PREFIRE PLANNING: ANYTHING BUT ROUTINE
While the value of prefire planning is widely recognized in the fire service, we sometimes tend to do our preplanning in a hurried manner and with a “get-the-form-completed” mentality. Or, we discuss preplanning primarily with regard to the results achieved at a particular incident (it was preplanned or it wasn’t preplanned). We do not always take the time to review and assess thoroughly the hazards involved. Taking the time to complete each preplanning task adequately can be the critical element in determining the success of emergency operations. The caliber of preplanning needed goes beyond filing a completed form for an occupancy.
Do not consider preplanning a routine function that fills in time during the day. Approach it systematically and include all relevant data, especially the following:
A hazard analysis. Include at least the following:
- Type of hazards—haz-mat, structural, or hidden, for example.
- Location of the hazard.
- Nature of the hazard (What is most likely to happen?).
- Effects of the hazard on off-site personnel/facilities.
- Life-safety hazard implications (size and type).
- Environmental implications.
- The degree of probability that an emergency will occur (site mitigation, safety records, site-protection features).
A list of public and private resources.
An assessment of the capabilities of all skills, knowledge, and equipment that might he needed for all emergencies to which you might he called. The assessment should include the following:
- An analysis of the hazard.
- A comparison of the hazards a site presents with the available resources,
- training, and personnel within your organization.
- A comparison and assessment of the resources, training, and personnel available through mutual-aid and automatic-aid participants and the involved facility itself.
- A list of additional needed resources. The list should be based on a survey of community, county, state, federal, and private sources and should be updated or expanded as each preplan is completed or on a yearly basis if no new preplanning is done.
Plans for the most effective use of resources.
Planning is primarily a management function wherein hazards are analyzed, needed resources are applied, the probability of occurrence is considered, and the manner in which the resources necessary to control the situation will be expended are determined.
Preplans are not secret documents and should be made available so that all firefighters can review them at any time; they are not documents just for the chief officers.
UPDATING NEEDED
Effective preplanning is a dynamic process that allows the department to plan and develop strategies and resources on a continuous basis. A preplan is relevant only as long as all components affecting an emergency situation—personnel, process, and building design —remain unchanged. In today’s corporate world, significant changes can occur overnight. Despite this, effective preplanning still is possible. Usually drastic changes that alter operations during an emergency must be reported to a municipal department or agency. Before structural changes are made, for example, a building permit must be issued. (Personnel changes usually amount to name changes only; titles and job functions, in many cases, remain the same.)
The dynamic nature of the corporate industrial sector mandates that fire departments establish a system that provides for the updating of preplans as needed. Basic to effective preplans, therefore, is a relationship between your department and other municipal departments or agencies. Get to know the individuals responsible for the functions that affect preplans. It is easier to work with people you know in a crisis, and establishing a rapport with these departments can help you to understand each other’s needs. This interdepartment/interagency agreement should include a plan for exchanging information that alters preplans and, consequently, emergency strategies and operations.
PREPROGRAM SURVEY
Before we in the Mansfield (TX) Fire Department implemented our preplanning program, we surveyed our shift firefighters. They were given a questionnaire with the following questions:
- To what types of fires and emergencies do we respond in our city? What additional types of emergencies might we respond to in the future?
- What outside resources and agencies (local, state, federal, or private) do we need (or will we need) to assist us during the emergencies listed in answer 1?
- What type of advice, expertise, personnel, or equipment might these agencies supply us during an emergency?
This survey allowed the members of our department to brainstorm and identify some of the resources we might need. The extensive lists submitted by our personnel showed us that we needed to expand our resources. It taught us that the fire service cannot be all things to all people. The local fire department is but one element of a large service pool that includes the resources within the municipality, county, state, and country. We must acknowledge our limitations and tap into these “outside” resources, and we must share our resources with other departments.
THE MUNICIPALITY
Mutual sharing is a crucial element in the preplanning process. Among the resources commonly found within a municipal government complex are personnel from the building department (including engineers and architects), public works department (including heavy equipment operators), water department, electric and gas utility company, and telephone company, to name a few. The list of potential resources routinely in use in the larger city or county organization is endless. Just about every skill a city or county uses on a daily basis can be used in an emergency. The fire service must identify these services and include them in the preplans.
Often, personnel within the municipal complex have hidden skills and abilities they do not use in their daily jobs. A survey we took among employees of the city of Mansfield revealed that 74 percent of the 85 percent who responded had such skills and that 96 percent of these respondents said they would make them available in emergencies. Among the respondents were a licensed plumber, a licensed electrician, a welder, a millwright, a forklift operator, a crane operator, a pipefitter, a draftsman, a heavy equipment operator, a registered nurse, a firefighter (not a member of the Mansfield department), an aircraft firefighter, an EMT, a telephone line repairer, a disaster coordinator (insurance), a bus driver, and a police officer (not in Mansfield).
STATE AND FEDERAL AGENCIES
State and federal agencies have expertise and resources that can help in various kinds of emergencies; these resources may differ from state to state. The obvious agencies include the Federal Aviation Administration; the Environmental Protection Agency; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; and the local water commission. Preplan resources, however, also should include the U.S. Coast Guard, the State Forest Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the armed forces, the U.S. Corps of Engineers, the li.S. Weather Bureau, and the Department of Transportation, to name a few.
NEIGHBORING FIRE DEPARTMENTS
We typically include adjoining fire departments in our preplans. We have found that large and small departments alike have limitations and that no neighboring department automatically should be included or excluded. The skills and equipment of each department must be matched with specific emergencies. It serves no purpose, for example, to ask a neighboring department to assist in a hazardous-materials incident if it has no particular skill or knowledge in that area or if it doesn’t have any hazardous-materials equipment to bring to the scene.
A second or third source for specific resources should be listed in the preplan in case the primary’ mutualaid supplier is unavailable for an emergency.
PRIVATE SECTOR
A substantial amount of equipment and expertise can be obtained from the private sector, a resource generally ignored by the fire service. We usually call on the private sector for very specialized functions such as disposing of haz-mat materials or borrowing refrigerated trailers for use as temporary morgues. We also should consider the private sector when we need ordinary equipment and supplies such as sand, dump trucks, cranes, portable pumps, life jackets, and small boats.
Structural engineers, chemists, draftsmen, and surveyors are just a few of the private sector resources whose expertise you may have to rely on in a future incident. We have found the Directory of Private Sector Sources, published by the Texas Mutual League, very helpful for compiling lists of resources available in the private sector. Comparable publications are available in your area.
Some departments have preplanning programs and informal mutualaid agreements, but they have not followed through to have the agreements formalized and put in writing or the sources for services, expertise, and equipment compiled into lists. An informal survey taken in 1988 among 50 participants in the Executive Fire Officer Program at the National Fire Academy, for example, revealed that about 68 percent of the departments had agreements with private agencies for emergency assistance but that only 39 percent of the departments had the agreements in writing. Also, 78 percent of the responding departments said shared resources were included in their preplans, but only a little more than one-third had actual listings of these resources.
TARGET HAZARDS
Preplanning programs should include a list of the structures needing preplans, in order of priority. In Mansfield, we compiled a Target Hazard list, which we use as the basis for preplanning. Occupancies falling into the following categories (not in priority order) qualify for the Target Hazard list:
- A building that has historic/sentimental value to the community.
- A large employer in the community.
- A building whose structure or contents pose a particular problem for the fire department.
- A structure whose interrupted functions would have a negative impact on the city’s tax base.
- Publicly owned buildings.
- Assembly buildings.
- Healthcare facilities.
An absence of preplans can be disastrous. (Prior proper planning prevents poor performance.) Safety and success on the fireground depend to a large degree on having available adequate and appropriate training resources to meet the demands of the emergency.
