFA, revised May 2009
“Wind Driven Conditions – Lab Experiments” Carey, March 2009
“Breaking Down NIST’s ‘Fire Dynamics’” Carey, Firehouse.com, September 2008
“Fire Dynamics for the Fire Service” Carey, September 2008
“Wind Driven Private Dwelling Fires” Carey, June 2008
Shortly after his death, the members of Alexandria Professional Firefighters Local 2141 established The Fredericks Family Fund to support the secondary education of Andy’s two young children.
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Introduction Revisted
No commentsA year ago I had begun my fire service writing with a reflection of the powerful statement in an article by Charles Bailey of the disconnect in learning within the American fire service. Bailey had shared that the problem is the process between crafting the messages and how the messages are learned are not conjoined. Despite all the constant reminders of safe practices via multiple media forms something (dependent upon the main idea the writer is trying to expound) is lost in translation. As this first year of writing came to a close I began to review if I had met my purpose and whether or not the purpose still led to additional writing.
The popular beliefs regarding line of duty deaths are missing the fact that the largest cause of line of duty deaths are medically related. If you read the various websites, forums and blogs you can easily surmise that a great majority of the average hundred firefighters killed each year have died while performing suppression operations. A small majority of writers and random comments refute this universal notion by redirecting others to the irrefutable evidence that stress, cardiac events and vehicle accidents are the greatest causes of line of duty deaths. Every year a report is produced that gives us detailed information about the previous year’s line of duty deaths. Likewise, an investigation report is produced for every line of duty death termed official, regardless of the nature and cause of death. While the death of any firefighter should never be taken lightly, the fire service has to be aware when it begins shaping tradition out of what is defined by PSOB benefit terminology. Collectively the fire service should work to stop wearing its deaths on its heart sleeve. Length of service to one’s department and related emotional commitment does not have an exact relation to cause and nature of death. A 70-year old fire-police member who dies in his sleep after performing traffic duty at an auto accident early in the afternoon should not be held on the same level as the 34-year old firefighter who dies in the floor collapse of a burning house (let’s leave it there for now, we’ll get back to whether or not said house is occupied later). The American fire service is steeped in tradition, a majority of which has created our cultural values and shaped the foundations of various training and public information. The typical line of duty death, pre-PSOB definition, was one where the fallen died within a direct time relation to firefighting duties (i.e. response, fireground and return to quarters). Now a firefighter can be a line of duty death if he is killed in an auto accident returning home from an association meeting. Compare that with the death of a firefighter killed in a flashover trying to get the child gate off a window he and the three-year old are trapped behind. Ask yourself honestly if they are equal sacrifices. Take this same premise of comparison to the medical cause of line of duty deaths and ask yourself at what point do you stop allowing the unhealthy firefighter to participate in fireground operations? While a cardiac death may not be as titillating as a roof collapse, you can read that a number of medical lines of duty death reports state the fallen had a prior existing history of insufficient cardiovascular health.
The problem of LODD information sharing and learning is the reluctance to recognize the disparity between traditional and scientific line of duty death. This was proven to me by the Firehouse.com News Director. I noticed that the site wasn’t posting the NIOSH LODD investigation reports that involved medical causes of death. When asked why, the reply I was given was that medical causes do not provide the typical lessons learned to readers that traumatic or significant injuries do (his personal opinion). While is it proven that the majority of line of duty deaths are medical related, this person with nearly ten years of work experience in one of the most well known fire service websites failed to see the correlation. Instead he proved to me the abstract that significant traumatic death is held at a greater peer acceptance despite the true data, at least in his opinion. A chief officer once spoke to me about this dilemma, the broad definition of LODD and its acceptance, in terms easy to understand. Take the American farmer; in his course of work from sunrise to sunset he is performing a variety of duties relevant to his occupation. If we allow a line of duty definition similar in task definition to cover the work of the farmer, then farming would most likely be the one of our nation’s most dangerous vocations. It is akin to trying to ‘out poor’ or ‘out ghetto’ each other (“when I was growing up I was so poor…”) but by recognizing that culture and tradition should not shape LODD definition we may take the bite out of the too safe/not safe debate. We are dead because we have been working with an 80% arterial blockage undiagnosed for a number of years and not because we may be too encapsulated by our PPE or we performed VES on a vacant structure.
Fire service information and the creation of our own participatory culture are another area of disconnect. The benefit that some fire service blogs have over websites and forum boards are that the ability to participate is easier and depending on the parameters allowed by the author, quicker. This allows for a faster exchange of information at a widely discernable quality to be posted to a related article. With the induction of Twitter by various fire service bloggers readers can have nearly minute by minute previews of someone they have chosen to follow. This flow of newly published information is great, especially for organizations and individuals such as NIOSH, the USFA and public information officers. In a conference about participatory culture attended by figures in press and media, the term was defined as having participants (readers) being not focused on the information but ‘addicted’ to their ‘friends’. The value to the reader is not the subject matter but who is talking and to whom. This I learned to be somewhat true on various fire service websites. On Firehouse.com forums, I learned that there are some persons in the fire service that while they have allegedly (I have to state ‘allegedly’ since it is basically anonymous users on the internet) attended various rapid intervention training they never heard of using a LUNAR report for a missing firefighter. Despite the number of websites covering rapid intervention, saving our own and close calls, as well as news about the same, LUNAR was a foreign concept. The second example from the same site was about users that had not heard of the technique for repositioning the SCBA waist strap on a downed firefighter for removal. Again, while it appeared to be foreign to a minority, I wonder if the important information we read is truly distributed to the masses or does it remain within various sub-cultures. To me this became paramount with the infamous Ray McCormack speech (if I have to explain it then we have another example of participatory culture) at FDIC. Not as much as the speech itself but the commentary and comments that followed afterwards that showed shallow participation by some individuals. Simply, the American fire service will never be able to come close to looking seriously into changing traditional tactics and strategy if the first salvoes of debate are nothing more than calling each other freelancing cowboys or safety sallies. Although everyone is not a writer or orator neither side will gain credibility if we give serious discussion nothing more than slapstick. Bobby Halton, who caved to FDNY Chief Cassano and pulled Ray’s speech, could have set a ground breaking event by instead calling for a nationwide roundtable to discuss what makes Johnny a poor leader. Imagine how much more of an impact the speech would have had if Halton had asked the IAFF, IAFC, NVFC, NIOSH and the USFA to participate and take it across the country in tow
n hall meetings. Instead the most hype came from downloading it before it was pulled again.
A final note about participatory culture is the lack of participation in some specific areas. During this period of writing I came across two requests that I believed would surely be well known. The first and probably lesser known was the call for committee members to various NFPA committees. The very organization that a majority of firefighters believed to be taking the bite out of interior firefighting were asking for participation from firefighters. I am not a regular browser of the NFPA website or recipient of latest NFPA news, so I expect that such calls are relatively normal. I was surprised though that the request was not widely distributed. The same confusion applies to the request for comments to the vacant, abandoned, unoccupied structures draft also. Only on Fire Engineering did I see this mentioned among industry briefs. How is it that the huge numbers of medium we have miss these calls for input from the backstep firefighter? There are two reasons that I have experienced. Posting of fire service news is dependent on two things. First is the source of the site’s news. Feed subscription will give you what is on the 11 o’clock news. Industry-specific news such as the need for assistance with a committee or recommendation draft is rarely a feed item. One has to be either a very regular site visitor or receive regular updates via email. The second is the point where news information crosses a writer’s or editor’s desk. If you follow a particular fire service website for pertinent information, then you should know who it is that determines what information is posted and their public safety experience, or lack thereof. The journalist and editor without fire service knowledge, even at a rudimentary level, will decide for themselves what readers will be interested in. While the story and photos of a three-alarm fire gain page views, the advisory about a humat valve rupture will have a greater importance. But, if the advisory isn’t posted, you know nothing.
The great disconnect between teaching and learning will have to be resolved as Bailey suggests by including scientists, sociologists or behavioral scientists. This doesn’t imply that there needs to be a push to over-educate today’s firefighters and officers but that if we are serious about changing, or preserving, parts of our culture then catchphrases must give way to smart debate. Two examples of despite how close we may be to each other technologically, we are many miles apart.