BY BILL MANNING
“It’s a damn, crying shame.” “They shouldn’t have been in that building.” “They died for what-a couple of vagrants who weren’t even in there?”
- What Do They Say to Us?
- Mayday Monday: Remembering the Worcester (MA) Tragedy
- Vacant Buildings: Scourge of the Fire Service
- It’s Just a Vacant
You don’t hear these statements in public forums. You hear them “on the street”-firefighters whispering in groups of two or three, a comment here or there, in this case about the loss of the six brothers from Worcester. Six months later and it’s still sinking in, hard.
Maybe the whispers of doubt flow from remorse. Or from the fear of knowing deep down that such a tragedy could have struck just as swiftly and mercilessly in any other town or city-your town, our town. Or maybe from a stubborn refusal to come to an acceptance that sometimes-too many times-the fire wins.
Six of our own down in one fire deeply affects this fire service as a whole. Attitudes change. The Worcester tragedy has rekindled the debate about firefighter risk exposure in dangerous buildings under fire conditions.
You hear the comments, sickening comments, from people who call themselves firefighter, fire officer, fire chief. “Sure, I’d risk my life for a family or children I knew were in a burning building, but homeless people?” they say. Or, “I wouldn’t put my firefighters in a vacant building to save a bunch of vagrants.” Or, “They’re survivors. They found their way in-they can find their way out.” Or even, “We never do vacant buildings.”
The vacant building by itself is a worthless pile of junk. But it is not too hard to imagine circumstances wherein a vacant building on fire becomes of vital strategic importance to save attached, occupied property of value to the community-that is, assuming the fire department still is in the property-saving business. And surely there will be future fires in vacant structures where there is a serious concern for the life hazard within the building, as was the case in Worcester. That concern makes the pile of junk a very valuable piece of real estate for just as long as it takes to get everyone, occupants and firefighters, the hell out-that is, assuming the fire department still is in the life-saving business.
Seven years ago, I wrote an editorial entitled, “Line in the Hallway, or Deck Gun through the Front Door?” (August 1993) in which I opined on a growing trend toward “no entry” SOPs for certain types of buildings-among them those of lightweight wood truss construction and vacant buildings. I noted a fire in a “vacant” building in which immediately upon knockdown of the first-floor fire, squatters in the basement came scrambling out to safety.
You never know. You just never know.
Because the crystal ball response has yet to be invented, some seek to solve this perceived dilemma through restrictive policies that chafe at the concepts of duty, morality, and service excellence.
To exclude firefighters as a matter of policy from involved vacant structures under any and all circumstances makes as much sense as excluding them from operating under or on a lightweight wood truss-constructed roof for a simple room-and-contents fire. It’s an excessive policy borne of irresponsibility: So-called leadership does not want to invest in what it will take to “make the building behave.”
Worse is the morally repugnant implication that fireground strategy and tactics should in some way be dictated by the “value” of the life hazard inside the building. “Trapped baby, risk a lot,” these folks seem to say, “homeless bum, risk little-or nothing.” They should be ashamed of themselves. Perhaps they would apply a “life-value matrix” to future calls, a sort of “go/no go/sometimes go/I’m not sure if we go” policy that condones a higher risk level at operations involving only the most “valuable” citizens.
Dangerous structures will not disappear. But vacant buildings, in particular, can and must be eradicated through legislation and a concerted community effort against them.
Municipalities must commit to policing buildings that pose extraordinary hazards. Building owners must be held legally and criminally responsible for permitting conditions that increase dangers to firefighters during fires, including building modifications made without permit. If the building owner can’t keep out the homeless, the city will tear down the building at the owner’s expense.
Municipalities must fund a stepped-up effort toward a building hazards identification program, led by the fire department. Preplans must be part and parcel of the response effort and available to all officers on arrival at the incident. Fire department building assessments are imperative. The fire officers must have appropriate information about the enemy, the building.
Municipalities must increase the fire department budget for fire training in general. “Special hazards” training must be a component of the general departmental curriculum. Company officers must be encouraged to drill their units on a regular basis. This includes first-due response area building construction/risk assessments.
Most important, fire officers must be afforded the tools and the latitude to bring training, experience, and intelligence to bear in fluid fireground risk analysis and decision-making. Those decisions cannot be made in a boardroom.
The shame in Worcester is that the building existed and was an open invitation to vagrants. The shame was that its deadly interior secrets were unknown to the fire department.
The shame decidedly was NOT the fireground decision, based on available information, to conduct interior search and suppression operations.
The firefighters in Worcester didn’t say “It’s not my job” or “It’s just homeless people.” For that, they died. But they died with great honor, for a cause that’s bigger than any one of us, a cause that’s at the very core of the sacred trust between firefighters and the public.
It is time to solve the problem of vacant buildings and the hazards they pose to firefighters. That must be done by removing the problem from our communities, not by changing the mission the Worcester brothers died preserving.
Beyond funerals and eulogies, political action now is the greatest compliment to the brave souls from Worcester.
