No industry including the U.S. Army allows 13 percent of their worker fatalities to die while in training. Why does the fire service accommodate those numbers year after year?
That was the oft-repeated question in classroom sessions at the Fire Department Instructors Conference currently going on in Indianapolis.
Fresh on instructors' minds was the Feb. 9 death of Baltimore firefighter trainee Racheal M. Wilson, as well as several other well-known tragedies from other parts of the country. Teachers chose different ways to examine live-fire training -- the issue is rapidly becoming controversial -- but in every session they were clear: death during training is unacceptable.
A Clear Warning"Stay out of jail!" warned the opening slide at Instructor Walter Morris' class. Morris, Maine's Fire Training Program Manager used the Sept. 25, 2001 death of Bradley Golden to make sure attendees knew that NFPA 1403 are not suggestions, but rules.
The 19-year-old recruit had been a member of the Lairdsville, N.Y. Fire Department just a few weeks before he was used as a victim during a live-burn.
Golden died after becoming trapped on the structure's second floor. Assistant Chief Alan G. Baird III did jail time for his death. Baird, singled out for punishment because he was the one who lit the fire, was the first firefighter to serve jail time for a live-fire death.
Morris wanted attendees to know that live-fire training can be used, but it must be done safely following the rules.
"It's vital in rural areas where there are no fixed buildings," he said. "But they need to follow guidelines. Ignorance of the standards is no excuse."
He said the incident in Baltimore clearly deviated from NFPA 1403 guidelines according to what he has heard.
"This reinforces the need for fire service instructors to know the rules and follow the rules. We hope this is the last incident of this type."
Fatal Mistakes"We've got to be careful," said Orlando, Fla. District Chief Dan Fleming who with Lieutenant Walter Lewis used a class to put a fire training death they were involved in under a microscope.
Lewis said he and others thought they were doing all they could to make the Osceola County burn safe.
In all, 16 firefighters were stationed at a house located on the campus of a vacant bible college. A Rapid Intervention Team was equipped and ready to go. He said all participants did a walk through of the acquired building, and had deemed it acceptable.
"We did all the things we were comfortable doing," Lewis said. "Until the situation caught up with us."
But there were some oversights. The department's thermal imaging device had been forgotten. Also, the mannequin that firefighters were to rescue was dressed in turnout gear.
The blaze, fueled using straw and pallets, began without incident. But, at the last minute, someone decided to add a mattress to the fire. The mattress was not a traditional box spring, but instead, was made of foam rubber. That, Lewis said, caused the fire conditions to change immediately.
Things began to get chaotic. Two members of the search team lost their bearings inside the room where the fire was. At the same time, another firefighter outside that room broke a window, the venting caused a flashover.
The two firefighters were downed in that flashover, but no one knew because their PASS devices never activated. In fact, the two men were inside the fiery room for some time without other firefighters knowing how deadly the situation had become. When the body of one victim was found, the firefighter who found him thought he was the mannequin dressed in turnouts.
Fleming said he considered giving up firefighting after the incident. But, "instead, I decided to dedicate myself to making things better."
The men said Florida toughened up their standards for conducting live-fire training exercises , taking a closer look at NFPA 1403.
The state now requires live-fire training classes for all those involved in the operations. When it comes to igniting the fire, firefighters can only use pallets and straw.
The men still stress the importance of live-fire training. They said after the death, fire training was halted, but only for 30 days.
"Remember to do it safely," Fleming said. "Eventually, you've got to graduate to live-fire training because that's the only way you can learn."
The Pros and ConsRetired Deputy Chief Ted Nee, of Albuquerque, N.M. and Firefighter Dominic Colletti, of Royersford, Penn. took opposing sides for their class, debating whether live burns were even necessary.
Nee built the case against live-fire training by pointing out all the mistakes and problems that can arise.
He said many departments don't know what NFPA 1403 is, and therefore, don't follow its guidelines.
"If we're not going to follow the standard, we shouldn't be burning stuff."
He also said that instructors can get lazy in the seemingly-controlled setting of a live-burn, teaching young firefighters the wrong things and putting them at risk.
Nee suggested live-fire training should be banned in acquired structures, and that certification for instructors should be necessary.
"There is a lot of silliness and nonsense that goes on in live-fire training," said Colletti, beginning his case in favor of the practice. But, he said, with an emphasis on care and safety, training incidents can provide educational opportunities that no other kind of training can.
Colletti said today's firefighters have less fire experience than their predecessors, and live-fire training gives young recruits a chance to learn what to do when they finally encounter their first blaze. He said firefighters without live-fire training can make mistakes, turning a simple fire into a devastating, dangerous one.
"There are risks," Colletti said, "but we can turn them into calculated risks."
A Closer LookThe National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) provided an in-depth look at two LODDs in training accidents, the 2002 Oceola County, Florida incident described above and a Pennsylvania incident in 2005, both killing instructors. They differed in environments ??? Florida in an acquired structure and Pennsylvania in a training facility burn building.
Although NFPA 1403 was available but not required in Florida at the time, Fire Protection Engineer Daniel Madrzykosski with NIST emphasized that 1403 does not get specific enough in some areas and particularly in the case of fuel loads which was a major contributing problem in these cases.
In the Florida case most elements were in place to provide a successful learning experience. But the plan in using the acquired structure had some holes. NIST found an extreme fuel load was the ticket to disaster and their recreated temperature test indicated the moment the window was vented, anyone in the room no longer had a chance of surviving, a grave miscalculation.
In Pennsylvania, the burn room being used was in a basement. It was tiled and there was a beam across the ceiling at a little over the six foot level. They were doing six evolutions with the same instructor setting up all of them with wood-pallet fuel.
Trainees advanced a line down the stairs, vented the room and put out the fire. On the last evolution, they thought someone had added a dummy to the scene for a rescue event but it turned out to be the instructor, dead.
It had been five or six minutes since the instructor had last been seen and there was no PASS device operating.
NIST, in recreating these fires, checked dozens of things to try and get a handle on the why. Two things the two incidents had in common were that thermal conditions led to the deaths and interior finish played a role, in the Florida case the fuel overload, and in the Pennsylvania case a tiled room that retained so much heat after six evolutions that the instructor's mask failed after he probably fell. But also, NIST tests showed that the gear worn by the Pennsylvania instructor had retained so much heat after six evolutions that it was, in itself dangerous.
As Madrzykowski said, "in training you have total control of the environment and the individual. We certainly should be able to eliminate all firefighter fatalities from training."
But in these two cases, mistakes were made anyway. A single instructor can only go through so much before some sort of failure occurs. Fuel loads can and must be planned correctly in acquired structures. Planning is essential.
Editors NoteAfter reading the above NIST discussion, Ed Mann, Pennsylvania State Fire Commissioner wanted to add information he thought was important to the discussion. It follows:
"The first thing I would like to clarify is the fact that there were 6 fires that day. Captain Gallardy would have been inside the building during actual fire conditions on only 2 occasions that day. He was in the building during live fire on the second evolution and the sixth evolution. In other words he would have been outside between those fires either on break or shadowing the Incident Commander. This would have placed him outside of the building for at least 1 hour and 15 minutes or longer between the first time he entered the building during live fire and the last evolution of the day."
"Regarding the pass device: Yes NIST did in fact test a PASS Device however the one they tested was not an integrated PASS Device, and it was in no way similar to the integrated PASS Device Captain Gallardy was using. As I recall during the NIST testing, the non-integrated PASS Device did initially activate, however as the temperature rose in the burn room the device quit emitting any sound. Once the device cooled it began emitting the distress signal. The integrated PASS Device Captain Gallardy was using appeared to have functioned in a similar fashion. For two days after the incident, the PASS Device continued to emit a "chirping" sound."
"There has been much speculation regarding the PASS Device and until all tests and investigative reports are made public I don't believe it would fair to NIST, NIOSH or the Gallardy family to speculate any further."
Steve Edwards, director of the Maryland Fire Rescue Institute at the University of Maryland, has recently completed a study involving 200 firefighters monitored for physical stress during training. Numbers show about one-third of training LODDs are from cardiac failure. An apparent problem is the failure of departments to require physicals or continue to require them after the first.
"A lot of what is occurring here is instructor incompetence. They are not using 1403 correctly," Edwards said. He stressed the fact that firefighters, instructors and trainees should be known to be fit before getting into training or any other fire fighting activity.
Edwards had three requirements of live-fire training. It must be safe, educational and realistic. Almost all firefighters broached on the subject, agreed.
Shawn Brimhall, Fire Protection Specialist from Ithaca, New York and an attendee at FDIC was one of them. "Firefighters want to be trained in realistic conditions so they are best prepared for their own safety." Related Links
