Former Texas Chiefs Concerned About Issues at Dallas LODD Blaze

When Dallas firefighter Stanley Wilson died battling a condo blaze last year, everything fell apart — from the building where he was trapped to his commanders’ questionable orders.

Miscues, miscommunication and missed opportunities contributed to Wilson’s death inside a far northeast Dallas apartment on May 20, 2013, according to two investigative reports released this month.

And now two former North Texas fire chiefs have expressed concerns about tactics like those described in the reports. The reports — one from the state fire marshal’s office, the other a Dallas Fire-Rescue line-of-duty death examination — lay much of the blame on a deputy chief in charge of the fire response, as well as on other commanders at the scene.

Silence persists among city officials. Fire Chief Louie Bright III has acknowledged that mistakes were made but refuses to take questions about the tragedy. He has said he has no plans to discipline anyone involved. He promised the department would make changes to the way it fights fires.

Former Lewisville Fire Chief Rick Lasky, who is now a consultant, said there is rarely one defining moment in a firefighter’s on-the-job death. Instead, he attributed such deaths to a “linked chain.”

“All these links that lead up to the line-of-duty death result in a very, very tragic thing,” he said. “It’s like if you cut one link, it [the death] doesn’t happen.”

Bill Peterson, who was the chief in Plano for 23 years and has read the reports, said he still has questions about what happened and why.

“The loss of a firefighter is never acceptable and in most situations is preventable if the on-scene operations are done right,” Peterson said.

‘Down in the weeds’

The fire that killed Wilson, 51, started at 2:51 a.m. in the 12300 block of Abrams Road. The blaze quickly began to consume the structure, where firefighters had responded to more than 150 calls for medical emergencies and fires since Jan. 1, 2012.

Deputy Chief Bobby Ross arrived about 20 minutes after the fire started, becoming the highest-ranking officer on the scene. He assumed command but did not announce to the firefighters there that he was the incident commander. There was immediate miscommunication about who was doing what and where.

Ross has declined to comment.

Peterson said he saw “deficiencies at all levels” of operations in the report. “Combined, it all sort of snowballed into a situation where nobody knew exactly what was going on everywhere,” he said.

And Ross, who was supposed to be running the show, “seemed to be mobile a lot” and “really got down in the weeds” a few times, Peterson said.

“It takes his focus away from what he should be doing as incident commander,” Peterson said. “It contributed significantly to his loss of situational awareness through most of that event.”

At 3:30 a.m., firefighters rescued the last civilian from the building. Firefighting operations then switched from offensive to defensive mode — focused on keeping the fire from spreading. Three aerial ladder pipes — hoses spraying from atop ladders — began blasting tons of water per minute onto the burning building.

Peterson said Ross should have used that time to reassess everything. But the report cites numerous confusing and conflicting assignments given in that pivotal period.

At 4:22 a.m., Ross “believed that there could still be people” in the building, investigators said. None of the dozens of Dallas Fire-Rescue personnel interviewed “mentioned relaying information via radio or face to face to [Ross] to indicate or report the possibility of anyone still being inside,” investigators said.

Section Chief Eldon O’Dell told investigators that “it would be far-fetched if anyone thought the building had not been searched” by that time.

By 4:30 a.m., investigators said, the fire had “grown with intensity” and the building “had been nearly consumed by the fire.”

Section Chief George Tomasovic arrived at 4:31 a.m. Tomasovic asked Ross what he needed. Ross said he was under the impression that the building “still had people coming out of it but he did not recall where that information came from,” investigators wrote.

Ross told investigators that he wanted Tomasovic to break out windows around the outside of the building to “rouse anyone that might still be inside the first-floor units.”

But Tomasovic said Ross told him to search the building because “they are still pulling people out from the first floor. There is still a portion of the first floor that hasn’t been searched.”

Ross said nobody else was part of the discussion with Tomasovic. But other firefighters said they were there.

Firefighter Michael McCaleb said he heard Ross tell Tomasovic, “Gotta search it! We are still pulling people out.” The firefighter said he could tell Tomasovic “was questioning it from the beginning, but Chief Ross repeated, ‘Quick primary search.’”

McCaleb said it was “absolutely clear” that Ross wanted the firefighters to go inside the building.

“Ross then moved towards us as a group saying ‘get in there’ to make sure we knew what he told [Tomasovic],” he told investigators.

Another firefighter said he asked Ross if one of the ladder pipes blasting the building with water would be shut off. He said Ross said yes.

But it was not shut off.

Wilson and three other firefighters went in, and the building quickly collapsed. Tomasovic was briefly pinned by debris but made it out, leaving his boots in the rubble.

Wilson was crushed when the floor above him collapsed. His body was found hours later.

‘Artillery’ and troops

Lasky, the former Lewisville chief, declined to comment on the investigative reports but was willing to speak broadly about firefighting tactics. He said Dallas Fire-Rescue has “some pretty incredible people there and great leadership, and they have a great boss.”

He generally compared a firefighter’s job to playing in traffic at night. But he said firefighters should “not risk our lives at all to protect lives or property that are already lost.”

Lasky said proper incident command is the key.

“When I ran an incident, it was to make sure that I did everything I could to make sure our people left the scene healthy, uninjured and went home to their families safe,” he said.

Lasky and Peterson both said the use of defensive and offensive operations at the same time is inherently dangerous. They question the general wisdom of sending personnel into a building that has been pounded by powerful water cannons.

“What you don’t want to do is order your artillery on top of your own troops,” Lasky said.

Bright said last week that firefighters have the responsibility and the right to question a commander’s orders if they believe those orders are dangerous. Lasky said that there is a national discussion about whether firefighters can disobey orders but that fire departments are still paramilitary organizations.

Peterson agreed that firefighters should ask for orders to be clarified. But he also faulted the assigned incident safety officer — there was confusion as to who that was at times — and other commanders for not preventing the firefighters from going back into the building.

Investigators pointed out that Ross’ statements about what happened were often inconsistent with other firefighters’ accounts and other evidence.

Peterson said the chaotic scene might have made it difficult for Ross to recall details. But he said the deputy chief lacked situational awareness.

Still, Bright said he did “not believe discipline is merited” for anyone involved.

Most firefighters who receive suspensions either have been arrested — usually for DWIs or assaults — or have failed drug or alcohol tests.

Also, there has been a decline in some categories of lower-level discipline in recent years. In 2012, 12 firefighters received some form of discipline for sustained allegations that they had disobeyed orders. There were none in all of 2013, departmental records show. And the fire department disciplined only one firefighter in 2013 for a lost-equipment violation, vs. 21 the year before.

City Manager A.C. Gonzalez told The Dallas Morning News last week that the decision over discipline was Bright’s call. Bright didn’t answer questions at a news conference announcing the report’s official release. He declined interview requests from The News.

Mayor Mike Rawlings’ spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. City Council members who are on the Public Safety Committee, which has oversight of the fire department, either did not respond to requests for comment Friday or said they had not read the reports yet.

Peterson noted that one of the recommendations in the reports — recording fire ground communications for later review — also had been suggested to Dallas Fire-Rescue after Lt. Todd Krodle died in a fire in 2011.

But he said he wondered whether changing some operations would be enough.

“Everybody at that scene was traumatized to one level or another,” Peterson said. “They’re not going to get over that for a long time, if ever. And I really do think that within the organization, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if many of the officers and firefighters don’t have a lot of confidence if they ever go to a scene where Chief Ross is acting as the incident commander.

“They’ll second-guess anything he asks them to do, which is dangerous,” he said. “You’ve got to have confidence in the incident commander.”

TIMELINE: MAY 20, 2013

2:51 a.m.: Fire starts in trash chute of condo complex.

2:59 a.m.: Fire goes to two alarms.

3:10 a.m.: Deputy Chief Bobby Ross arrives at fire.

3:12 a.m.: Firefighters start trying to rescue civilian in unit 533.

3:15 a.m.: Ross arrives at command post.

3:20 a.m.: Ross assigns a battalion chief to be the safety officer.

3:30 a.m.: Civilian from unit 533 is rescued. Fire goes to third alarm.

3:35 a.m.: Firefighters transition from offensive to defensive tactics.

3:50 a.m.: Ladder pipes begin pouring water onto the fire.

4:03 a.m.: Fire goes to fourth alarm.