morning lineup firegeezer on 27 Apr 2008 08:02 am
Morning Lineup - April 27
The most amazing thing happened yesterday. I’m referring to that large apartment building fire in Norwich, Connecticut. If you haven’t read yesterday’s report on it yet, click HERE to check it out.
I call it “amazing” because nobody was killed or injured in the fire. Now when you consider the time of day of the call - around 1:30 am, the number of residents - over 150, and the very rapid rate of fire spread, then you have a real head-shaker there.
One of the things that those people had going for them was what appears to be a top-notch fire department. I watched the Fire Chief’s press conference shortly after noon and it is clear that he definitely has his act together. Their immediate actions to keep the fire spread in check as much as they could while most of the resources went into rescue operations and the overall challenge of getting water to the fire looked exemplary from this viewpoint.
All large fires have an extensive post mortem session shortly afterwards where everything is recreated and discussed by the participants. During these sessions it is usually the case to bring out any mistakes or shortcomings that occurred during the incident. And there always are some, it can’t be avoided. For both the good points and the minus ones, I’d like to be able to sit in on that one. Wouldn’t you?
Hey, it’s Sunday…. no walk-thru’s or inspections today. Let’s get the equipment checked out. I’ll go make some more coffee.
on 28 Apr 2008 at 8:34 am 1.Dal90 said …
There is a lot of credit to spread around — this was one of those fires that went so shockingly well (no deaths, no fire injuries — one civilian transported for heart problems later on) that it can’t be chalked up to mere luck. There was a big heaping dose of luck for sure…but this went beyond that.
Norwich Fire Department, the career organization that protects the old “city,” was already a department under going positive change — and Chief Scandariato has taken that positive direction and stepped it up a notch. The volunteer service remains strong with five departments that protect the old “town” area as they did before the 1950s municipal consolidation and mutual aid between the career and volunteer
side occurs frequently.
It also a credit to how things are done in Eastern Connecticut — of mutual aid systems in place since the 1950s and continously improved since then. I know there are pockets of the country today who do it better — but there aren’t many. Some 17 departments were involved in operations on this fire and the thing is, that’s not that many out here. Other parts of even my state it would be shocking to see that many towns working together — I’ve been to drills flowing (from draft) as much water as this fire; and I’ve been to fires that the operations on Saturday morning in Norwich would’ve been a sector of.
It’s not just the fire service, either. When the Norwich Police were fully committed to this fire — initially helping with the evacuation of the building, then with helping the evacuees to shelter and getting a head count of who was missing, the Connecticut State Police slid in to take over 911 calls in the rest of the city until more NPD officers could get into work.
15 years ago you wouldn’t have seen local Red Cross Disaster Services, either. Now they’re common for even routine house fires, and right there for disasters like this.
Also in the last 15 years you’ve seen American Ambulance — the private ambulance service that protects Norwich start up and sponsor a Rehab Unit they will send to fires on their dime to handle firefighter Rehab. The Salvation Army expanded it’s canteen unit to include this area — supplementing those Ladies Auxiliaries that are still around, and replacing those were the wives went and became firefighters.
For some reason, in the days before this fire I had been pondering how the reputations of many departments in my region have improved over the last two decades. We may all be struggling with with manpower issues more then before, but typically what is rising to the top to remain is a better quality of fire fighter and fire officer on both the volunteer and career sides then you saw 20 years ago.