40th Anniversary: The Inception and Evolution of the Close Calls Column

I started as a firefighter in 1973, but was hanging around the firehouse well before then as a kid growing up in the Manhasset-Lakeville/Great Neck area of Long Island, NY. As a completely gung-ho kid, I totally “ate up” this job as much as I do now. I remember when I was pre-teen in 1967, filling out one of those “send me manufacturer information” cards in the back of magazines—and checked every box. Nozzles, hose, lights, sirens, apparatus, helmets, tools, Jet-Axe (Google it!), 15-minute SCBAs—I wanted all the information so I could learn it ALL! There was even a box to check if I wanted to continue receiving that magazine, and of course I did. (Just guess how my folks reacted when they received the bill.)

The early years of firefighting—and Firehouse

Fast forward a few years, I graduated high school (barely, due to the fact that “all he is interested is that damn fire department”), and I was going to college down in Florida, working midnights for the Broward County Sheriffs Office, while also serving as a firefighter in the old North Andrews Fire Station (also in Broward County, now the Oakland Park Fire Department). I actually lived in that firehouse, and among the many things I remember about that fantastic experience is always sleeping well because I KNEW I would be on the first-out apparatus. That was my kind of “peace of mind” and approach to getting a good night sleep!

It was 1976 and a very cool time to be an American. Our bicentennial was in full swing and everything was a celebration of America. It was also a time when Florida had far exceeded many of the other states by having minimum standard training requirements to be a firefighter. I took that training and learned a lot—no surprise—but as they say, “You don't know what you don't know.”

I was in the firehouse one day and we received a copy of Firehouse Magazine—a brand spanking new magazine with a very “American” look to it. While it covered fire training, tactics, EMS (yeah, even back then!), it also covered cultural, historical and pretty much the “the life” of a firefighter. It was a bit different than the other magazines we received—and it was being produced by a firefighter. That was kind of a big deal. It was that guy who wrote “Report from Engine Company 82.” We knew that book, which came out in 1972. We loved that book. We still love that book.

Firehouse Magazine covered the tactics and well beyond as a cultural or even a lifestyle magazine for firefighters. Through Dennis Smith, it was very successful in reminding us what we did and how different it was from what other people did. It added a layer of “reminding pride” to those who read it in that it was a reminder of how fortunate we are to be firefighters. Sometimes we need that reminder.

Firehouse Magazine also brought us writers—very important writers—from areas we had not heard much from in the past. The magazine took on a very strong representation of authors sharing what they know and how they applied it to fires and emergencies. From FDNY to a small rural department, Firehouse brought them to us month in and month out.  

Tragedies were “just part of the job”

As time went on, I started to take an intense interest in the factors related to firefighters getting hurt or worse. I spent a lot of time doing research on a subject that was becoming very important to me. From around 1977 to 1982, I was a firefighter on Long Island, in an area where there were several close calls and some horrible line-of-duty deaths—firefighters burned in a synagogue fire, two killed in a swimming pool supply business fire, another killed when a rescue truck rear ended a midship aerial, a firefighter killed when a container exploded in a seemingly “routine” vehicle fire. 

What struck me is that the involved injuries and deaths seemed routine. It was looked at as part of the job. It was surreal, even the ones that I thought (quietly to myself because back then we didn't talk much about what might have actually gone wrong) could have been avoided were still seen as “part of the job.”

Keep in mind that during those years, it was common for many to operate at fires with firefighters, officers and chiefs who had little or no formal training. There was little to no effective fireground communication, no real command, control, accountability, and incident command was not even born yet—at least not in our world. Sure, nearby FDNY had a command system (chiefs using magnetic boards and officers working with and supervising their companies), but that wasn't how we always operated. Neither did so many others—big city or small department, East Coast or West Coast, North or South. Essentially in those days, unfortunately, much of the good happened by accident. In other words, if things worked out well, we accepted it as us doing our jobs, and when something bad happened, we also accepted it as us just doing our jobs.

In 1979, I was promoted to lieutenant (rescue/engine company), and my training was attending a few live-fire training burns a year. There was no “officer training” as such, nothing other than learning from the old-timers, and it really didn't seem like any big deal. We just kinda did what we did, and the fires went out, the rescues were made, and the emergencies were handled. It wasn't even that unusual for firefighters to be operating at a fire with men who were wasted, as in drunk. Not at all uncommon. And like it always does, time marched on. The more we do things wrong, the more they seem right, as long as there are no consequences. 

The impact of fire service legends

As I moved forward in my career, I kept taking fire training courses, lots of courses, any courses, learning the job because, quite frankly, I wanted to, not because there was any requirement to. My natural interest in learning lead me to several fire service people, and that is when I met many fire legends—people like Larry Davis, Carl Holmes, Ed McCormack, Alan Brunacini, Hal Bruno, Vincent Dunn, Harry Carter, Dave McCormack, Frank Brannigan, Dave Hilton, Charlie Rule, Ron Coleman, Jack McElfish, Bill Clark and Manny Fried. Manny wrote the book “Fireground Tactics,” opening the book by telling the readers how Clark saved his life, not by some heroic physical action, but by calm thinking and quick tactical actions and decisions. Hmmmm … calm, experienced, educated, trained and tactical thinking. And it is around that time that I met a young man, Firehouse’s then-Editor-in-Chief Harvey Eisner, who was on a very similar tract that I was, to learn as much as possible from as many as possible. He loved being a firefighter.

Starting in the late 80s, Harvey and I began to develop a friendship. It started by us writing letters (Google that) and talking on the phone. Around the same time, I had started providing some very basic training, helping firefighters and officers understand why certain fires had gone wrong. I was taking whatever facts I could find and simply passing it on along with some best practices to pretty much anyone who would listen. Keep in mind that the culture then was still very much to not talk about the bad stuff. It was just accepted or not much was said about “that” fire because the “lawyers” would find out that “we” may have screwed up. So given that environment, even with me researching the facts, speaking with those involved and passing along the information, it was viewed as taboo, sometimes even looked upon as disrespecting the heroes who died. Then another firefighter was killed in the line of duty—a firefighter death that caused great attention for some different reasons. 

The death of Firefighter Ricky Pearce

It was on Nov. 15, 1984, when a worker died after entering a toluene storage tank in Phoenix. The tank—10 feet in diameter and 20 feet high—had to be drained and cleaned. While the tank was empty, the company planned to install a clean-out opening at the bottom of the tank. On that day, a supervisor and a laborer drained the tank to its lowest level, leaving 2 to 3 inches of toluene and sludge at the bottom. The only access into the tank at that point was a 16-inch-wide opening at the top. During the operation of getting into the tank through that opening, the worker was overcome by the fumes, he fell down, and the supervisor left for help. 

The Phoenix Fire Department (PFD) rescue and hazardous materials teams arrived 10 minutes after notification. The firefighters were unable to pass a firefighter in full PPE through the top opening, and they decided to cut through the side of the tank. They were aware of the possibility of an explosion. The cut was made with a gasoline-powered disc saw. The cutting area was sprayed with water inside and outside the tank to quench sparks. At some point, firefighters stopped spraying the inside of the tank. The outside spray was interrupted temporarily to put out a fire in flammable liquid residue on the ground next to the tank. The tank then exploded. Phoenix Firefighter Ricky Pearce was killed in the line of duty.

This LODD was different, as it was not only an unusual and tragic loss that was caught on film, but it also was being talked about by the PFD. The PFD was aggressively sharing the facts of what went right and especially what went horribly wrong. I was stunned, as were many others, at the openness of Chief Alan Brunacini, who shared EVERYTHING that happened. No legal or attorney worry (they would find out the facts anyway), no false shame worry, no false pride worry. Just the facts—the precise facts so that other fire departments could learn and not repeat what happened. In my little world, it was the dawn of a new era—an era of sharing the facts, good or bad, so that we don't repeat and experience the same outcomes. It was the death of Firefighter Pearce and the handling of it by the PFD that helped form the foundation for not only what I was doing but also for what departments throughout North America would later do.

The next chapter—The Secret List and FirefighterCloseCalls.com

As time went on, my friendship with Harvey (and Dennis Smith) continued to grow and build. In 1990, I was given the opportunity to present on firefighters survival at the Firehouse Expo, held in Baltimore. It was my first official "connection" with Firehouse, as Harvey took an interest in what I was doing and the message we were sending.

In 1997, I discovered the Internet and started looking at fire stuff. Even as a kid, when I got an encyclopedia, I always went to the fire truck sections. As I got more into it, I started sharing information with people via email, particularly events related to close calls, and worse. That's how I started writing The Secret List, just passing on information about what was happening, specifically related to tactics and firefighter survival. Over time, The Secret List grew, and Harvey was one of the tens of thousands of recipients. 

A friend of mine, Gordon Graham—an attorney, California Highway Patrol commander and noted risk-management expert—asked me, “With all that stuff you're putting out, why don't you start a website?” I didn't have the time or the money back then. Gordon responded, “When you find the time, we'll find the funding.” Several months later, after thinking about it, I said I'm going to find the time, and we started Firefighter Close Calls. During all this time, I never stopped reading Firehouse Magazine, and Harvey never stopped following what I was sharing via The Secret List and now on www.FireFighterCloseCalls.com. 

Writing Close Calls

For many years, I had been involved with Fire Engineering. In early 1999, Harvey approached me with an idea. Harvey wanted me to write a monthly column in Firehouse entitled Close Calls. For those of you who never knew Harvey, he was truly a gentleman—and a gentle man. While he was a highly respected firefighter, subject-matter expert, fire officer and fire chief, he had that wonderful old-school quality of being respectful and courteous. He really was. As an example of that, when he asked me to start the column, he also said that he would first reach out to then-Editor-in-Chief of Fire Engineering Bill Manning to get his blessing and to ensure that there would be no conflict or problems. I will always remember Harvey's way of doing business. With Bill having assured Harvey that it would be no problem, the Firehouse Magazine monthly column Close Calls was born and first published in the December 1999 issue.

The initial columns were pretty much fire reports—reports where a firefighter was injured or had a close call. Over the first couple of years or so, it started to evolve where those involved would share their stories, their accounts and we would then wrap it up with an overview, a review of lessons learned and comparisons to best practices.

To this day, every column is written in a draft form, using the facts directly from the contributing departments, along with my review and commentary. The draft article is then sent back to the specific chief of department, officers and firefighters so that they review every word to ensure that the facts and their perspective is properly shared with the readers. Every single column since 1999 has been written with factual participation by the involved department, so that their message is passed on to you, the reader.

What started with Harvey Eisner (a friendship developed and grown on a common love being firefighters) is now lead by Tim Sendelbach, another young man whom I met many years ago, sharing that common interest, the love and thirst for the fire service through his involvement with ISFSI. And so Firehouse Magazine rolls on, with so many valuable features each month, and after 17 years, our Close Calls column is proud to be a regular part of that.

It takes quite a bit of courage to be able to share an incident in the column, especially when there was a close call, and even more challenging when that incident resulted in injuries or even the death of a firefighter. But that's what happens each month and has since 1999. From Dennis' dream to Harvey’s leadership and now Tim carrying that torch forward, their belief in doing something good by sharing these events each month has made such a positive difference to so many firefighters worldwide. With nearly every column resulting in letters, calls or personal contact, it's an absolute pleasure and honor to help facilitate and pass on the facts and the lessons learned at these incidents each month.

Happy birthday!

With the dream of Dennis, the memory of Harvey and the current leadership of Tim, Janelle and all of the writers, contributors and instructors, a very HAPPY 40th BIRTHDAY, FIREHOUSE!