The “circle” of shared information
The July 2012 issue of Fire Engineering had several articles on leadership that inspired me to share some of my thoughts. The information shared every month by the authors from departments around the country has shaped my career and will continue to do so. I read every article as if the author were writing me a personal letter on how to be successful in the fire service. Even if the subject is controversial or subjective, the writer is sharing his personal accounts and experiences and allowing us to learn from them to the capacity that we allow the story to impact us.
What if we all were willing to share and receive knowledge and experiences from each other? The fire service is in the middle of a paradigm shift, and the only way to stay current and not be left behind is to share what we have learned and experienced with each other so that we can anticipate the changes and be successful as a unified body. I am convinced that if we all shared our thoughts and experiences and accepted the differences in opinion without being defensive, we would be successful at shaping the future of our profession.
Take the time to share what was shared with you. Make your list of “Two Cents,” and give it away for free! Remember, you can have the biggest impact on the people around you by your example. We take ownership when we put things in writing. I try to always share what has been shared with me, and that always puts me in a place of accountability with others. If you write it, you own it, and if you own it, you’re more likely to live it. I want to thank Fire Engineering and all its contributors for shaping me into the firefighter I am today. I’m honored to have mentors I have never met personally, but because of their commitment to the magazine, they are within arm’s reach for me to pick their brains.
Here are my “Two Cents”:
• The day you say “the heck with it” when it comes to checking a piece of equipment, that’s the day you’ll need to use it and it won’t work.
• Skills, techniques, and tactics are no good if you’re the only one who knows them. Share the knowledge. Someone gave it to you; don’t be greedy.
• Pay attention to details. They make the difference between a good firefighter and a great firefighter.
• When someone looks at you and tells you he is going to die, believe him.
• Train for the impossible, and the possible will be covered.
• Some of the best friends you’ll ever have will come from this job–so will the worst enemies.
• He who talks the most generally also gets ignored the most.
• Being a step firefighter is the best job in the department. No matter what your rank, you’re still and will always be a firefighter.
• If you want to know if there is any company pride or a morale problem, look at the rigs and hand tools. Hand tools and rigs are like a window to a company’s soul.
• You will work for idiots, and so will they.
• If you get a “feeling,” listen to it.
• You’re everyone’s friend until you pose a threat to someone’s knowledge or promotion.
• Company officers have their place on the fireground–it’s with their company.
• People are rescued alive from seemingly impossible conditions. Give them a chance.
• Training is the most important “thing” in the fire service!
• New kids are like lumps of clay or pieces of refuse. Figure out which is which and either mold them or discard them.
• It’s not how you roll the dice, it’s how they land!
• Always put your family first.
• Playing with your kids and loving your wife are the best therapy.
• THIS IS THE BEST JOB IN THE WORLD!
Pabel Troche
Firefighter
FE catalyst for department improvement
In March 2011, Fire Engineering published my article “Fire Department Connections: Start to Finish.” A recent occurrence illustrates how Fire Engineering has a continued impact on readers even months after a particular issue has been published. I was contacted by a Westchester County, New York, fire department looking for information about fire department connections and fire department operations. The department was searching the Internet and came across the Fire Engineering Web site and my article. The department contacted me about local training. Using a Federal Emergency Management Agency training grant the department had been awarded, it is looking for a combination of classroom and hands-on training with the potential to modify its current procedures and equipment. To make the training as relevant as possible to the agency, the training will be in two parts. The first part will be a day of visiting target standpipe/sprinkler hazard properties to gain actual building design data and system information. A few weeks later, I will return to the department to deliver the training program based on those site visits, to present the sites in specific terms about the community and what to do at XYZ address vs. another standpipe or sprinklered building on the other side of town.
I am impressed to see an agency that took what I think is an incredible approach to fire service grants. In an effort to reinforce the core function of effective fire suppression, it sought a grant to improve its firefighting safety and performance in buildings with sprinklers and standpipes. In the real world, grants don’t always have to be for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of apparatus and equipment. This department is using a different approach to strengthen overall agency performance. I just thought everyone would like to know how things continue to improve through the work done at Fire Engineering.
Dave Phelan
PPV and VEIS contraindicated?
This is in reference to “Using Vent-Enter-Isolate-Search [VEIS] Tactics” by Steve Shupert (July 2012). I am a proponent of VEIS, and I am not disputing the tactic. However, Shupert talked about the use of VEIS and positive-pressure ventilation (PPV) simultaneously in his article. It has always been my understanding that the two tactics should never be used at the same time. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) studies clearly show what happens at the exhaust opening when PPV is in use. When natural ventilation is in use, there’s a bidirectional flow pattern in the window opening. All of the heat, smoke, and gases exit the top of the window, and fresh air is drawn in the bottom of the window. This is the reason we were taught as rookie firefighters to stay low while entering a window.
According to the NIST studies, maximum temperatures were 1,832°F in the top of the window and 1,110°F in the bottom of the window. It also took 400 seconds to reach the maximum temperatures. This gives you roughly 6½ minutes to clear the window, climb in the window, and get the door shut. When PPV is in use, the conditions in the window are significantly different. There is a unidirectional flow pattern in the window, and no fresh air is being drawn in at the bottom of the window. Maximum temperatures were between 2,010°F and 1,650°F. Maximum temperatures were reached in only 200 seconds. This gives you less than half the time to clear the window, climb in the window, and get the door shut when PPV is in use. We are essentially creating the same conditions encountered with wind-driven fires at the exhaust opening. Why would we ever send a firefighter in that same exhaust opening? I have been on the receiving end of a wind-driven fire; it was not a pleasant experience. Battalion Chiefs Kriss Garcia and Reinhard Kauffmann of the Salt Lake City (UT) Fire Department are two of the leading experts in the use of PPV/positive-pressure attack (PPA). According to Garcia and Kauffmann, the use of PPV/PPA and VES simultaneously is contraindicated. They also do not recommend the use of PPV/PPA when you have victims in the windows, for the same reasons. Both PPV and VEIS are valuable tactics, but they should never be used at the same time.
Chris Rupp
Firefighter/Engineer
Steve Shupert responds: Thanks for your comments on this article. I agree with your assertions regarding the use of PPV in conjunction with VEIS tactics. I make the statement that the use of VEIS helps keep the doorway open for use of PPV–to be clear, in my mind, the use of PPV would happen after the initial search (VEIS). A little further in the article, I state that “great caution” should be employed if considering PPV during this search tactic.
I appreciate your references of the NIST research. It is a great resource that really gives our job good scientific data with which to work. Through discussions like these and around the tailboard, we can achieve greater understanding, a safer workplace, and a safer community.
Steve Shupert
Lieutenant, “C” Platoon
Engine/Rescue Company #55
Miami Valley Fire District
Montgomery County, Ohio
Accentuate the positive
I have been involved in many phases of the fire service for more than four decades. I have seen change and have been a cause for change and improvement. I am very proud of my service and also of what I have accomplished. I was never a chief officer, but I was an officer and led many men and women into battle. I am proud to say I never lost a crew member in all of those years. As an inspector and an investigator in the largest industrial park in the world, I had the opportunity to be involved with about 80 percent of our more than 3,500 industrial occupancies, ranging in size from 1,000 square feet to more than one million square feet under roof in one company. I have learned more than enough to fill volumes of books. (I have already written and published one.)
I will celebrate my 40th anniversary as an instructor with Harper College in Palatine, Illinois, August 25, 2012. I have had the opportunity to educate, mentor, lead, and challenge many thousands of students. Some went into the fire service, others into criminal investigation and law enforcement, engineering, and the business world. I am proud of those who carry my legacy on to future generations. As a matter of fact, several of my former students are now adjunct instructors at Harper and in other fire science programs.
I have watched the fire service grow and change, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. I am aware that change is a constant. We either lead, follow, or get out of the way. I have been bothered for all these many years by the negative attitudes the fire service has adopted. Each year, we publish our fire loss in dollars, deaths, and injuries. We purchase new and better equipment and then don’t have the personnel to make it function and to properly use that equipment. We are operating with fewer and fewer personnel on our apparatus, and the losses in dollars and human life continue.
I would like to propose a whole new way of looking at our profession. As everyone knows, the bean counters are using our own information to defeat us. I would propose that in lieu of publishing our fire loss for the year, we take two readily available numbers–the assessed valuation for our community and the annual sales tax revenue for commercial and industrial properties. From that, deduct our fire losses; the result would be the millions of dollars we saved the community. Second, take the census numbers for our community and deduct our loss of lives from that number; now we can state that we are an important asset to the community. We are not a drain on the community, and if you take the number of firefighters proportionally to the population, we become so valuable that city hall will be hard pressed to deny us our just due.
If we took every fire in a structure and the value of that building in our community and deducted the loss, look at the money we would save. For example, we have a typical six-flat apartment with a valuation of $500,000 and there is a fire in the stove in one apartment. The damage estimate is $500. By my figures, we would save $499,500. Therefore, we are an important asset to the community. Let’s take another look at our statistics. We had a bad year and lost 12 people. That is a tragedy; however, if our census for the community is 37,500 people, then we saved 37,488 people that year. That makes us an ASSET rather than a liability.
I realize that the fire service is steeped in tradition and we are very proud of our past. I think it is time to break from this tradition of negativity and announce to the world that we are the most important asset our community has.
This may be oversimplified, but I am certain that the Executive Fire Officer Training curriculum or the International Association of Fire Chiefs or other organizations could enhance and develop this idea. I probably won’t live to see this change, but, as the farmer says, “You always plow back into the soil for the future.”
If I can stimulate discussion and thought, then I have been a success.
Richard J. Keyworth, CFPS
Retired Lieutenant
Elk Grove Village (IL) Fire Department
Adjunct Faculty Instructor Fire Science and Emergency Management Program Harper College
Palatine, Ilinois
