Firehouse World, the San Diego Expo including live training, an educational conference program, and huge exhibitor floor show, opened today with a keynote address by National Fallen Firefighter Foundation Executive Director Ron Siarnicki and Life Safety Initiatives project manager Richard Anderson who asked the question, 'What are you LACKing in your organization that is leading to toward an line of duty death?'
Their four points spelling the acronym LACK and standing for Leadership, Accountability, Culture and Knowledge were the essence of their discussion with hundreds of attendees at the expo.
The root causes of what is LACKing they said were six.
- Lack of effective policies and procedures
- Lack of leadership
- Lack of Preparedness
- Lack of appropriated decision making
- Lack of personal responsibility
- Unpredictable events
"We can't keep doing what we are doing," Anderson said. "It all comes down to what we are lacking." Leadership coming from all levels of personnel can influence a lot of things and effects everyone else in out world, he said.
Accountability is about your personal responsibility Anderson said. It is mostly about knowing your job and doing the right thing.
Culture and cultural change is not about an assault on tradition, Siarnicki said. It is about changing the culture that creates unsafe behavior. "The fact that there are 100 deaths and 80,000 injuries per year should not be part of our tradition," he said.
Knowledge they said is about thinking firefighters who have mastered principles and understand the rules of engagement.
Their closing note was, "Don't let lunacy be your legacy."
In a few days the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation's Second National Line-of-Duty Death Prevention Summit will be hosted by Fireman's Fund Insurance Company at their headquarters in Novato, California.
In March 2004, the Firefighter Life Safety Summit was held in Tampa, Florida to address the need for change within the fire and emergency services. Through this meeting, 16 Life Safety Initiatives were produced to ensure that Everyone Goes Home.
16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives 1. Define and advocate the need for a cultural change within the fire service relating to safety; incorporating leadership, management, supervision, accountability and personal responsibility.
2. Enhance the personal and organizational accountability for health and safety throughout the fire service.
3. Focus greater attention on the integration of risk management with incident management at all levels, including strategic, tactical, and planning responsibilities.
4. All firefighters must be empowered to stop unsafe practices.
5. Develop and implement national standards for training, qualifications, and certification (including regular recertification) that are equally applicable to all firefighters based on the duties they are expected to perform.
6. Develop and implement national medical and physical fitness standards that are equally applicable to all firefighters, based on the duties they are expected to perform.
7. Create a national research agenda and data collection system that relates to the initiatives.
8. Utilize available technology wherever it can produce higher levels of health and safety.
9. Thoroughly investigate all firefighter fatalities, injuries, and near misses.
10. Grant programs should support the implementation of safe practices and/or mandate safe practices as an eligibility requirement.
11. National standards for emergency response policies and procedures should be developed and championed.
12. National protocols for response to violent incidents should be developed and championed.
13. Firefighters and their families must have access to counseling and psychological support.
14. Public education must receive more resources and be championed as a critical fire and life safety program.
15. Advocacy must be strengthened for the enforcement of codes and the installation of home fire sprinklers.
16. Safety must be a primary consideration in the design of apparatus and equipment.
The Firehouse World Conference hosted by Firehouse.com, Firehouse Magazine and Firehouse Expo will continue through March 1.
