In Bill Manning’s “Learning Curve” (fireEMS, July/August 2003), he wrote: “Dispatch centers … and some fire departments that have tried it, question the bottom-line outcomes, anecdotal though their evidence may be.”
This identifies one of the most significant challenges to the future of the fire service: proving our value. The average firefighter does not care nor has any desire to prove his impact on the local community’s quality of life. Many fire chiefs, especially in the volunteer fire service, give lip service to data collection.
The firefighter still believes the fact that “we save lives” should be good enough for our communities and that the citizens should believe us and give us all of the money we ask for. That does not work in today’s world. With so many people/organizations vying for that finite tax dollar, the fire service needs to embrace data collection.
The USFA needs to produce an incident reporting system that is “firefighter-friendly.” The current system is cumbersome to say the least. When it takes 15 minutes to complete, using a computer, a basic medical report without trauma or lots of drugs, there has to be a better way.
John M. Buckman IIIChief, German Township (IN) Volunteer Fire Department, President 2001-2002, International Association of Fire Chiefs
One more lesson from a builder
I am the builder mentioned in C.V. “Buddy” Martinette’s article “Leadership Lessons from a Builder” (August 2003). I was extremely flattered by the article, but there is an even more important story. I want to make one more point about what took place on that special day in May when we had our “blitz build” for Victory House. I want to share the real magic of the day with the readers of Fire Engineering. The magic was that a fire department, a police department, a church, and a community joined hands to move the world one step forward. In a time when so much of the news around us is distressing, it is a wonderful feeling to work on a project like Victory House. I was able to work with people who believe so much in their community that they gave their time, talents, and money to provide an emergency shelter for people they will never meet. People got together and worked very hard simply because they wanted to make a difference. Firefighters and police officers took their commitment to our community to another level. I thank everyone involved in the effort in Lynchburg, Virginia. I would also like to challenge anyone so moved to consider a similar home in your community.
Thomas J. Gerdy, Gerdy Construction Company, Inc., Lynchburg, Virginia
Savings: at what price?
You have all seen them: the “dollar” stores. They may have different names but they all have one thing in common—they sell cheap stuff and a lot of it. The owner finds a location, preferably in an vacant mini-mall or strip mall or another location where the landlord is anxious to lease space; partitions off the back of the store for storage; and then loads the rest of the store to the rafters with merchandise.
Usually, extra cardboard boxes of merchandise clog the aisles, around which customers (and firefighting personnel) have to circumnavigate. Another characteristic is the large amount of waste paper, cardboard, and boxes generated, which can increase the potential for a disastrous, rapidly spreading, extremely hot building fire.
The store is often staffed during business hours by one person, and that person usually is not aware of what is happening in the store until flames and smoke are halfway through the store.
The building is usually one-story, made of drywall on wood studs, with wooden rafters that have a common ceiling with five or more adjacent stores. It has a built-up roof with tar, which will soon weaken under fire conditions and collapse.
Such fires are occurring with more frequency as consumers move away from large malls with large prices to shop at dollar stores. In Orange County, Florida, where I served for 20 years with the Orlando Fire Department, one such fire started in a dollar store and burned out the neighbors. It was a daytime fire with many people present in the store at the time, in a fashionable strip mall.
Another fire in Memphis, Tennessee, occurred just after the store closed. More than 100 firefighters fought the fire, which resulted in two firefighters’ deaths when the roof collapsed during their search for victims. The fire was so intense that a concrete wall had to be breached to recover the bodies.
What can we do to prevent these fires? I recently toured several dollar stores and was amazed that the fire officials allowed them to operate with so many life safety code violations. Inspectors, fire chiefs, firefighters on company inspections, and even the public must get involved to get the owners to stop these dangerous practices—before we have to attend another preventable firefighter funeral.
Jerry Schlotter, Deputy Fire and Safety Specialist, Orlando, Florida
