from Listowel Pre-planning, size-up are keys to managing
Using the oriented-man search in residential structure fires allows firefighters to maintain communication while doing a primary search.
An investigation into the tragic line-of-duty deaths of Kenneth Rea and Raymond Walter in a dollar-store fire in Listowel, Ont., in March 2011 determined that the fire in the roof of the commercial building had been burning for up to 40 minutes before a 911 call was made. See story on page 8.
from the editor
TTraining for life
raining for life is a phrase I hear often from the likes of Fire Fighting in Canada columnist Ed Brouwer and others whose job it is to prepare firefighters not only to do their jobs, but to survive the unexpected.
Sometimes, though, as I’ve said in blogs and stories about the tragic line-of-duty deaths of Kenneth Rea and Raymond Walter in Listowel, Ont., and the two firefighters who were injured doing a primary search in a restaurant fire in Meaford, Ont., things just go wrong, despite rigorous training and adherence to safety standards.
When I wrote this in mid-June I had just come back from a Module A training day in Quinte West, Ont., where 25 volunteer firefighters from Prince Edward and Hastings counties were training on search and rescue, firefighter self rescue and the like. The four-day course ran Wednesday to Saturday and most of the 25 participants had taken days off work to attend.
Their first task of the day was to put on their SCBA and put it on quickly – the goal was 30 seconds – under the watchful eyes of six (rather intimidating!) instructors. Most of the students were challenged to get their gear on properly in under a minute, but as the exercise went on and muscle memory improved, some managed it in 45 seconds – although faces were contorted and foreheads were dripping with sweat by the third go round.
As one determined student said later that afternoon after two sets of rigorous training evolutions, “I’ll will make the 30-second time by Saturday.”
A few weeks earlier, I had been at FDIC Atlantic in Wolfville, N.S., where 450 firefighters – mostly volunteers, who gave up a beautiful June weekend – practised live fire training in the Nova Scotia Firefighters School mobile burn unit (a rarity for most volunteer firefighters in the province) and other hands-on-training courses, including sessions by Canadian Firefighter Back to Basics writer Mark van der Feyst. (Ed Brouwer and CFF writer Bob Krause were also in Wolfville, doing classroom training.)
The determination of those groups of (mostly very young) volunteer firefighters got me thinking about the cover story for this issue. Training is the transfer of knowledge to prepare for the real thing. The North Perth Fire Department in Listowel is known for its rigorous training – three, or four hours a night, twice a month, faithfully (even as some departments are considering reducing training to just once a month).
Chris Williams of the Office of the Fire Marshal was generous with his time in discussing the investigation into the fatal dollar-store fire. That an Ontario Ministry of Labour investigation did not result in any charges against the municipality or the North Perth Fire Service is testament to the training and precision of execution that North Perth Fire Chief Ed Smith brings to his department. Still, something went wrong.
In our story on page 8, Williams presents a compelling case for communities to make more of an effort to learn about the construction of commercial and industrial structures, do pre-plans, and take time to size-up the scene. Chief Smith rightfully worries about the onus all that puts on overburdened volunteer services. The role of fire chief as risk manager is one we’re going to hear about a lot.
Meantime, in Listowel and Atwood and Monkton – the communities that make up the North Perth Fire Service – the commitment to training hasn’t changed, because it was always there. The only difference is that the volunteer firefighters under Ed Smith’s command know what it means to train for life.
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Anyone who has worked in fire/EMS can attest to the harmful effects this profession can have on our minds, bodies and spirits. We all have stories of early morning drives home after long night shifts: Remember the times you could hardly keep your eyes open, and you said to yourself, “I know how impaired driving feels”? I remember being woken up one morning by a concerned neighbour because I had fallen asleep behind the wheel after I had parked in my driveway. I arrived home but did not remember the drive. The evidence lies at your doorway as you drop your uniform bag, walk past your wife and kids and leave a trail of clothing as you head straight for bed. Don’t forget about those times we are reminded of terrible calls and suddenly become distant with our loved ones. We have all had our heart rates suddenly shoot up because of a sound or smell that reminded us of a horrible scene.
If these experiences seem similar to yours, let me set the record straight: you are not alone. From the first class, firefighters/EMTs have been lectured about the stresses of our career choices. Every textbook on emergency care discusses the use of critical incident debriefing after those terrible calls. However, where in our training were were taught how to care for ourselves and prevent psychological harm? Burnout and fatigue management is just as important as doing a 360 walk-around at any structure fire. Emergency services workers are so used to putting others first, that often they forget about their own welfare. Isn’t it time to make our well-being a tactical priority?
1. Too much to do and not enough time to do it. You feel overwhelmed all the time: training, calls, tours, updates, station duties, deadlines, inspections.
2. Not enough control. You feel powerless and not in control of simple ground-level decisions that affect your job. Your hands are tied. Employers do not recognize your sacrifices.
Lee Sagert
Isn’t it time to make our well-being a tactical priority?
Olin L. Greene, a former U.S. fire administrator, recognized stress as one of the most vexing occupational hazards faced by the modern fire/ EMS service in his foreword to Stress Management, Model Program for Maintaining Firefighter Well-Being. This has become even more evident as fire/EMS face increasing call volume, wider scopes of practice, budget cuts and as our professions becomes the catch-all for the inadequacies of the health-care system. Typically, I try to focus on how to advance as a department and be successful as firefighters/paramedics. But as dual-role providers, fire/EMTs take on an increased workload through fire, rescue and EMS duties and I like to discusses ideas and options to bring the team together to better serve the public. It’s just as important, and perhaps more important, to care for ourselves. Many topics related to managing emergencies warrant discussion in this column but I can no longer ignore this issue that affects so many firefighters/EMTs.
Fatigue and burnout in emergency workers results in about $8.5 billion in accident damage and $79.9 billion in lost productivity in North America. An additional $28.3 billion is pent on health-care costs as a result of not dealing with this critical issue. You may be sitting there agreeing that you are affected, and that something must be done, but what? The answer may lie in improving working conditions that lead to burnout. If we can change these conditions, then possibly we can reduce the impact they have on our well-being.
Five working conditions that can lead to burnout and fatigue:
3. Unable to rest. Lack of private quiet areas. Irregular sleep patterns and stress during calls.
4. Values conflicts. Your values and your employer’s values do not match up. Meeting benchmarks versus common sense.
5. Missing important family events and not following the normal nine-to-five workweek pattern.
Common effects of stress and chronic fatigue:
• desire to sleep/lack of concentration
• impaired recollection of events/irritability
• poor judgment/reduced capacity
• inconsistent or inadequate interpersonal communication
• reduced vigilance/slow reaction times North America is the only industrialized continent where the trend for the past 20 years has been to work more hours with fewer personnel and fewer resources. In every other country, the trend is toward more time off, and an improved work/home life balance. We clearly missed the mark and instead we follow a do-more-with-less ideology. So, how can we fix this?
Emergency workers and their leaders must first understand and accept the fact that this is happening in our departments. Employers must realize that they can be held liable for accidents involving their sleep-deprived and stressed-out workers. Members from all levels must join together as a team and address these issues. Developing a fatigue-management policy, allowing adequate respite areas and supporting healthy napping habits are immediate changes that will make a difference. The days of the old belief that you must always look busy must stop immediately. Ensuring access to free confidential assistance programs for emergency workers and their families can support ongoing fatigue and burnout issues. Often the fast pace of our profession makes it easy to neglect these types of issues. Some simple changes can help: fire-service leaders should schedule regular blocks of time to sit down and spend time with front-line emergency workers; allowing tired employees to sleep late after shifts; modifying schedules to accommodate increasing alarm/call loads; and rotate busy crews with slower units. It’s a good idea to implement control measures, then monitor and review. Controlling fatigue and stress must be a shared responsibility between management and workers. If we cannot take care of ourselves, who will? The fires inside us that trouble us need to be extinguished.
Lee Sagert is a career paramedic/firefighter with the City of Lethbridge in Alberta, and a volunteer lieutenant with Coaldale Emergency Services. Contact him at leesagert@shaw.ca
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Lessons from Listowel
Pre-planning, size-up are keys to managing risk
By Laura King
When March 17 came and went with no charges laid by the Ontario Ministry of Labour (MOL) over two firefighter deaths in Listowel a year earlier, there was relief: lives would not be turned upside down in a lengthy legal process as they were in a trial after two firefighters were injured in Meaford, Ont.; the families and colleagues of firefighter Raymond Walter and Deputy District Chief Kenneth Rea would not experience the public airing of details of the fatal dollar-store fire; and, after months of speculation and cynicism about the MOL’s intentions, it was clear that the municipality and the North Perth Fire Service had met their obligations under the Occupational Health and Safety Act to protect their firefighters.
While the Ministry of Labour’s investigation into the dollar-store fire is not publicly available – a Freedom of Information request is required to obtain the report – the investigation by the Ontario Office of
the Fire Marshal (OFM) sheds considerable light on what happened on St. Patrick’s Day 2011. The details, and the fatal consequences, have led to a renewed push by the OFM to emphasize incident command, size-up, the need for fire chiefs and officers to know the buildings in their communities and properly weigh the risks associated with those structures against the fire department’s response capabilities, and the importance of educating all firefighters about the perils of lightweight construction.
As OFM senior investigator Christopher Williams took care to point out in an interview in June, fire investigators enjoy the luxury and the horror of having more information about the circumstances of an incident than do the firefighters on the ground.
“What we know now is based on some of the evidence that we
Above: The March 17, 2011, tragedy at a dollar store in Listowel, Ont., has led the Office of the Fire Marshal to consider changes to the fire code and fire-safety education for roofing operators.
Photo by t he Canadian Press
learned from our investigation,” Williams said of the Listowel fire. “And that is nowhere near what the fire service may have known at the time.”
North Perth Fire Chief Ed Smith couldn’t agree more.
• • •
Photos and video from the afternoon of March 17, 2011, shot by bystanders with iPhones and BlackBerrys, helped investigators determine that by the time the 911 call came in at 1509, the fire in the roof of the Listowel dollar store may have burned for as long as 40 minutes.
“This is not a sudden roof collapse as was first thought,” Williams said during a presentation to the Canadian Fire Safety Association in Toronto in April. Williams elaborated in the interview: “We have a hard timeline of an individual who is on the phone seeing roofers on the roof and applying a propane torch, and that’s at 2:29 in the afternoon.
“We know that the alarm time is 3:09, so we’re not saying that fire necessarily burned for 40 minutes but we do know that sometime in that 40-minute window, ignition occurred.”
The investigation determined that almost 10 minutes before the 911 call, roofers working on the building were told by customers entering the dollar store that they could see smoke.
“And the roofers, they’re up on the roof, throwing snow and water onto where they think the fire is, and it’s not successful,” Williams says. “The civilian goes back into the store . . . brings out a fire extinguisher, and that’s not successful.
“As they’re lifting up some of the aluminum siding on this parapet, they’re seeing more flames. So we know that at approximately 10 minutes before the 911 call is made there’s enough fire development that a member of the public sees smoke, and then for nine or 10 minutes they’re engaged in activities on the roof thinking they’re going to control a small fire.
The first-in pumper arrived at 1519.
“And then, based on video-taped evidence from a number of different sources, we have evidence of a critical change in smoke conditions at about 19 minutes after the arrival of the fire service,” Williams says.
The change happens 69 minutes into the fire, presuming the 1429 start time.
“And at 71 minutes – from the onset at 1429 – that’s when we have the roof collapsing.”
•
The first-arriving pumper had eight firefighters on board; there was “a little bit” of white smoke showing, Williams says, and two firefighters entered the dollar store to conduct a primary search.
According to Chief Smith, who arrived three minutes after the pumper, at 1522, the first-arriving crew had seen shoppers coming out of the store, there was no evidence of roofers in the area, the owners of the building were not on scene (the building was being rented) and firefighters had no idea the building’s roof was made of volatile, lightweight construction.
“They had gone in to start to look to see that all the shoppers were out,” Smith said in an interview. “And they had come back out, and before I took command I went into the building to take a look around too and to see what we did have; at no time was I aware of, or were my firefighters aware, that it was a lightweight-construction roof. We all were shocked; we thought it was web-joist steel roof.”
Firefighters returned to the building and saw glowing combustion – or evidence of fire – Williams says, and additional crews were sent to help.
“And in the minds and the eyes of the firefighters, not knowing how extensive the fire is, the firefighters are hitting small areas of visible
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Profile – North Perth Fire Service
The North Perth Fire Service comprises stations in Listowel, Atwood and Monkton. Its 65 volunteer firefighters in the amalgamated municipality of North Perth protect an area of 487 square kilometres with a population of 11,622.
flame thinking they’re suppressing a small fire,” Williams says, There were two crews in the building – a crew of three on one side and a crew of five on the other side near the loading dock. They were moving ceiling tiles, hitting spot fires and checking for extension – “all the normal things you would do in a structural fire”, Williams says.
“The crews on the side where loading dock is, they see change in conditions and pull out, and the three on the other side – one firefighter is just leaving because his alarm has gone off and he’s tapping the other two and saying I’m stepping out; he gets to doorway and the T-bar ceiling comes down. That’s the instantaneous change in heat . . . and that’s where the change happens in the smoke and the heat.
“That causes the other guys try to get out of the building – firefighter Long, [whose alarm activated], who gets to the door – is knocked down by the T-bar collapse. They do what they’re trained to do; they deploy RIT and RIT gets to the door where firefighter Long is when the entire structural component of the roof collapses and the other two firefighters are trapped and killed in the fire.
“From that point on there’s nothing they can do. Nothing because of the cantilever nature of the collapse; the structural elements are on top of them, and the entire fuel load of the contents now becomes available to the heat, and it’s just a tragic conflagration after that.”
“Hindsight’s 20-20,” Chief Smith acknowledges, having reviewed the incident countless times with his crews. But more than 15 months after the fire and with the benefit of the OFM report and the MOL investigation, which found no wrongdoing, Smith is adamant that his firefighters were exceptionally well trained and followed protocol and procedures.
“We’ve discussed many times in operations here and in health and safety,” Smith says, “and we’ve sat and talked and talked about it and
LISTOWEL
said, What could we have done differently?
“And every one of my people has come back and said, ‘What could we have done differently?’ We didn’t know what we had; we were trying to figure out what we had. We had no exposed fire, we could not see flames, at the time when it started we had very light smoke, and the guys were trying to search out where the fire was.”
Smith says he understands now that the flat roof was made of lightweight trusses with a layer of insulation above the suspended ceiling tiles. Firefighters were trying to pull down the tiles and the insulation to see what was happening above.
“We did not know that at the time, and we did not know the extent of the fire,” he says. “And, as the OFM has stated, the amount of time that the building was burning, that we did not know about; that probably would have made the difference, but a fire department, when you pull up, you may not be privileged to that information.
“Nobody did anything wrong. In my opinion, my officer who passed away in that fire had 30-plus years, and he knew what was going on and he was not a chance taker, and if he thought there was any danger he would be have been out the door with his crew. Nobody knew what we were dealing with.”
What, then is the legacy of Kenneth Rea and Raymond Walter?
In Listowel, where the North Perth Fire Department has always been known for its rigorous training – twice a month, consistently, for three or four hours a night – and where, like in most departments, there was a can’t-happen-to-us attitude, there’s a more somber and serious approach to mayday practice and firefighter survival.
“When they sound the [mayday] horns now you should see what we look like,” Smith says, “because we’ve lived through it. Now, when we practice, it it’s a whole different outlook by the firefighters and the officers.”
ing with workers on a roof – a combustible roof, using an open flame.”
Had those roofers and, perhaps, the shoppers who saw the smoke, been better educated about fire safety, “that would have been nine or 10 minutes shaved off that timeline,” Williams notes.
As for the OFM’s role outlined on its website – training firefighters, providing best practices and helping them provide the best fire prevention and fire-protecting services they can –Williams says the goal is to help fire chiefs and officers understand their changing roles as risk managers in an era of lightweight construction and highly combustible contents.
“There was an IC on the scene when they went in, and the IC did transition when Chief Smith arrived,” Williams says of the dollar-store incident.
“When you get into strategies and we start talking about safety officers and accountability, there’s nothing that’s going to help that team once that cataclysmic failure has taken place – it’s too late.
“So, the point would be to tactically do as much pre-fire planning as possible and as much size-up as possible, then make a decision; if there’s no immediate threat to individuals then we’re not going in, and that’s a very difficult decision for chiefs, because they’re wired to believe their job is to put the fire out and we’re now asking them to be risk managers.”
Williams says the key message for dealing with lightweight construction is to take the time to size-up the situation and make decisions based not only on what is visible, but what is known about the building from pre-plans.
“It’s not that lightweight’s going to fail immediately,” Williams says. “It’s that boy oh boy, you have to have some pre-fire planning and size-up and they become a huge factor in the decision-making process.
“In the absence of knowledge – and in this case, the knowledge that there’s lightweight construction – you may engage in some tactical operations that are very high risk.”
For the OFM, the incident has led to a partnership with the roofers association to look at code changes including better firesafety education for workers and a protocol for calling 911.
And on the department’s new pumper, there’s a horn button on the pump panel so the pump operator doesn’t waste valuable seconds climbing into the cab to sound it.
“Some departments have had that before but we never did,” Smith says. “Now, with this new truck, because it has hit home with us . . . That’s just a change we made but was that going to change the outcome of our call? No.”
For the OFM, the incident has led to a partnership with the roofers association to look at code changes including better fire-safety education for workers and a protocol for calling 911.
“Quite frankly, much of the code is designed around engineered solutions to building issues, and fire safety within buildings, and a lot of the code doesn’t regulate the human behavior associated with the use of a flame,” Williams says.
“What about the management of that heat source? Let’s put a requirement on there and impose a standard of care. There is education and training that could have made a difference.”
Williams says using the first two lines of defence – public firesafety education and fire-safety standards and enforcement – rather than relying on suppression, is crucial to protect firefighters.
“One of the critical things here is the link back to the actual folks that were in control of the ignition source. We had an occupied build-
Where and how, then, in Listowel, could fire officers have learned more?
“Those opportunities all take time,” Williams says. “It would take time for the fire service to interview or question the workers and employees and civilians that were at this particular fire – but they might have been able to learn more about the activities that were on the roof, more insight into where the fire was burning, that it was a confined structural area and that it was wood frame and possibly lightweight – and gain more knowledge as to anyone inside the structure.
“So, armed with the knowledge you’re more likely to make incident-command decisions that are well informed and less risky.
“I think the key is that where there’s an incident commander, the biggest piece of protective equipment is knowledge.
“Our direction right now is that defensive operations are key if you’re involved in lightweight construction, especially if you don’t know the timelines; even when rescue is being deployed, and there are lightweight trusses involved, we’re saying firefighters should minimize being under the trusses for their own heath and safety.”
Admittedly, Williams says, the focus on size-up requires discipline.
“When we were interviewing firefighters we heard repeatedly that we thought we just had a little electrical fire. Notwithstanding other issues, if they took the time to interview people who were at that building, and ask ‘What do you know?’, they might have been able to determine that hey, wait a minute, there’s a roofing exercise ongoing here and then we know they had primary rescue but at some point when the Continued on page 28
A task-by-task approach
Finally, we’re on to some resistance training – and I’m not talking about resisting doing it! Let’s take a look at some specific fire-ground tasks and exercises that will help make you more fit to do them. Keep in mind that training does not have to take hours. On the contrary, when you compare the relatively short and intense spurts of exertion on the fire ground to the training you do to prepare, it makes sense to keep both efforts as close as possible. You can complete a great workout in 20 to 30 minutes.
These types of workouts are not iron-pumping, single-rep max workouts. There is very little down time. Having said that, rest when you need to rest, and never let your form suffer. Injuries occur when you become fatigued. This is not an excuse to give up just because it’s hard. Work hard – the payoff is worth it.
The following circuit-style workout is based on one-minute evolutions. If you can’t complete a full minute of any exercise, don’t worry – you are working toward it. Take a few seconds to recover from the burn, and jump back in. This approach to training will not only help improve strength, but also it will help with endurance. Endurance on the fire ground is good.
We all do different kinds of fire fighting. Be brave and adjust your workout to suit your specific needs. The weights you use will depend on your overall strength. Keep it challenging, but remember that one minute is your goal. You can purchase weight bands very economically. They are great to use for many of the following exercises.
Hauling hose – one minute
you go. One step will do with the right weight resistance. Step up, right and left, then down right and left. Switch your lead foot after 30 seconds.
Rope pull – one minute
Attach a long rope to a hose roll, tire or weight of some kind. Sit on the floor and pull the weight along the floor to you. Once you complete the pull, get up, walk to where the weight started and pull it back. Repeat.
If you can’t complete a full minute of any exercise, don’t worry –you are working toward it.
On the fire ground, wish I were 6’2” and a lean 225 pounds, but that’s not my reality. I find hauling a charged hose line can be a , so I work hard at good quad strength and cardio endurance. This is an easy (OK, easy as far as technique goes) exercise and requires either a partner or a weighted hose line. Old tires make great weights. If you need room, the truck bay is a great site. Both partners complete this evolution.
Using a rope, towel or hose line over your shoulder, pull your partner or counter weight from one end of the bay to the other and repeat.
Breach and pull – one minute
Connect about one metre (three feet) of rope to a hose roll or other weight. With both hands gripping the rope in front of you, raise the weight as high as you can and return it to the floor. Weight bands are great for this exercise. Attach the band to a low anchor (or step on it). Remember to control the weight while you are returning it back to the floor: don’t just let it drop back down.
Stair climbing – one minute
Pick up a hose roll (hug it tight to your chest) or slip some weights in a backpack and find a flight of stairs. Even if it’s three or four, up and down
Striking tool swings – one minute
Use your department’s sledgehammer against a tire or heavy timber (eye protection must be worn if you are using timber). Start with easy, light swings so you can gauge bounce-back. Work up to good swings as if you were forcing entry or doing manual roof ventilation.
Rescue drag – one minute
As with the first exercise, use your partner or a weight to mimic a rescue drag. If using a partner, make sure you each complete this evolution. Ensure you are using good form when you lift; don’t straighten your legs and then lift with your back.
Push-ups – one minute
I know, I know, it’s not a fire-ground task. Maybe someday you’ll make a bet with the rookie to see who can do more push-ups. Surprise the rookie and kick some butt. Now stop complaining, drop and give me a minute. There are a million kinds of push-ups on the Internet. When you get good at military push-ups change it up.
Cardio – one minute
One minute of cardio: jumping jacks, running on the spot or around, Keep up your intensity – it’s only a minute. You get to rest for a minute when you are done. Get a quick drink, keep your feet moving and start again.
One last look
OK, we have eight exercises: hauling hose, breech and pull, stair climbing, rope pull, striking tool, rescue drag, push-ups and cardio. The aim is three times through at one-minute intervals with one-minute rest between, for 36 minutes in total. You do not have to start with that. Try 30-second or 45-second intervals if you like. Or do one or two rounds to start and work up to three. If you have another exercise you would rather do, great! Do what you love; it’s all beneficial. There is a plethora of information online and you need not get bored. Change is good. OK, enough talking. Get to it.
Sherry Dean is a career firefighter/engineer with Halifax Regional Fire & Emergency Service and a volunteer captain with the Blockhouse & District Fire Department. Contact her at sbdean@eastlink.ca.
Sherry Dean
Building Better Organizations
Getting fully involved
It has never been so crucial for our nation’s fire services to adapt to change and and: It has never been so crucial for our nation’s fire services to adapt to change and to be fully involved by creating innovative connections within our municipalities. Community engagement is a powerful tool and can raise your department’s public profile.
Building relationships – both in person and online – is important to the fire service’s success and survival. The fire service is known for participation in parades and chili cook-offs, but there is so much more potential to embrace and on which to build.
Being fully involved takes time, passion and dedication. Being active in your community by participating in school activities, fundraisers and events enables your fire service to build a new level of trust within the community.
Without community trust, fire departments will have difficulty growing and connecting with customers. Our team at Salt Spring Island Fire Rescue in British Columbia is active in numerous non fire-service related community initiatives, through which we have the opportunity to build relationships and trust.
strong following. Don’t wait for an emergency to occur to build your community; start today by engaging your social-media followers. Engagement occurs when your department’s social feeds are dynamic and active. Create a strong following by posting interesting articles share other departments’ achievements and ask questions. Asking thoughtprovoking questions allows interaction that draws new followers and maintains the ones you have.
arjuna george
The time to build your online community and following is well in advance of an incident.
Perhaps the biggest advancement in community engagement has been social media. Social media is often portrayed as a liability for fire departments, but I look at it as a gift – a gift through which we can market ourselves and promote our great business. If your department’s social media is managed correctly, your risk can be reduced. Wouldn’t it be nice to correct, and educate, uninformed community members before rumours spiral out of control and inaccurate information is known as the truth? Social media allows for communication and two-way dialogue, giving us an opportunity to respond to customer issues or questions. With a social media presence, we can build relationships with our communities that were never possible before; we can connect, and engage.
Facebook – the world’s largest social media site – has more than 800 million active users, and is forecast to hit one billion this summer: that’s potentially one billion customers we can educate about our visions and messages for almost no cost. One in 10 people in the world uses Facebook: can you and your department afford not to embrace it? If we don’t make an active effort to engage the community through social media, we run the risk of falling further down the municipal budget food chain. For fire departments, social media is key to expanding our connections and marketing our key messages. Start off small – open a department Facebook account, post some feel-good stories, promote your department’s accomplishments, and watch the feedback and the followers grow.
Traditional media still plays an important role in our marketing strategies, but our strategies better contain some online media too. Social media allows you to win friends and influence people at a whole new level.
The time to build your online community and following is well in advance of an incident. Only fresh, accurate information will build a
A good rule is to occasionally focus on other newsworthy items, such as community milestones, not solely on your department. This helps to build a diverse following and people will begin to look to your social feeds for newsworthy information. Then, when an emergency does occur, your online community is ready and well established. (Follow Salt Spring Island Fire Rescue at www.facebook. com/ssifr or on Twitter@Saltspringfire.)
Instant and viral social-media tools are so powerful and simple that we should be stocking our toolboxes with them for emergencies too. Tools such as Twitter are effective at reaching thousands in seconds, and providing your community with crucial information regarding emergencies or important warnings. Imagine that by the press of a button, your entire following will be aware of your message of an evacuation notice, or a road closure. Twitter is simple, fast, and mobile, which is great for emergency services. Some emergency services that have already embraced Twitter have created pre-determined hashtags for certain emergencies or events (for example #ssiwildfire, for Salt Spring Island wildfire). This allows your followers to quickly find the information you are sharing on a specific topic.
Now, imagine being in control of the information leaving your emergency scene, and providing a time-sensitive message via video from the scene’s public information officer. Let’s take control of our message and use YouTube and other video-sharing services to send short, public-information messages to our followers. If you have a cellular or wireless network, you can send your message out to your community immediately, right from the scene.
The goal is to capture your audience, enchant them, dialogue with them, and build a trustworthy relationship for information and news. This newfound community connection may be the key to future budget processes, and for support for your department.
We cannot avoid the change; we must accept it, adjust to it and embrace it.
What are your strategies and tactics for growing your department into a fully involved powerhouse? Don’t let technology extinguish your fire.
Arjuna George is a 15-year veteran and the deputy fire chief of Operations on Salt Spring Island, B.C. E-mail him at ageorge@saltspringfire.com
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Gaining access
Simple adjustments help to get the job done
By Randy Schmitz
Attacking latch mechanisms to gain vehicle-compartment access on today’s vehicles may require a little adjustment. Have you had trouble lately with door skins tearing with your hydraulic spreader tips? What about opening that damaged trunk lid to look for possible hazards?
Crash performance is a key factor built into the dynamic design of today’s vehicles to protect occupants and reduce injuries. All areas of the vehicle have been significantly improved in recent years so they can absorb crash energy, and dissipate and capture it throughout the vehicle in strategically engineered zones. Surrounding components, such as the doors, have a significant influence on the energy absorbed by the vehicle. Inner door beams, and their interconnection via strong door hinges and door latches, reinforce vehicle body pillars, and help to ensure that the doors remain closed in crashes. Instead of a singular latch mechanism to hold the door shut, safer designs include additional devices so that there are multiple retention points to hold the doors more securely to the vehicle body. Strong latching mechanisms that keep the doors closed in frontal collisions offer less give, and this equals more work for rescuers and hydraulic tools.
As a result, a lot of the surrounding sheet metal tears more easily than before. One way to minimize this in newer models is to expose the latching mechanism to allow the spreader tips to make direct contact, which reduces the tearing of the surrounding metal. First off, always check to see if the door will open simply by way of the handle; this is often overlooked when a door appears to be damaged. Next, use a rolled-up glove, wooden wedge or a tennis ball under the door handle to give some relief of the latching mechanism, as seen in photo 1.
Ensure the door is unlocked to disengage the secondary latch, so that the crushed metal is the only thing holding the door closed prior to spreading it off with hydraulic tools. Insert another wedge between the top of the window frame and the B or C pillar, as shown in photo 2. This will create a purchase point for the insertion of spreader tips high on the frame. Start spreading slowly and ensure a strong bite on the sheet metal. Continue to spread and open as large an area as possible by fully opening up the spreader arms to the maximum distance. You are trying to create a V-type pattern at the bottom of the opened window frame, into which you will insert the spreader tips, as shown in photo 3. This maximizes the total surface area of the spreader tips and, as mentioned, creates space to make direct contact with the latch, which will helps to reduce the tearing of the sheet metal.
Next, orient the spreader, as depicted in photo 4. Then, make a few small attempts to spread the corner of the door away from the vehicle body until the tips reach the hardened metal door latch/ striker assembly. Once the spreader tips are in full contact (see photo 5) you can spread the latch apart without tearing through the sheet metal.
The force generated on the hardened steel latch will then break or twist the fork bolt (the fork bolt is the part of the latch that
Photo 1: Use a wooden wedge, a rolled-up glove, or a tennis ball under the door handle to give some relief of the latching mechanism.
Photo 2: Insert another wedge between the top of the window frame and the B or C pillar, creating a purchase point to insert your spreader tips high on the frame.
Photo 3: Create a V-type pattern at the bottom of the window frame. This maximizes the surface area of your spreader tips, creating space to make direct contact with the latch.
Photo 4: Orient the spreader at the bottom of the V-type pattern, and make a few small attempts to spread the corner of the door away from the vehicle body.
Photos by r andy sC hmitz
engages the striker when in the closed or latched position) off the door latch/striker assembly and the door should open.
When manipulating the door in this manner, (depending on the type of door and how much damage has been done to it as a result of the crash) you may find that when the window frame is bent down and a corner section of the door moves with it, the door may simply come open without even breaching the latching mechanism by force.
In fact, Federal Motor Vehicle Standard 206 requires that the door latch remains closed when a front-to-rear load of 2,500 pounds is applied. The linkage between the inside door handle and the latch is called the remote rod or relay rod, and is often a coat-hanger type of thin wire or narrow metal strap. When the portion of the door that you are spreading flexes downward, that remote rod flexes or bends, thereby actuating the latch; this may result in the door opening with minimal force.
Getting to the battery under the hood can be done effectively by using an existing purchase point. Always try before you pry, first by checking to see if the manual hood release is operable, By inserting your spreader tips in the area where the edge of the hood meets the firewall, as shown in photo 6, you can easily spread up the corner of the hood to expose the hinges.
Once visible, you have the option to cut the hinge to allow for the hood to be lifted up (see photo 7), or repeat on the other side and remove the hood altogether by bending it up and out of the way, as shown in photo 8. Either way, this gives good access to the battery for disconnection.
Trunk-opening procedures should always be part of your benchmark checklist. Not only is this location becoming very popular for manufactures to have the 12-volt battery placed, but also, hazards such mobile meth labs, explosives, propane tanks or even people can be found in the trunk storage area. Again, always check first to see if you can gain access by using a key or a power trunk button.
Start by placing your spreader tips at the corner of the trunk lid, as in photo 9. This is, by far, a better place to begin a purchase point. If you place the tips at the center latch, you are attacking the mechanism at the strongest point possible, thereby working against the highest degree of resistance, which may cause the sheet metal to tear around the latching mechanism. Also worth noting is the fact that with today’s vehicles, the rear bumpers are made of Styrofoam or a honeycomb plastic that crumbles on impact. Hydraulic spreaders will have the same effect if they are placed under the latch and an attempt is made to open this area by force. Either corner will offer the least amount of resistance to pop open the lid. When you start to spread the corner upward, the force is transmitted to bear the latch load on the side and slightly bend the fork bolt to release it from the striker assembly. You will probably find that it takes very little effort for the lid to pop open when using this location.
These slight modifications should help you gain quicker access to damaged compartments.
Keep safe!
Randy Schmitz is a Calgary firefighter who has been extensively involved in the extrication field for 19 years. He is an extrication instructor and has competed internationally. He is the education chair for Transport Emergency Rescue Committee (T.E.R.C.) in Canada, a T.E.R.C. International extrication judge and a tester and evaluator for manufactured prototype products for extrication equipment. He can be reached at rwschmitz@shaw.ca
Photo 6: Insert your spreader tips in the area where the edge of the hood meets the firewall. Spread the corner up to expose the hinges.
Photo 7: Once exposed, you can cut the hinge to lift up the hood.
Photo 8: Or, you can cut both hinges and remove the hood altogether.
Photo 9: To gain access to the trunk, start by placing your spreader tips at the corner of the trunk lid.
Photo 5: Once the spreader tips make full contact with each other, you can spread the latch apart without tearing through the sheet metal.
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Fire attack – part 3
By Robert C. Krause
When we left each other in April, we were fighting a fire in a twostorey, wood-frame, single-family dwelling, with heavy, fast-moving smoke conditions coming from the upstairs windows on side alpha.
Family members outside of the burning structure reported to the first-arriving engine, staffed with three firefighters, that their teenage son is unaccounted for and may still be in the house.
Armed with this information, the incident commander gave an order for an initial attack line to be pulled to the second floor to attack the main body of fire. The reasoning behind attacking the fire first, instead of directly searching for the missing teenager, is that if the fire is allowed to go unchecked,
and a firefighter begins search operations in a house that is actively burning, the risk to the searching firefighter and the potentially trapped victim is enormous.
A fire that is not controlled will continue to develop in intensity, heat production, and toxic smoke, and can result in firefighters being trapped in the burning structure. Limited staffing on first-arriving fire crews will determine what tasks can be completed quickly, efficiently and safely.
This scenario calls for attacking the fire first, which will begin to immediately improve interior conditions, making search efforts more effective and improving conditions within the structure for both firefighters and potential victims.
Once additional firefighters begin arriving on scene, the incident commander orders a crew to begin search efforts; a technique called the oriented-man search is a quick and effective way to look for potential victims.
Search efforts should begin close to the fire area. Beginning search operations closest to the fire area allows for victims trapped near the fire to be rescued early, increasing their chance for survival.
Additionally, searching areas of the house not involved in fire can waste precious time locating trapped victims who may be near the fire area.
The oriented-man search technique can be used with two or more of firefighters. As the search team moves to the second floor, the company officer or firefighter in charge of the search team should be considered the oriented man.
The oriented man maintains a position near the stairwell or in the hallway of the second floor. The remaining firefighters will individually enter bedrooms searching for potential victims. The oriented man will maintain verbal contact with the searching firefighters; this verbal contact provides
Using the oriented-man search technique in residential structure fires allows firefighters to maintain communication while doing a primary search.
Photos by r obert Krause
searching firefighters with a point of reference – a point of orientation – so the searching firefighters are able to find their way back to the hallway once they complete a search of the bedroom.
It is very important for the oriented man to maintain verbal contact with the searching firefighters, observe fire and smoke conditions within the search area, and continuously provide a point of orientation for the search team.
Keep in mind that most residential bedrooms are 10 feet by 10 feet or 12 feet by 12 feet and can easily be searched by one firefighter. Certainly, larger bedrooms can be found in some homes, which may require additional firefighters to search. Once the area nearest the fire has been searched for potential victims, the search team should move to other areas of the structure to search for potential victims. The oriented man should be the last person out of the search area after there has been a full accounting of all firefighters in the search team.
If a victim is located, the next decision to be made is the best route for removal. Can the victim be carried out the same way the search team came into the structure? Can the victim be carried by the firefighters from the search team or are additional firefighters needed? Can the firefighters remove the victim through the bedroom window onto a ladder from the second floor? Do the searching firefighters who located the victim have enough air remaining in their breathing apparatus to remove the victim from the fire building? Should additional firefighters with full air cylinders on their breathing appara-
tus be sent in to remove the victim? These are questions that should be discussed around the kitchen table at your fire halls. Pre-planning your search and rescue operations will make you more efficient and safer on the fire ground. Regular practice and training of victim removal using a variety of methods is your best chance to successfully rescue a trapped victim under live fire conditions. Regular practice of the oriented-man search technique will speed your search operations when called upon at 2 a.m.
The oriented man should be the last person out of the search area after there has been a full accounting of all firefighters in the search team.
In the fire scenario presented above, the search team using the oriented-man search technique located the missing teenage boy in his second-floor bedroom. Upon finding the boy, the search team decides the best method for removing the boy is via the bedroom window onto a ladder outside the building. The search team leader notifies the incident commander that the young man has been found, and that the search team needs a ladder placed to the second-floor bedroom to remove the victim. The bedroom door should be closed and then the window should be taken out; all glass including the sash should be removed from the window opening, as this will create an area large enough to remove the child and allow for the firefighters to easily exit onto the ladder. Closing the bedroom door prior to opening the window prevents the induction of fresh air into the fire building and greatly reduces the chance for fire spread as a result of the window being opened. Once
the window is taken out and the ladder is placed below the window sill, a firefighter can climb out on to the ladder to prepare to have the victim handed to him and begin the descent down the ladder. As soon as the incident commander is made aware that victim has been located, he should notify EMS so that paramedics can prepare to deliver patient care.
The fire-attack team located the main body of the fire in a bedroom at the opposite end of the hallway from where the teenage boy was found. Using a straight or solid stream, and flowing at least 150 gallons per minute (GPM), the fire was quickly knocked down with a single line. The incident commander should direct crews to check the attic for fire extension. Fire can quickly travel into the attic area and, if left unchecked, can grow quickly and create a large volume of fire in the attic space. In this particular fire, there was no extension into the attic space and the fire was contained within the bedroom.
Ventilation can be completed using a positive-pressure fan placed in the front door of the structure, with the window in the bedroom that was on fire opened or broken out. Closing other bedroom doors allows for the
Continued on page 29
Photos by r obert Krause
RiT – entanglements
By Mark van der Feyst
Amayday is initiated by a firefighters who are in trouble, lost, injured or trapped. Trapped firefighters need help from the rapid intervention team (RIT) to become untangled and removed from the building.
Some firefighter fatalities have been attributed to entanglements. On April 11, 1994, a Memphis Fire Department firefighter was killed after becoming tangled in cable television wires in the ceiling of a hallway outside a ninth-floor apartment; he was just nine feet away from the hallway exit door. The plastic clips that were holding the wires had melted and the cable wires fell on top of the firefighter. On Aug. 29, 2007, two firefighters from Massachusetts were killed in a restaurant when a ceiling collapsed, dumping the contents onto them. One firefighter was tangled in wires and
debris, making the rescue effort difficult. There also have been numerous close calls reported, with firefighters attesting to being trapped by wires or other debris from ceilings.
When firefighters become tangled by wires, time is critical as trapped firefighters must either free themselves using survival techniques or have a RIT member help them. The one thing firefighters must not do is panic, as this often results in a fight or flight response, an effort to get free of the wires and failure to call a mayday right away. RIT members have been trained to deal with entanglements and to free the mayday firefighter, but rescuers will be effective only if they are deployed right away.
All RIT members needs to carry at least one pair of wire cutters. It is best to carry two pairs, one in the radio pocket and the other in the cargo pocket of the pant. Cutters should be
located on opposite sides; this ensures access to one or the other should one side become inaccessible due to collapse or other circumstances. The cutters need to be large enough to be used while wearing structural firefighting gloves, as seen in photo 1. The two types of cutters shown shown are the right size for operations under fire conditions. Make sure that the cutters do not have a square stripping notch at the bottom of the cutting blades as seen in photo 2. This notch adds to the frustration of trying to cut the wires.
Before mayday firefighters can be extricated, part of the nine-step assessment process ensures that they are not entangled by wires, ceiling grid members, HVAC piping, dryer vent hose or any other ceiling content. As you can see in photo 3, one of the RIT firefighters is sweeping the body of the
Photo by m ar K van der Feyst
Photo 1: RIT members should carry two types of wire cutters in two different pockets, for example, the radio pocket and the cargo pocket.
3: A RIT member sweeps the trapped firefighter for signs of entanglement.
Photo 2: Make sure that the wire cutters you use do not have a square stripping notch at the bottom of the blades; this will hinder cutting, and add to your frustration.
Photo 4: Be careful to verify wires before cutting, ensuring that you don’t cut something necessary to the mayday firefighter’s survival, such as the low-pressure hose.
trapped firefighter from top to bottom to ensure there are no entanglements. This is an important step in the nine-step process and it requires careful attention; just running your hands up and down or trying to see any wires or obstructions is not good enough. Use your hands around the SCBA cylinder, the face piece, the helmet, the chest gauge, and the feet and arms to make sure that no wires are present; do this in the area around the mayday firefighter as well. Looking up and around or feeling around above the mayday firefighter ensures that there are no entanglements that can complicate the rescue operation.
Any entanglements found around the mayday firefighter must be removed by RIT members. Wires, which are among the most common obstructions for firefighters, can simply be cut with wire cutters. It’s important to pay careful attention to what you are cutting; cutting while wearing structural firefighting gloves is difficult. It is best to grab a few strands of the wires and place them into the wire cutter at the very bottom of the blades (see photo 4). This ensures that the cut goes through the wires rather than just nicking them and possibly cutting through only some of the wires. It’s also a good idea to putting tension on the wire while it is in the mouth of the cutter. Be careful to not place your fingers in the cutters. Practising
this skill while blacked out sharpens the senses makes rescuer proficient at this task.
Photo 5 shows a mayday firefighter being rescued by RIT members and one of the rescuers becoming entangled. In this instance, the other RIT firefighter returned to free the first firefighter. In an attempt to free him quickly (his low-air alarm was going off), the RIT firefighter grabbed what he thought was the wire and cut it. Right away, the results of the action were heard, as air was leaking out from the low-pressure hose. This speeds up the clock against rescuers. Verify before you cut any wires that whatever you are cutting is not the SCBA hose of the mayday firefighter or that of another RIT member.
Practising this operational technique will pay off when the time comes to untangle a mayday firefighter from wires. Remember to verify before you cut.
Mark van der Feyst is a 13year veteran of the fire service. He works for the City of Woodstock Fire Department in Ontario and instructors in Canada, the United States and India. Mark is a local level suppression instructor for the Pennsylvania State Fire Academy and an Instructor for the Justice Institute of B.C., Contact him at Mark@FireStarTraining.com
Photo
Photo s by m ar K van der Feyst
Respect your elders; join the push for sprinklers
I’ve been intrigued by the story of Hélène Campbell, a double-lung transplant recipient. Campbell, suffering idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, made headlines after appearing on the Ellen DeGeneres show a few months ago.
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is scarring or thickening of the lungs without a known cause. The lungs become stiff, making breathing and air exchange difficult. Idiopathic means no cause can be found (at this time). Mostly found in people over 50, this young woman, in her early 20s, is stricken with the disease.
Some patients may improve when they are treated with drugs, but in most people the disease can get worse even with treatment. This worsening can happen quickly, or very slowly; each individual is unique. For Hélène, death was imminent. Without a double-lung transplant doctors were not optimistic of her long-term survival; she was dying.
I sometimes wonder about the prognosis for the fire service and our ability to broadcast our messages and ensure that lawmakers are listening and reacting.
The findings in an Ontario coroner’s inquest, released in May, once again focused on sprinklers in long-term care and retirement homes. The inquest was called after the 2009 fire that claimed four lives and critically injured six other seniors in a retirement home fire in Orillia, Ont.
This is the fourth inquest in 25 years regarding deaths in homes for seniors in Ontario. All of the inquest juries have stated that automatic sprinklers should be mandatory for these types of buildings. Thus far, these recommendations have been ignored and not made law.
According to Statistics Canada, there are almost five million seniors (65-plus) in Canada; that’s more than 14 per cent of the entire population and is up 0.3 per cent from just one year ago. For the first time, Quebec now has more people aged 65 and older than youth under the age of 15. Nova Scotia (16.5 per cent) and New Brunswick (16.2 per cent) also have high proportion of seniors. In British Columbia the proportion of seniors is 15.3 per cent, the highest for the western provinces. British Columbia is also the only province in the west in which there are fewer children under the age of 15 than people 65 years or older.
Our population is getting older, therefore the issues surrounding seniors will become more visible. I still laugh at a bumper sticker I once read that said, Be Nice To Your Kids . . . They Choose Your Nursing Home. Funny but true. And on that note, would you choose a nursing home or retirement home for your parent(s) that is not protected with automatic sprinklers?
Ken SheriDan
Are we (as a society) ignoring our aged and leaving them to the chances of fire in facilities that are created to care for them?
Less than 24 hours after this inquest ended, two more seniors died in a non-sprinklered retirementhome fire that also injured two firefighters in eastern Ontario.
Sean Tracey, a professional engineer and Canadian regional manager for the National Fire Protection Association (and contributor to Fire Fighting in Canada) recently testified at an Ontario Fire Safety Commission hearing. Tracey explained that sprinklers are especially useful for frail or disabled populations.
As a fire service, we must voice our convictions that enough is enough. The Ontario Association of Fire Chiefs (OAFC) is leading the province to get sprinklers in vulnerable care occupancies.
As I’ve written in the past, any cause needs a champion. A champion is simply, among other things, an ardent defender or supporter of a cause or another person.
In Ontario, Deputy Chief Jim Jessop of the Niagara Falls Fire Department, former OAFC president Tim Beckett (fire chief in Kitchener, Ont.) and Frank Lamie, a deputy fire chief with Toronto Fire Services, are campaigning to see that the province’s 4,300 retirement homes and long-term care facilities are retrofitted with sprinklers. (Read Chief Beckett’s August 2010 Straight Talk column.)
Are we (as a society) ignoring our aged and leaving them to the chances of fire in facilities that are created to care for them?
Even the most trained and experienced firefighters cannot save everyone every time there is a fire; often it’s too late when the alarm is struck. I encourage every one of you to write to your members of provincial parliament and encourage them to support a bill to have existing vulnerable care occupancies retrofitted with sprinklers. Rally your provincial associations and raise your voices to be heard in your provincial legislatures. This is not just an Ontario problem. The National Building Code did not require sprinklers in these occupancies prior to 1995.
Also, beg your fire-prevention staff to inspect the seniors’ facilities in your municipality if they are not already doing so, and have suppression staff pre-plan for these buildings.
Take time to work with the staff and owners of these occupancies and help them execute their fire safety plans. Observe an evacuation and offer advice to positively reinforce that properly trained staff will save lives. Education will prove extraordinary in a fire situation regardless of building type or size.
It is somehow ironic that a whole country has supported young Hélène in her fight for survival through encouragement, prayer or financially. Canadians are some of the most sympathetic people in the world and that’s something to be proud of. Hélène got her lung transplant and is walking and talking today.
Unlike an unknown disease or cancer, we already have the cure for death by fire; it’s time we did more about it.
Ken Sheridan is deputy chief in Norfolk County, Ont. He is a certified fire-prevention officer and a certified fire and life safety educator. Contact him at ken.sheridan@norfolkcounty.ca
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Continued from page 10
building is confirmed not to be occupied do you continue based on what you know, or do you stop and pull out and say now what are we going to do?”
Chief Smith wonders about the practicality of some of the OFM’s advice, particularly for volunteer departments.
“Its going to be very difficult,” Smith says of pre-planning. “Because, like most municipalities, under guidance from council, they only want us to do the bare minimum, so we’re meeting bare minimum under the Fire Prevention and Protection Act and doing inspections under request and complaint; we don’t get into a lot of these buildings to be able to have a good look at what’s going on in them and what they’re constructed of.”
Smith offers an alternative: placarding. He has been working with the Ontario Association of Fire Chiefs (OAFC) to have legislation proposed that calls for placarding – or signage – on commercial and industrial buildings that use lightweight construction. Some U.S. municipalities have adopted the practice and NFPA Canadian regional manager Sean Tracey has supported placarding in his column in Fire Fighting in Canada.
OAFC president Kevin Foster says placarding is a practical solution, along with more realistic training for officers.
“We have recognized that particularly on the senior officer side there are gaps in training and education opportunities,” Foster says.
“The emphasis on how to do pre-fire planning is something that’s part of several training programs and we’re encouraging people to know what’s in their communities but it’s also time consuming; there are still true volunteer fire chiefs who are left to prioritize all the issues that they have to deal with, and how many of them have the time after dealing with the day-to-day items, to do things like pre-fire planning?”
Foster also says there’s a need for more live or realistic training about lightweight construction through the OFM’s programs.
“When you’re sitting in a classroom trying to learn it and you’re trying to visualize it and somebody’s trying to explain to you what it looks like, you don’t have a good perception,” Foster says.
“You’re trying to learn from an environment of safety about an environment that’s unsafe.”
And that’s why pre-plans and size-up are crucial, says Williams.
“The challenges become insurmountable for an IC to be on top of,” he says. “Communications are extremely difficult on the fire ground and we’re seeing this regularly – not so much a communication failure, it’s the recognition of the risk. And the tactical decision as to what’s going to be acceptable – what can you do within your means, and recognizing that if you’re operating within your means and operating safely, that’s all that can be fulfilled within that fire protection arrangement within your community.
“Knowing where that line is, is the challenge; if you go beyond your means and are making tactical decisions and something goes wrong and there’s no opportunity to recover, then you’ve gone too far.”
Knowledge, Williams says, is the most important piece of equipment for an incident commander.
“Knowledge takes time, and that requirement to take time flies in the face of the overwhelming desire for speed and minimizing the intervention time,” he says.
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“Where does this knowledge come from? Does it come from arriving on scene as an IC? That knowledge dovetails with other key messages, that traditionally or historically there has been a huge focus on suppression as first step in fire-safety solutions. Our modern reality is that in some situations it doesn’t matter how many guys and trucks you have on the ground because there are some situations that are going to be out of your control.”
Lessons from Listowel
positive-pressure fan to have the greatest effect in removing smoke and toxic gases through the open window in the burned-out bedroom. Fire did not extend to any other regions of the home and the incident commander declared the fire under control.
Further investigation revealed an unattended candle left in the bedroom was most likely to have caused the fire. The family attributes its survival to the working smoke alarms that were placed throughout the house. Swift and decisive action by the incident commander and the well-performed activities by both the fire attack and search crews resulted in the missing boy being located and successfully rescued from the fire building.
Successful fire scenarios such as this one are repeated regularly throughout North America, and are result of the dedication, commitment, training and practice of the men and women in our neighbourhood fire halls. Keep up the good work.
Lastly, I would like to close with a brief discussion on the use of two-and-a-half-inch lines for fire attack. When presented with a large volume of fire in a residential structure, and especially a commercial structure, I encourage first-arriving crews to deploy a two-and-a-halfinch line with a one-and-one-eighth-inch tip that will flow 265 GPM or a one-and-a-quarter-inch tip that will flow 328 GPM. The superior knockdown capability of these larger lines cannot be understated. Two firefighters can advance a two-and-a-half-inch line with the nozzle configurations listed above, but it takes practice.
Certainly some of you that will say it is too hard or it’s too heavy and to that I respond, firefighting is hard work, you want something easy, go somewhere else. Heavy fire conditions must be met with large volumes of water, the two-and-half-inch attack line is the weapon of choice when fighting large volumes of fire, especially in commercial dwellings where the fire load is considerably larger than that of a residential structure.
Don’t worry about water damage; water damage is caused by an untrained crew that doesn’t know when to shut down the nozzle.
I encourage each of you to practise pulling, stretching and flowing water through your two-and-a-half-inch attack lines. Try using the smoothbore nozzle tip size as I suggested as well as any combination nozzles that you may have. Keep in mind that, when using a combination nozzle on a two-and-a-half-inch line, the nozzle reaction (push back) will be significantly higher compared to a smoothbore nozzle. Specifically, a combination nozzle set at 250 gallons per minute will have a nozzle reaction of 125 pounds. (Whatever the GPM setting is on a combination nozzle, one half of that number will be nozzle reaction, so 150 GPM = 75 pound nozzle reaction and so on.)
I hope you found these articles useful and will consider adopting some of the ideas into your firefighting operations. I look forward to talking with you again in the near future. Until I do, train hard and stay safe.
Bob Krause is a battalion chief with the City of Toledo fire department in Ohio and is assigned to Battalion 2. He has 32 years’ experience in emergency services. He holds an International Fire Service Accreditation Congress (IFSAC) certification and several other EMS and fire certifications. Krause has held a variety of positions in the fire service including engine company officer, fire training officer, Fire & EMS Academy program director, fire/EMS communications supervisor and chief of emergency medical services. He is working to complete his doctorate in emergency management.
All rung out . . .
By Tim Llewellyn
An essential fire-ground skill set that is often left to pass is selecting, carrying, raising and placing ground ladders. During recruit schooling, instructors spend a lot of time lecturing, demonstrating and drilling students on ground ladder setup. Yet, after graduation, ground ladder skills are rarely practised. Even more to the instructors’ dismay, on the actual scene of a fire, ground ladders are rarely thrown. Here are a few bits of laddering advice that I’ve learned and used over the years that will help to simplify and encourage ground-ladder use during incidents.
A ladder is a tool that helps firefighters move higher or lower or, in some instances, across a span, to perform a task. In other words, ladders help us with egress. They are essential fire-ground tools that should be deployed even they’re not immediately needed. There is plenty of footage on the Internet of firefighters in distress at upperfloor windows of an involved single-family dwelling, or trying to assist a victim cut off by fire in need of another way out and calling for a ladder. It seems that in every video, it takes forever for the ladder to be placed to help the firefighter. If the ladder had already been placed or was nearby before the firefighter came to the window, the results would be different.
An important command tip: If you, as the incident commander or company officer, are going to commit the lives of your firefighters to an upper floor of an involved structure where egress is limited to one or two unprotected stairwells, you must ensure that there is at least one ground ladder quickly placed to the base of an upper-floor window on each side of the structure to provide an alternative way out. With a little bit of hustle, and a little bit of quality repetitive training, one or two firefighters can ladder all four sides of most residential dwellings in less than three minutes. This proactive approach to laddering, termed laddering for life, involves the placement of ladders in a ready state for anticipated, but not yet needed, use.
Now that it’s clear that ladders are necessary, let’s discuss how to place them. Back in recruit school, firefighters were taught how to set ladders for a proper climbing angle of 70 to 75 degrees, and how to place ladders against buildings in order to accomplish various tasks (rescue, ventilation, hose operation). As our training, experience and knowledge of firefighter survival, rapid intervention, and structure fire rescue tactics has increased, and as the concept of laddering for life has evolved, it has been determined that ladders placed at slightly lower angles offer unique benefits. While still stable when placed on firm ground, a ladder angle of about 65 to 70 degrees offers the following advantages:
1. A more stable working platform – firefighters can distribute their weight across their feet and lower legs better, giving them increased stability;
2. An easier departure angle for emergency bailouts – a firefighter who needs to bail out head first will appreciate a lower slope; and 3. Decreased workload during victim rescue – when using the crossarm victim rescue technique, the lower angle allows a ladder at this angle to take more of the victim’s weight of the victim than a ladder at a steeper angle.
When laddering for life, it is imperative that the tips of the ladder rails be placed just at or slightly below the bottom of the window sill to ensure that the window is free of obstructions once the panes and frames have been removed.
A ladder angle of 65 to 70 degrees provides a more stable working platform; firefighters can distribute their weight across their feet and lower legs better.
When laddering for life, it is imperative that the tips of the ladder rails be placed just at or slightly below the bottom of the window sill. This ensures that the window is completely free of obstructions once the panes and frames have been removed. A ladder that extends into the window can obstruct firefighter movement or victim removal.
The decision to vent the window once the ladder is placed is a command or tactical decision based upon a number of factors, including location of the window with respect to the fire, location and progress of the interior hose team (are they putting water on the fire?), approximate location of potential or known victims, prevailing wind conditions/direction, standard operating guidelines, and so on.
Lastly, the windows of a fire building should not be ventilated indiscriminately. But, that is an expansive topic for another column. Until then, let’s ladder for life and make every residential structure fire safer for firefighters!
Tim Llewellyn is a career firefighter for the Allegheny County Airport Authority in Pittsburgh, Penn. A volunteer firefighter since 1989, he currently serves for the Adams Area Fire District in Pennsylvania. E-mail him at llewllyn.fire@gmail.com
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Summer slim-down
It’s the middle of summer and everyone wants to look and feel good. Making some subtle changes to your routine can give you the edge you need to stay strong and healthy.
Goal setting
A self-evaluation is a good start. Ask yourself where you are with your fitness and workout goals and where you want to be. If you feel you want to make major changes in your body or fitness level that’s great, but realize that a wholesale shakeup requires major changes to your preparation and work ethic. If you feel your plan needs only minor tweaking, the key is to dial in to exactly where that is required.
Regardless of your goal, make it specific so you can begin to hold yourself accountable. Some people specify their goals through numbers. For example, you may wish to be able to run for 30, 40 or 60 minutes without fatigue, or you may wish to reach a certain body fat percentage or bear certain weights in different exercises. Whichever the case, make your goals specific and reasonably attainable.
Weight training design changes
Take a look at you workout program and identify areas in which you feel you can improve. If you don’t change anything about how you prepare and train, you won’t see any changes in your body. Subtle changes in your workout can produce major results. When training for a seasonal goal, making your current workout programs more metabolic is a great way to start – in other words, create an environment in which more energy is expended and less rest is taken.
doing enough cardio to meet your goals or are you falling short? For most of us, doing cardio two or three times a week should yield a positive result, but that may not be enough if you desire major changes in your body and fitness level.
Remember, significant changes in your body require a significant effort. Your program for cardio should be fairly simple; try a blend of lengthy fat-loss programs and short HIIT (high intensity interval training), and increase the frequency as desired.
BraD Lawrence
Regardless of your goal, make it specific so you can begin to hold yourself accountable.
Try doing super sets to eliminate long rest periods between sets. You don’t have to pick the most challenging exercise to superset, but choose something that will maintain an elevated heart rate through your rest period. For example, here’s how you can simply eliminate rest times by implementing another exercise:
Old
program (three sets) New version (three sets)
1. Chest press
2. Chest fly
1. Chest press
1a. Core bicycle
2. Chest fly
2a. Mountain climbers
The exercises added as supersets are more difficult, will enable you to maintain a higher heart rate and will boost your metabolism for much longer.
Secondly, alter your tempo during your workout. For example, make your first and third sets of each exercise explosive for your entire training session. Explosive movements quickly recruit more muscle fibres and put a different load onto your muscles.
Cardio program design
Generally, cardio is be strictly tied to your motivation level. Are you
Nutrition changes
The most effective way to shape up for summer is through diet. Healthy eating may not be your favourite option, but don’t waste your hard work in the gym by being foolish in the kitchen. You don’t have to eat perfectly to succeed but there are some simple changes you can make that will lead to improvements. I don’t have any groundbreaking advice to offer, just basic, proven methods.
1. Eat a better breakfast: Breakfast should be eaten within an hour of waking (the sooner the better). This kick-starts your metabolism and gets your body going for the day. Make sure you include a reasonable amount of protein, and set the tone for your day with a strong, healthy start.
2. Watch meal sizes and content. Especially with these goals, I’d always stress a high-protein, lowcarb style of eating. Choose smaller portions, and eat more meals throughout the day to keep your metabolism high. Each meal should include protein.
3. Time your proteins. Make sure you have an adequate supply of quality protein at every meal. For your last meal, try eating protein only (or add a vegetable as well, if necessary). Eating carbs right before bed will simply inhibit your growth hormone release, potentially leading to obesity, decreased muscle mass and lower energy levels.
4. Drink lots of water. For most of us this means drinking three to 3.5 litres of water each day. Carry a water bottle and make this easy on yourself.
5. Reduce carbohydrate intake. Most of us eat too many carbs. Read the back of any rice package and you’ll see how easy it is to exceed the serving recommendations.
6. Eliminate simple sugars. Simple refined sugars are exactly the opposite of what you need to achieve your goals. Stick with your program and eliminate quick sugars altogether.
Try integrating these changes into your fitness program to make sure you look and feel your best. Set goals and push forward until you reach and exceed them.
Happy training.
Brad Lawrence is a firefighter with the Calgary Fire Department and a certified personal trainer who specializes in training and nutrition for emergency responders. E-mail Brad at bradmlawrence@gmail.com
Playing with fire . . . and the grill
After months of patiently waiting and battling unpredictable Canadian winters, the very brief and coveted summer months are well upon us.
As Canadians, we have learned to appreciate our short summer; we know that, right around the corner, old man winter is waiting to torture us again.
So, during this season, we love to venture outdoors, greet our neighbors who have been in hibernation, host family and friends, and soak up every last enjoyable minute of summer sun.
Nothing screams summer more than three simple letters – BBQ. The word barbeque brings smiles to people’s faces and means that food, camaraderie, and good times are straight ahead.
Working various shifts that occupy weekends and sunny barbeque days doesn’t mean firefighters should be left out of this national warm-weather pastime.
Pulling out the barbeque at your station house is a sure-fire way to make the time at the station – when all of your family and friends are enjoying themselves outdoors – a little easier to manage.
Grilling food is one of the most popular methods of cooking; it is used in every culture and it doesn’t matter what your favorite food is, there is a recipe for grilling it.
Grilling is a fine art, though. Often, recipes don’t offer much guidance on the perfect combination of heat and temperature. But this, of course, is the joy of BBQ. You want to become a grilling maestro? Practise, practise, practise will give you perfect results that will leave mouths watering.
All ingredients – from beef to chicken, fish to game, fruit and vegetables to breads and desserts – have barbecue potential. Options are endless, as long as you have a hot grill and a little creativity.
I trust that all of our brothers and sisters working on sunny summer days will appreciate your efforts and will happily taste your accomplishments.
Here are three great grilling recipes to help you enjoy the summer grilling season. Enjoy the process as much as you enjoy the food!
Good luck, and if you need any tips or techniques, please contact me at patrickmathieu78@yahoo.ca.
Patrick Mathieu is an 11-year veteran of Waterloo Fire Rescue in Ontario. He has won several cooking competitions and has helped raise thousands of dollars for charities by auctioning gourmet dinners at the fire hall. Contact him at patrickmathieu78@yahoo.ca
Grilled honey-mustard
Ingredients:
For the marinade:
• 1/4 cup of your favorite barbecue sauce
• 1 tbsp finely grated orange zest
• 1/4 cup Frank’s hot sauce
For the glaze:
• 3 tbsp butter
• 1/4 cup honey
Directions:
1. Mix the barbeque sauce, orange zest, hot sauce, honey, and Dijon mustard together in a large bowl. Add the chicken wings and toss to combine. Cover with plastic wrap and let marinate for at least 30 minutes – and up to overnight – in the refrigerator.
2. Prepare the grill to medium direct heat.
3. Drain the wings from the marinade and pat dry. Grill until crisp and golden, about eight minutes per side. Put the wings on a top rack of the grill or continue cooking via indirect heat for 10 minutes.
wings
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup Dijon mustard
• 3 pounds chicken wings, patted dry with paper towels
• 2 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 4 thinly sliced green onions, for garnish
4. While the wings are grilling, melt the butter in a small saucepan on the grill. Whisk in the honey and Dijon mustard. Brush the glaze on the wings and cook for another two minutes. Serve the wings mounded up on a platter, sprinkled with green onions.
Grilled two-tone potato salad
Ingredients:
• 6 red potatoes, parboiled and quartered
• 6 large sweet potatoes, parboiled and quartered
• 3 tsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
For the dressing:
• 1/4 tsp stone-ground mustard
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 2 tsp red wine vinegar
• 4 green onions, thinly sliced
Directions:
1. Preheat the grill to medium heat.
• 2 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1/2 Vidalia onion, thinly sliced
• 2 ribs celery, chopped
• 2 hard-cooked eggs, chopped
• chives, chopped, for garnish
• crumbled bacon
Whisk the ingredients for the dressing together in a bowl and set aside.
2. Place the potatoes in a large bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and add salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. Combine until well coated. Wrap the potatoes and onion in a tin-foil pouch and place on the grill. Cook for about eight minutes per side. When ready, place the potatoes back into the bowl and add the celery and eggs. Drizzle the potatoes with dressing, toss and serve garnished with chives.
Grilled corn with lime and garlic butter
Ingredients:
• 8 ears corn
• 4 fresh limes, quartered
Directions:
1. Preheat the grill to medium heat.
• garlic butter – recipe to follow
• 2 tbsp chopped chives, for garnish
For the garlic butter:
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, slightly softened
• 8 cloves garlic, peeled and coarsely chopped
• 1/4 jalapeno pepper, seeded
• 1/4 bunch fresh chives
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Combine the butter, garlic, jalapeno and chives in a food processor and process until smooth. Season with salt and pepper, and set aside until ready to use.
2. Peel back the husks of the corn without removing them. Remove the silks and re-cover the corn with the husk. Soak the corn in large bowl of cold water for 30 minutes. Remove the corn from the water and shake off excess water. Place the corn on the grill, close the cover and grill for 15 to 20 minutes.
3. Unwrap the corn and brush the ears with the garlic butter and squeeze with lime. Sprinkle with chopped chives, to garnish.
The ultimate burger
Ingredients:
For the slaw:
• 1/2 head napa cabbage, shredded
• 1/2 clove garlic, minced
• 1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced
• 1/2 fresh jalapeno pepper, minced
• 3 tbsp champagne vinegar
Directions:
• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 2 tbsp mayonnaise
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
For the burgers:
• 1/2 pound ground sirloin
• 1/2 pound ground brisket
• 1/2 pound ground Italian sausage
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 4 slices smoked cheddar cheese, medium thickness
• 1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 4 egg buns, split
1. Prepare the slaw: In a medium bowl, mix together the cabbage, garlic, onion, jalapeno, vinegar, Dijon mustard, mayonnaise, sugar, salt, and Worcestershire sauce. Cover and refrigerate for one hour.
2. Make the burgers: Preheat the grill over high heat. On a work surface, combine the meats and form the burgers into 4 equal-size patties. Season the patties liberally with salt and pepper, and make an indent with your thumb in the middle.
3. Grill the burgers over high heat until medium rare, three to five minutes per side.
4. Pour the butter into a pan, and place the buns in the pan, cut-side down. Toast the buns for about two minutes.
5. Place a heaping tablespoon of the slaw on the bottom half of each bun. Top with a burger, a slice of cheese, and your favorite toppings. Cover each with the top half of the bun and serve immediately.
Micralox coating resists corrosion
Kochek Company has introduced a new Micraalox coating for its line of firefighting connectors. The coating, which is exclusive to Kochek for the fire fighting industry, is a microcrystalline anodizing process that produces a long-lasting resistance to chemical corrosion and abrasions.
Micralox, which is available in several colours, is ideal for use in harsh environments such as coastal areas and marine areas, where salt corrosion is a concern. The coating has withstood 15,000 hours of salt spray with no pitting and extends the life of aluminum parts up to 10 times. The coting also enhances the chemical stability of the connectors. For more information, visit Kochek.com.
Magnalight releases trailer-mounted LED lights
Magnalight has released a work light ideal for operators who need an easily deployed mobile light source that can illuminate large areas. The LEDTH-30X5W light tower is designed to operate from vehicle electrical systems and is equipped with a trailer-hitch mounting system.
The light is lightweight and collapsible and is built with an LED
light head, constructed with a thick aluminum housing, an unbreakable LEXAN lens, and a mini-tower made of heavy-duty aluminum. The LED light head produces 14,790 lumens of bright white light capable of illuminating areas as large as 165 metres long by 146 metres wide and is IP68 rated waterproof. The lights draw just 12.5 amps at 150 watts, making them more efficient than most other types of lighting and well suited for use with vehicles in which battery drain is a concern. For more details, visit Magnalight.com.
Gore launches new protective fabrics website
Gore’s latest products and technologies are now available at www. GoreProtectiveFabrics.com, the company’s new website.
The new site features video demonstrations to illustrate the science behind Gore’s fabric technology, and a better customer support section, detailing how to buy, care for, and repair Gore fabrics. For more details, visit www.GoreProtectiveFabrics.com, or www. gore.com.
Magnalight adds portable aluminum LED light tower
Magnalight has added a powerful LED light tower to its line of products. The heavy-duty tower is designed to provide an easily transported light source for the emergency services industry. The tower sits on four legs and can be adjusted to between 1.5 and 3.5 metres. It is lightweight and produces 3,440 lumens of light in a wide flood pattern that is ideal for work areas.
The LED light head is rugged and has been built to resist damage from rough handling and the elements, with a thick aluminum housing, shatterproof LEXAN lens, and an IP68 waterproof rating to three metres. For more details, visit Magnalight.com.
Draeger releases gas detection app
Users with an Apple mobile device can now download the Draeger Gas Detection app, which provides a general overview of gas and vapour measurement technology. (Note that Apple products including iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch do not have Intrinsic Safety (IS) approval and are not to be used in areas requiring IS approval.) Visit draeger.com for more information.
Ventry expands line of PPV fans
Ventry has introduced a new model of its gasoline-powered fans for positive pressure ventilation and attack. This model is in the most popular 20-inch size, but has a larger Honda GX160 motor, rated 4.8 horsepower. Output of the efficient fan is 17,300 CFM.
Other options are available. Visit Ventry.com for more information.
Girls in the hall
After sitting in a seminar at which some male fire chiefs said that gender was an issue in their fire halls, Canadian Firefighter editor Laura King suggested to me that I consider writing about it myself. I had to stop and think back to see if I even had a jumping off point for such a topic, let alone an entire column’s worth of material.
I hadn’t ever really had any problems being one of only a handful of women in a predominantly men’s world. Even in college (fire protection engineering technology) I was one of just four women in a program with 60 to 70 students, and it wasn’t an issue then either.
I really wasn’t sure if I could pull this off, having little personal experience to draw from and wanting to keep this column light and humourous. Then I had the (what I thought was brilliant) idea to ask three of my fellow male firefighters for their opinions. Surely there’d be enough fodder there to jump-start my column. I mean, really, who better to ask?
Or not. The first guy I asked told me it wasn’t an issue. Didn’t have a problem with women in the hall, and he’d been on three departments that all had women on them. “What about funny things that girls do, that guys don’t do?” I asked. He shrugged. “Come on,” I said, “you can’t tell me that it’s the same whether it’s me in the truck with you or it’s so and so!”
“You smell better,” was his answer.
I had three firefighters (all good friends) I was prodding for information. I was sure that if I kept nagging them, they’d come up with something. I’m not sure if they were afraid to potentially open a can of worms by letting down their guard and being honest, or whether these three really didn’t see gender as a problem.
thing to do with “questioning his ancestry,” as my mother would say. Did I take offence to it? Not at all. That’s one thing I can attest to about being a female in a traditionally male environment – the shared sense of humour among the members. Women who find themselves in the fire service generally aren’t ones who would take offence to a joke like that.
jennifer MaBee
That’s one thing I can attest to about being a female in a traditionally male environment – the shared sense of humour among the members.
Fortunately, one remembered a perfect example of something he’d experienced while doing patient care at an MVC with a fellow female firefighter. He’d done an initial assessment on a (female) patient and determined that she was OK – no life-threatening injuries.
Afterwards, the female firefighter did a secondary assessment and found that the woman was pregnant, something that she had not told my friend. For some reason, she felt more comfortable with the female firefighter when it came to divulging certain information, which brought up the point that in many cases, women do very well at patient care because of their maternal instincts. (Not to say that men aren’t great at patient care too, just an interesting observation.)
In an effort to keep the conversation going, I prodded some more. “What else? What other idiosyncrasies come into play when responding to calls or doing training with us?”
The one fella looked at me and said, “If you jumped in the truck with me, I’d ask you if you did the dishes first.” In his defence, this conversation took place on a Saturday afternoon while standing in his driveway at home enjoying a beer (him, not me) and at this point, he found himself quite funny. I can’t recall my exact response, but I’m sure it had some-
In fact, it’s those jokes that are indicative of the kind of relationships you develop with the gang in your hall. The inside jokes are a means of bonding with the people with whom you face potentially life-threatening situations when the pager goes off. The laughter and camaraderie among firefighters is definitely something that draws people in, regardless of whether you are male or female. That was all I got out of my three friends. Patient care, perfume, and humour (or dishes, depending on how you look at it.) Perhaps if I’d stuck around longer and asked them after they’d had a few more beers, their answers would have been more forthcoming, but likely not fit for print.
One thing that comes to my mind about being a girl on the department is a story that one of my captains likes to tell. My friend and fellow firefighter and I were in full PPE at a structure fire, packs on, ready to go, when we were told to break windows for ventilation. The cottage on fire was built such that the back of the cottage was one level, and the front had two levels.
The windows we were told to break were on the second level. There weren’t any ladders handy, and I’m not sure whose bright idea it was, but we decided to try and throw rocks at the window. (As I recall, pike poles wouldn’t have reached either, just in case you’re wondering.)
Two girls with about 40 pounds of gear on, on a stinkin’ hot summer day, trying to break windows three metres above our heads, by pitching rocks at them. Do you know how hard it is to throw something up above your head like that with all that weight on your back? We are girls, after all, and we throw like them, too. The captain sure seemed to think it was funny. He was probably just waiting to see how long we’d keep doing it.
Perhaps you had to be there, but I guarantee, if it had been two guys, my captain wouldn’t have a story to tell.
Issues? Not in Georgian Bay Township! Just ask one of the six women there.
Jennifer Mabee is a volunteer with the Township of Georgian Bay Fire Department in Ontario. She began her fire career with the Township of Georgian Bay in 1997 and became the department’s fire prevention officer in 2000 and a captain in 2003. She was a fire inspector with the City of Mississauga Fire and Emergency Services before taking time off to focus on family, and is excited to be back at it. E-mail her at jhook0312@yahoo.ca
