Fire companies need secondary liability insurance coverage for drivers

Fire companies need secondary liability insurance coverage for drivers

This refers to “Is Your Personal Vehicle Covered in a Crash During a Response?” (Volunteers Corner, December 2015).

Author Chris Daly brought up several points of concern relative to personal vehicles that also apply to department or company vehicles. Pennsylvania uses the Uniform Vehicle Code as the basis for its state law, Title 75 of the Pennsylvania statutes. Under this statute, there are authorized vehicles that are not permitted to have sirens or violate any traffic laws while being operated at any time including when responders are en route to a call and emergency vehicles that must be operating a siren and at least one red light while responding. Emergency vehicles are permitted to disregard traffic-control devices and direction of travel regulations under very specific circumstances, such as when responding to a fire. The operator is always civilly liable for his actions.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Bureau has established protocols for EMS responses including when EMS vehicles may respond as emergency vehicles and when EMS emergency vehicle operators require special training. A responder (paid or unpaid) is an employee of the fire company and the township the volunteer company is contracted to protect under Pennsylvania law. As such, a prudent employer would insist that the employee be properly licensed and insured to operate a vehicle as part of his duties.

Pennsylvania does not allow an insurance company to charge a responder accident penalties for being involved in a collision when responding to an emergency call. It does allow the insurance carrier to use economic losses in its decision of whether to continue coverage beyond a policy term.

A carrier cannot refuse initial coverage or rate coverage based on any factor other than nondiscriminatory factors, such as driving history, which are applied to the entire population. None of the carriers of personal vehicle insurance with whom I have dealt over the years have even inquired as to whether the vehicle was used for emergency response, and they even quoted the no-penalty clauses in their policies.

What is of concern is that townships and fire companies do not always accept responsibility for their responders’ actions. In addition to having an adequate training program for responders operating personal or department vehicles, departments should provide secondary insurance coverage for their members. There is a cap on public agency liability in Pennsylvania, and all agencies should provide secondary coverage in the form of an umbrella liability policy and accidental death and disability on-duty coverage to supplement workers’ compensation coverage. This would be especially valuable for special fire police responders who respond to the scene and use their personal vehicles as traffic-control equipment. It is difficult enough to recruit volunteers today without putting them at risk of catastrophic losses that are often not their fault.

Irvin Lichtenstein

Chief of Operations

Southeast Pennsylvania Search and Rescue

Wyncote, Pennsylvania

Firefighters: Seize the chance to become involved with codes

We all know the old saying, “If I had a dollar for every time I heard (fill in the blank), I’d be rich.” In my 40 years in the fire service, including the past 15 at the National Fire Academy, I couldn’t begin to count the number of times I heard “Firefighters need to learn more about codes and get involved.” You now have your chance.

The National Fire Protection Association 1001, Standard for Fire Fighter Professional Qualification, Technical Committee has received a proposal to add the following job performance requirement to Fire Fighter II:

List the building code use and occupancy classifications, given the jurisdiction’s legally adopted building code, so that occupancy classifications are identified and differences among occupancy classifications are described.

(A) Requisite Knowledge. Organizational policy and procedures, jurisdictional governance, jurisdictional agency structure and authority, common uses of buildings and facilities, and legislation affecting code adoption.

(B) Requisite Skills. The ability to read and comprehend occupancy definitions and descriptions published in the legally adopted codes.

This is not an attempt to turn firefighters into “code geeks.” This is one proposal of several that will be submitted over time to the professional qualification standard series to expose fire operations personnel to the generic language and use of codes. It is intended to provide firefighters with a foundational knowledge of building use and occupancy so they can better understand (1) how codes are applied to new and existing construction, (2) how use and occupancy classifications establish the basis for construction and fire protection requirements, and (3) provide a common language among firefighters and fire protection personnel when describing use and occupancy.

This proposal is identified on the NFPA Codes and Standards Web page as “Public Input 59 submitted to NFPA 1001.” Subsequent proposals will include (at the officer level) “describing the ‘construction types’ identified in the building codes” and “explaining the operation of wet-pipe, dry-pipe, pre-action, and deluge sprinkler valves.”

These proposals will enhance firefighter and officer knowledge of the built environment in which they work every day. The next step in the standard development process is the public comment stage.

So, please, when you hear “firefighters need to learn more about codes,” don’t send me your dollars; give me your support.

Rob Neale

Vice President Government Relations

International Code Council

Transitional attack benefits victim inside

I have attended many classes regarding Underwriters Laboratories/National Institute of Standards and Technology fire research and flow path in the past few years, including those at FDIC International. Accordingly, I have heard both sides of the argument: (1) The research is giving us the information we never had to make an informed decision to attack the fire most efficiently and faster or (2) this research is just an excuse not to go inside; it jeopardizes civilians; it is not for aggressive interior organizations.

Is it really placing the firefighter’s safety above the civilian’s welfare to “hit it hard from the yard”? Each is entitled to his opinion, but not to his own facts. The research has yielded facts that demonstrate that the more quickly water gets on the fire, the better it is for those inside. Moreover, saying that this is the way we have always done it is a lie. Before self-contained breathing apparatus, we fought fires like this (transitional attacks) and then went interior to save lives and complete final extinguishment.

If you stand outside with a charged hoseline and don’t hit the fire that is venting to the exterior, you are not living up to the oath you took when you became a firefighter. You are obligated to put water on the fire as soon as you are able, for the benefit of the civilians inside! Going inside and passing the fire on the exterior, essentially taking minutes longer to reach the seat of the fire, is selfish and placing your ego ahead of those inside. Your actions are telling civilians that your own “battle with the fire” and your desired adrenaline rush take precedence over their lives. You will still get to go inside, but the fire may not be as big. You will still get to race the clock, but maybe it will be 60 seconds instead of 20 seconds until flashover. I’ve seen it play out on fire scenes exactly how the research shows it will. We transition it, we go inside, we put the fire out, we save lives, we don’t get caught in flashover, and we make things better as soon as we can.

If you arrive on scene and things get worse before they get better because of your actions or inaction, you have not done your job. At the first opportunity you are given to make things better, you had best seize that opportunity. If you pass it up because you are unprepared or unwilling and stubborn, you have not lived up to your oath. The fire service needs firefighters to make informed decisions for the benefit of the civilians, not their own egos.

Tom J. Johnson

Training Lieutenant

Aurora (CO) Fire Rescue

Education is the key to survival

After many years as a firefighter/officer in a service I have grown to love more than I could ever have imagined, I find myself thinking about what we are doing wrong relative to teaching the citizens we are sworn to protect and to losing some 100 firefighters on average each year.

We have great programs, but are we getting the message out there to the citizens? Are we doing our best for them as a department, and are we keeping them informed on what could happen when they don’t follow the advice we give them. Our citizens are our source of income and are the reason we have this great job. According to a study by the National Fire Protection Association in 2011, fire claims the lives of an average of seven civilians every day. What are we doing to stop it?

Many communities have smoke detector programs, for example. Announcing these programs on the radio or in the newspaper is not enough. I am not sure that promoting them on social media is enough. These efforts are a good start, but we need to get out of the fire station and out to the people in a door-to-door program, or we could drive a truck to the local store and set up a stand or go to a local school and present a program.

We now have firefighter programs like SLICERS, reading smoke, understand building constructions, and Calling a Mayday. They work, but they are tools, and if we don’t use the tools, then we just keep doing the same thing. It is important for all of us to learn lessons from our experiences. I have had many experiences that produced lessons I did not learn until the second or third time they occurred. Firefighters sometimes are stubborn and don’t like to change things.

The key to the survival of the fire service is to educate the public we protect. To do that, we must first educate ourselves. Chief officers should stress self-education for department members, whether volunteer, paid on call, or career. The education program might go a step further. Members should not only obtain information but should also share the information with other department members through formal or informal discussions. The chief officers of the shift could set a time in the day or at a meeting during the week to talk about what was learned. Such a “Pass It Along” program will assist members when they go out to teach the public. This type of program is not expensive-perhaps the price of a magazine or an Internet connection, but it could save citizen or firefighter lives. Information is all around us; we just need the drive to assimilate it and “Pass it Along” to future members and the citizens.

Michael E. Steward

Deputy Chief (Ret.)

West Burlington (IA) Fire Department